The Double Femicide That Led to Gabriela’s law

Hello, Hello, This is Christina and Carmen and this is another episode of a Booky Tells, a podcast for all things as Spooky, Haunted Places, myths, legends, and true crime in Latin America. And it is still March, and I think it's still going to be March when this episode comes out. Yeah, and every March we try to cover femicides that we feel everyone should know about because it's Women's History month and also the eighth of March is when women in Latin America go out in March for women's rights. And so yeah, we do that every March. And this is the last episode where we're doing only a femicide case. And we don't have a listener story for these episodes. But if you have a story that you want to send to us, you can email Uspookyitees at gmail dot com, send it via DM you can leave it as a comment, you can call you a Spooky hotline. There's so many ways to get us for stories and we love receiving them. Today, I am telling you about a double femicide that changed Chile's law. Gabriela Alcaino Donoso was born on the seventeenth of May two one in Santiago, Chile. Her parents were Carolina Donoso Campos and Fabian Alcaino. She was their first kid and the first grandchild in the family. Special. Yes, she became La Concentia de todos, the everyone's favorite, A spoiled one, but like spoiled with love. Yeah, especially her Grandpa Carlos and her Theo Rodrigo. They loved her so much. As a child, she was described as always happy, sweet kind, but also a little shy, but she got along with everyone. Her parents sput up when she was five and her father married remarried a woman named Catlina Veas. I went on to have two kids, but they growl parented well with Gabriela's mom and by all accounts, they were still there. He was still there for Gabriela, because you know, sometimes there's a what they start a new family and they leave completely their their old family behind. Yeah, yeah, this was not the case here. She loved her siblings. Despite the divorce and the two separate households, she remade her happy selves. This all changed when she turned fifteen and began dating Fabian Casa and I will refer to him by Gassett is not Fabian, because then I think we would confusing with his dad with her dad. Oh wait, I didn't realize his name was Fabian too. Whoops. Yeah, the dad's name is Fabian as well. So he will be Gassidis from now on, okay. And so he went to the same school. He was only one year older than her. He seemed like a normal teen, calm and from a good family. Everyone said his parents were good people, raising their kids well, and the relationship was normal. But after a few weeks things changed. Gassttes became controlling and started telling her who she could or could not be friends with, and then he began to alienate her from her friends. Gabriela Stio tried to get her to introduce Gassides to him, but this never happened. She would like make up an excuse out to excuse her dad. Fabian did get a chance to talk to casside Is and asked him to be like good to her, right to take care of Gabriela, to be a responsible boyfriend, and Gassidez said he would respect her and that it would be a quote lovely courtship. But that's not what happened. He continued to alienate her from her friends. He wanted to know who she was with at all times and where she was at all times. He demanded she answered every single phone call of his every text right away. When she didn't do those things, he became very mean and even violent at some points. She then became quiet, reserved, and withdrawn, and she kept his behavior to herself, but her family could tell that something was wrong. She tried to leave him a few times but couldn't. Then, one year until the relationship, Cassides was accused of abusing two girls during a school dance, and although the case never went to court, he was expelled from school, and it was thanks to this explosion that Gabriela was able to get away from him. She didn't see him at school anymore, so it was easier to finally end things for good, except when he began to follow her, even showing up at her house unannounced. Some months went by like this, and he seemed to finally have gotten the hint and left her alone, and she was getting back to her normal self, even studying for university exams, and then he reappeared. How much time passed? Do you know? I just read a few months? Oh? Okay? After this this is how things were. He would show up, follow her, not leave her alone, then disappear and then just do the same thing all over again. Oh wow. So basically she didn't know when he was going to pop up. Yeah, but by this point Gabriela had so much going on that she wasn't paying attention to him anymore. Her stepmother had just been murdered by her neighbor, who was a hair silist, a Dominican hair stilust in chilem. They had gotten into an argument and he murdered her. And so now her father obviously is distraught