Some go with children to be able to carry out DNA tests and compare them with the remains of inmates.
There are families that are still seeking information on the whereabouts of their relatives who were in the Litoral Penitentiary. More than a week has passed since the massacre that left 62 inmates murdered and there are those who do not know the fate of close relatives held or believe that they are dead and are waiting for their identification.
Outside the Laboratory of Forensic Sciences and Criminalistics, located in the west of Guayaquil, This week has become a continuous pilgrimage for several relatives of inmates, such as Franklin C., father of an inmate who already served 60% of his sentence three years for theft.
Franklin said he did not know the whereabouts of his son Erick, 27, since Thursday, November 11.
This week, the man attended the morgue on several occasions to try to provide information that could contribute to the analyzes to corroborate whether one of the thirteen bodies that still remained to be identified on Thursday of this week corresponded to that of his son. He hadn’t heard from Erick for a week that day.
Until last Thursday the Police had already recognized 49 of the 62 bodies of inmates murdered in the Litoral Penitentiary for the clashes that took place between the night of Friday 12 and Saturday 13 November.
Thirteen bodies still lagged behind that process. With this group of corpses, identification by taking fingerprints and recognition through body or physiognomic characteristics was complicated, so genetic studies could be applied.
“They have him as disappeared, in the list of the dead he does not appear “Franklin said outside the morgue on Thursday 18.
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From prison, according to the father, Érick left at noon on Thursday, November 11 for a medical check-up at the Guasmo Sur hospital because a splinter from an explosive fell on his body. “There they took X-rays, injected him and controlled his pain, he was there until ten to seven at night ”, he said, adding that he is sure that he re-entered the Penitentiary.
However, neither on Thursday the 11th and Friday the 12th did he have any communication with him. His lawyer was told that on his return to prison he was placed in the transitory stage. After the clashes that took place between the night of Friday and last Saturday, the father of the inmate was told that he was supposedly not there (temporarily) and that he was taken to ward 8, where he regularly served his sentence. “They have in the log that he has arrived at his pavilion (the 8th), but he has never arrived … There is no report that he has been in transit “, said.
Erick, 27, was awaiting the psychological test to qualify for the semi-open regime. Now, his father hopes that he will appear alive.
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“Every day the inmates communicate, there is not a prisoner who does not call his family, my son lent a telephone … they already gave it as a lost PPL and they sent me to verify here (in the morgue),” he commented.
Outside the same police lab, José Antonio M. was walking accompanied by a young woman who was carrying a one-and-a-half-year-old baby while waiting for news of her nephew. The infant was seeking a DNA test. His mission was that this sample could be analyzed and compared with the thirteen bodies that still have to be identified.
There, he remembered the last thing he heard his nephew say, who, according to the relative, was staying in ward 8. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but this is going to turn on”, Says the inmate told them in his last communication last Thursday the 11th, a day before the massacre.
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José Antonio’s nephew is Carlos Gerardo MC, 20, who was three months without a sentence for the theft of a cell phone. It was his first time in prison.
“He was in ward 8, the last conversation he had was with her (his daughter’s mother), I don’t know what he would do, why would he get there … How are we going to be knowing that my niece is going to grow up without her dad all for a damn phone“Said the man at noon on Thursday as he left the morgue. Two hours later he had to return to insist on the test.
As part of the corpse recognition process, last Monday, Colonel Marco Ortiz, director of Technical-Scientific Investigation of the National Police, said that they were working on various phases such as fingerprint identification, anthropological studies and later in genetic analysis.
In this last phase, a longer time is necessary depending on the sample taken from the corpses or anatomical pieces and later the comparison with the other genetic profile of the relative. That could take a month or so. (I)
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