and now raising Gabriela's two siblings on his own, and Gabriel and her mom were there for him, supported him in every way that they could, And so she was going through this and then Casserees reappeared. He started stalking her again. He would show up wherever she was. He pretended to run into her, but then he started jumping the fence into her yard again like escalating. Yes, she sent a message like a voice message to her friends telling them that she was so tired of his abuse and that she would now let him place another hand on her. And she was just tired of this and so now she started going straight from school to her mom's work, and she stayed there after school and to her mom was done working, then they would walk home together. She was always with at least one friend, never alone, so that he wouldn't find her by herself. And by now we're in the middle of twenty eighteen, she just has a few months left to finish her studies. She was planning to become a journalist, just like her Theo Rodrigo. She had plans and that unfortunately never came to fruition. On June tenth, twenty eighteen, Gabriella's dad, Fabian, dropped her off to take her university selection test and when she was done, he picked her up. They chatted about her future. Gabriela told him she wanted to finish university and make a decent enough living to help her mom out. Later that same day, the family reunited again along with another thirty family members to celebrate her grandpa's eighty first birthday. She played with her cousins, talked, eight dance, had a good time. At some point during this party, her Theo Rodrigo went and asked her how she was doing, and she told them surviving and this answer worried him. He was like, what do you mean surviving girl? Yeah, He's like, you should be living like the best times of your life right now exactly. And when he showed concern over her answer, she was like, I'll explain everything another time. And so then the party came to an end. Gabriela and her mom said bye to everyone, and her dad told Gabriela that she was quote loke mas amo and labidam. Oh, you are what I love most in life. And he didn't know it, but those would be the last words he would say to her. Oh my god. Yeah. The next morning, at four am, Gasaidz left his house with a knife hidden in his clothes. He walked to Gabriela's house and jumped the fence into the yard. That's when Carolina, Gabriela's mom opened the door to see what the noise was that she heard. The moment she opened the door, he was there and he immediately stamped her thirty one times, Oh my god, thirty one times. Then he went into the house looking for Gabriela. She had heard her mom screams as it was happening, and so she ran to call emergency services. And she was four minutes into her call with emergency services. But he found her and took the phone, and so I don't I couldn't find like a copy of this call. I'm wondering why in that moment, like, well, you'll see, okay. So he took the phone, hung up, and he then sexually assaulted her and then stamped her. Oh my god. Then he dragged her to the kitchen. He did the same with her mom. He left them there. He walked to their bathroom, washed the blood off himself, attempted to wash his shoes as well, like clean them, and then he went back home. He even posted a selfie of himself on Instagram that day with his guitar. I just don't know how someone just goes on like after doing such a horrible thing. But you have to be obviously unstable, un well, violent, not care about people to do something like that in the first place. Next that people. But I guess I should say women be a woman. I was gonna say, you have to view women as objects objects to have to be able to do this and then just go about your day. Yeah, post himself, he's on Instagram. Wow, that day went by at there on the morning of the twelfth of June, Gabriela Stillo received a message when he was at work and it was a woman named Marcella who was a coworker of Carolinas, and Carolina again is Gabriela's mom, and she was worried because Carolina never missed the day of work. So then Rodrigo called Fabian, who didn't know anything, like, oh, I I don't know why she's not at work, but he also found it strange, and he found it even stranger that Gabriela had not sent a happy birthday message to one of her younger brothers. That was also weird, and so then they called Gabriela school to see if she was there, but the school didn't answer, So then Fabian tried to call both Gabriela and Carolina, but neither answered. He finally got hold of the school and learned that she hadn't made it to school yet, and so he continued trying to reach them as he drove over to their house, and as he was driving, he was like telling himself, like, please let the car not be there, because that means that they just went somewhere. Please let the car not be there. But then he oh, I can't imagine how he found that feeling. Right, he pulled up and he saw the car there, and he was like, oh my god, something has to be wrong. Yeah, and he had a pair of keys to the house, but he was afraid to go inside because he saw the car there. And he was like, this means like something horrible has to have happened. Yeah, And so he called his brother and he's like, look, I have the keys, but I don't know what to do. I don't want to go in, like I'm scared of what I'm going to see. But as he was talking to his brother Rodrigo about this, a neighbor walked up to them and she's like, hey, walked up to him and she's like, hey, I don't want to worry you, but I heard some screaming very early in the morning. I didn't think much of it. I thought it was just a fight, especially because the screaming was over in just a few minutes. And then she left, and then he was like, oh my god, like it even worse, Yes, exactly. This made him even more nervous. So then he called the police, who took over forty minutes to get there. Finally around ten fifty in the morning. The police got there, and as soon as I got there, he was like, Hey, I'm five yen. This is like my daughter in her mom's house. I have keys to the house, but I haven't gone in because I'm scared. Oh. Five b Young got there too. Five Young has been there the whole time. The neighbor went up to Oh, I thought it was the uncle. Oh no, he was on the phone with the uncle. Oh. Yeah, yeah, he was on the phone with the uncle. I thought the uncle the whole time was the one that was going over there, that he had the key, and that he called had the key. Well, they both called the school at different points, and then on the way there, Fabian called kept calling the both of them. Oh, and as he was pulling up, he saw the car in the driveway, and so then he called Rodrigo, his brother, and Rodrigo's uncle. Okay, wow, yeah, if you're confused, maybe someone else is, so it's better to yeah, explain everything again. So, yes, it took the police forty minutes to get there. Once they got there, Fabian was there and he was like, I have keys to the house, but I haven't gone in. They opened the door and upon opening the door. The cops went at first, and one of the cops yet to the other like get an ambulance, But then the other woman said there was no point because they had been dead for at least twenty four hours. And so what I was wondering earlier is that she was on the phone with the police, yeah, for four minutes. Why had any gone the call? It seems like the call ended abruptly, right, and they presumably heard him coming in or her responding to some intruder, right, because he hung up the phone. Yeah, I was wondering that the whole time, and I just didn't like cut you off because I feel like when you said you're wondering, I'm like, oh, you're probably wondering the same thing that I am. Like, they didn't try calling back, they didn't send an officer to find out what's going on. Yeah, Yeah, they could have been found so much sooner, he knows, maybe even still alive, Like I don't know, but yeah, this because when he went in there, it was four am on the eleventh, and when they were found, it's ten fifty on the twelfth. Yeah, so yeah, Fabian saw his daughter and ex wife. Also, I just can't. I I can't believe like that that happened. And he had also just lost his own wife, wife to another femicide, because it was a neighbor that killed her. Yeah. Also, the whole time that he the cops are going in, the cops are yelling for ambulance. The other cops like, we don't need an ambulance. They've been dead. The whole time, he's on the phone with Rodrigo. Oh my god. And so finally between sobs, he tells his brother what's going on, what he's seeing, and so then more police arrived, along with neighbors like trying to see what's going on, and also cops, sorry not cops, and also Rodrigo. He left work and he went to go bet with his brother. When Rodrigo arrived, he saw Fabian being interrogated by the cops. Fabian was in the back of a cop car, and I think he thought he was just going down to the station too. He didn't realize he was a suspect exactly, because he was just in the back of the cop car. And then he tried to get out to go to the bathroom, and he realized he was locked in, and he couldn't get out. Oh my god, I just I have so much I don't know sadness for what he experienced. It's like this horrible loss, right, because losing someone is always, you know, sad, right, but then in this violent manner, Yeah, exactly, it's like even worse. And then he had jos lost his wife and now the mother of his other child than his child, and then he doesn't even know he's a suspect. Right at this point that he couldn't get out, he began to think, oh my god, they think it was me, but he knew it wasn't him. He started slamming on the window, and finally a cop came, and that cop told him he wasn't allowed to get out, and then and he continued slimming on the window, and so then another cop came, like that cop supervisor, and so he was like, what's going on? And so then they began to interrogate him again. They were like, well, if you had keys the house, way you go inside, that was suspicious, and he's like, I already told you, guys, I was scared. Eventually they let him go use the bathroom, but under the supervision of a different officer. Oh my god, and then they continued their interrogation of Fabian. They could not fathom that, like someone else did this to them, it was him until a friend and neighbor of Gabrielas walked up to the police, like what's happening, and then he told them like, oh, well, it must have been Gabriela's ex boyfriend. And this friend told the police that he had overheard gasid Is yelling if you can't be mine, you can't be anyone's recently, and so this is when the police drove over to well, they went over to Fabian and asked if he knew the ex boyfriend's address, and then they they drove over to the house with Fabian still in the back of the car, not able to get out, and then they were like, yeah, now we think it was him because we talked to her friends, so you can go. You're not a suspect anymore. But they just like left him at the house without like they could have told him this before. Why did they take him over there. They could just let him out before they went over there. Right now he has to call or they go ask him to come him up to go back to his car, when they could have said this to him where they already were. Yes, exactly. He could have just given him the address, right, but I guess they wanted to make sure. I don't know, it's oh maybe he didn't. You only knew how to get there and didn't know the address. I would hope, I would hope. Yeah, that's gonna make the better because there's some places like that, you know, that's true, where you're like, I don't know, but I know how to get there. Yeah, true, true. So yeah, they finally let him go. They said he was in a suspect so when they entered Cassidy's house, he wasn't there. And now they were like, all right, this is probably our guy. They also talked to her friends. These friends told them about the voice messages she had recently sent them about how she was tired of him and his abuse and him following her stocking her, and that he had previously been physically abusive as well, because she said like, I'm not gonna let him lay one more hand on me. And so they heard all these and they were like, yeah, no, it's him, it's him. We need to find him. That same night, as friends and family held a vigil for Carolina, and Gabriela gassi Is was found and now we're this is the thirteenth of June. Police did a press conference where they stated that Gasttis had confessed. Then they also found like blood at his house, his shoe prints at the scene of the crime, and that same blood on his own shoes, and they also found a knife that had been used, so like there was no denine it was him. When the funeral was held, police had to close the streets, block streets so people at march with the possession because there was that many people supporting the family and at the funeral and as they buried Gabriela and Carolina. Gassides was formerly charged with the unlawful killing of Carolina and for the homicide and rape of Gabriela, and the investigation took two years, so he had been like indicted or they were pursuing charges against him, I guess is what they had said. But then it still took two years for him to be like arrested. Oh yeah, for anything to move forward. And the family also learned that this wouldn't be tried as a femicide. And so from that day on, Fabian and Rodrigo fought for Gabriela's law calling for a change in what qualified as femicide. So in twenty ten, femicide was added to Chile's criminal system or law, whatever it's called. But under the way it was added femicide, it could only be a femicide if a woman was killed by a partner they lived with or were married to. Oh, I see, yes, So it didn't apply to Gabriella because she didn't live with Casatz. Side note, but I learned in all of this that Nobio is polo in Chile. I heard that before. I didn't know that. I don't remember how I heard it. Aware interesting. Maybe I was watching something Chilean. Maybe yeah, I might've been watching them because original but the La faa la is from China. I think maybe it might have been that where I heard it. That makes sense. Yeah, and so yeah, I didn't apply to Gabriella or her mom. But Fabian insisted this was a femicide, that she was killed because she was a woman, because she rejec that casse Is advances, and Fabian maintained this wouldn't have happened if Gabriela had been a man. That's true. Yeah, all of that is true. Yeah, and so they they fought for this to change. And so Gabriella's law expanded the definition or expands the definition of femicide to include violent crimes against women based on gender, even if committed outside of a relationship. Okay, that's good. It went beyond even their parameters that defined her relationship situation. Yeah, also expanding it further from a couple that does not live together. Yeah. And so now femicide and this is a quote from Silvana Delbaye, a lawyer and coordinator from the of the organization she leaned, Network Against Violence against Women. She said, nowside simply means the murder of a woman for the fact of being a woman. And this organization had actually been keeping track of like what would be considered a femicide before femicide was codified into Chilean law, because that was in twenty ten, and so they had a database of all these femicides and they made it public in twenty ten, and then they kept filing what they considered femicides, which would include Gabriela's murder and her mom's murder. They kept those and then when Gabriela's Law came into place, they added even more to make you know, the public aware like this is a serious issue. Yeah, and they but yeah, they've been doing a lot of that work. But Fabian and Rodrigo went to Congress every single week to push for Gabriela's law, to advocate for it. They did this for a year and a half. Wow. And in that time they met with like a whole bunch of different like government officials, but the then president refused to meet with them. They never once met with him. Finally, I want to say, it was like twenty nineteen when they said, yes, we'll make this into law, and then March of twenty twenty when the law went into effect. So when the law was promulgated, and I was like, what is that put in place? Officially, put into a decree or whatever? You know, President Sevastian Pinera said quote Avess Nolasalas and in English, sometimes it is not merely men's will to abuse, but also women's position to be abused. Why what the fuck is he saying? What? What? What do you mean by that? What does you mean by that? Is he saying like did he just word about ai? But obviously know what he meant, but I don't know, like if I had to give him the benefit of the doubt, like maybe he meant that women are abused because they're women. I felt like he was saying, sometimes there's a woman's fault, she's being That's what I thought too. But then I'm like, Okay, well maybe I don't know. No, I think it's the other one what I said, because he said, yes, yeah, that he's just like, who's not always the man's fault? Sometimes women deserve to be abused. At the ceremony to bring this law into place, he did refuse to meet with them too, so no he did. Yeah. Yeah. In response to that statement, Fay called him out. He said, quote, they are quite unfortunate words because it shows a lack of listening, a lack of understanding that the woman is not to blame here. Okay. Unfortunately, these types of men, the abusers, have a lethal mix of intelligence and ability to diminish a woman. But the blame will never be the women's in these cases. Yeah. Yeah. As for gast Is, he was sentenced to life in April of twenty twenty two. Unfortunately, the femicide charge would not be applied to him because it came into place after yeah, it wasn't like retroactive exactly, but the family still viewed it as a victory. They said that their fight was quote enelre toras for everyone they gave me Chelles, I know, and I just I felt so sad, like just hearing I listened to he they were so outspoken in the media, Fabian Androdrigo, both of them, and like, I mean their lives were uprooted by femicide. Femicide, yeah, because it wasn't just his daughter, but also like we said, his wife and so yeah, they I mean I want Yeah, I watched I was like, what are they saying? I watched interviews and it's just like it's so sad to hear, like, oh, the the last words I said to her was like I love you more than anything in this life. And yeah, and then also hearing them say like if it weren't for her, like this wouldn't have been put into place, and that like her death wasn't in vain, you know, yeah, like something there they feel something good came out of it. Yes, yeah, yeah, but yeah that is the femicide, double femicide that brought Gabriela's lat into place in Chile. Wow, very impactful. Yeah and yeah, like what a what an important case that changed Chile forever. To close out March for us here. Yeah, and that's the case all around, you know, where laws are put in place after the fact, and it's sad that women had to lose their lives, women and children have to lose their lives or be harmed in any kind of way for then, you know, loss to be put in place to either prevent or punish more severely, you know, people who enact that kind of violence. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Oh, actually I do have one thing to end this on that I'm like excited for this Sunday, the Latina running club that I joined is doing a Women's History Month or a Women's Month run. Oh I love that to close out like you know, March. And everyone's supposed to wear black with like purple, oh like they do for the Mac with the purple Okay, So I love that. Yeah and yeah, just a bunch of women running together. What a because also there was a time well yeah, first, first of all, running as a woman is scary, right, yeah, because women have been killed while they're running and dogging doing something that anybody should be able to do. But also there was a time that women could not run, like the Boston Marathon. For example. Have you seen the pictures of the first Boston Marathon. Yeah, some of those pictures I later learned it later learned is her boyfriend defending her from the guy who's trying to get her off the course? Too? But yeah, I mean, and what was that like in the sixty seventies. There's too recent, too recent, because that woman ran the marathon again as an adult, as a recently. Yeah, like within the past five years for sure. Yeah, and all of this, like all the milestones and rights that women have now, women file for, women died for right not only in the US but all over Latin America, And every day we're seeing these rights trying to be taken away from us. Right, So now with not the time to be like I want to turn my brain now, I don't want to work. I want to be a say home girlfriend, like, shut the fuck up, you dumb bitch. If I hear someone say that next to me, I'm going to clock you right then. In there. That's that aggressive, that's the masculine me. I'm not in my feminine I can't be in my feminine because my rights are being taken away. No, for real, again, it just I think of the stupid manos Here documentary we just watched the Yeah, they're like literally with the most abusive, disgusting men, and they're like, I'm in my feminists. I feel safe in his mask and he lets me be in my feminine. And again again, these are the men going on podcast saying I can kill her at any moment. I can kill her, right, bro, I could just pin her up to the wall, bro, and they do. She has to live with that, bro. Yeah, and they do and they do so like we have been saying a month, and I know everyone's so sick of hearing it, but like feminists, we will never shut up about feminism, We will never shut up about it. Okay. Coincidentally, I just started coming across on my for you page on TikTok this woman, this white Mexican I don't know. I know, people keep saying her podcast name and the comments and I keep forgetting, but she's like talking to different guests on her podcast and just like informing them in such a calm manner about I need to Yeah, right, that's why you need to find this. You can send it to me. I will. I love to listen to that. I'll find it before this episode comes down and put the link in the in the show notes. Okay, I will. Because there's a guy, a friend of her is a guy, and he's like talking about something about the how women are always putting other women down, and then she's like, why do you think that is? She's so calmly, she said, what do you think that is? Because everything is done through the mail gaze and she's just like she's just and then he's like, oh, so it's because of this blah blah blah. She's like, yeah, blah blah blah blah blah. She's just so like smart, the way she talks. I could never know, like not in English, much less in Spanish. Yes, yes, and so yeah, I don't know, like I will send this to you and okay and yeah, and we can end this episode. But I needed to say that one more time. Yeah, let's let's let's not only stay a spooky, but let's be feminist and intersectional with that. Oh sorry, no, one more thing before we go after this. After this episode, we are going to go on a one week yes, one week, no episode every other week. Yeah, yes, every other week, because you're talking what like Kevin when he's trying to change from the office when he's supposedly one week. Yes, one wee can no more less words, more better, My bad, my bad. That's why I'm going back to school. No, but famously, I am returning to school. Mom, that's going back to school. Yes. Yes, I fell fomo and also proud, but fomo when my husband walked the stage and I was like, I want to walk a stage and wow. So yeah, I'm going back to school. And so because of that, we're going to that every other week schedule because other than otherwise it would be stable. Yeah, yeah, too much. So yeah, say Spookie, we'll catch a ruin next time. Bye bye. A Book Tells is hosted by Christina and Carmen, produced and edited by Christina, researched by Christina Carmen and with the help of Don Shout Out with Don. If you aren't joining the podcast considerably going to say five star review, we would really appreciate it. If you don't want to the professor review, just don't leave a review, but don't leave anything lower than that, please, I'm just kidding. You can reach out to the podcast at a Spooktales at gmail dot com. You can go to our website at bookitos dot com and fill out the contact form. 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