The prosecutor Álvaro Garganta requested a pretrial detention for the gardener detained for the murder of psychiatrist Virginia Franco in La Plata and it was reported that he will remain in jail while the investigation continues. Sources in the case confirmed to the Argentine News Agency that in recent hours the prosecutor made the formal request for the Justice to grant preventive detention to Javier Echeverguren, 38, for the homicide of the professional in her house in City Bell at the beginning of November of this year. Now, it remains for the Guarantees Judge Marcela Garmendia to validate or not the request of prosecutor Garganta against the gardener as the author of the homicide aggravated by criminal cause, a crime that provides for life imprisonment. Another point that became known is that if the magistrate accepts the pretrial detention request, the defense of Echeverguren is going to request that it be under house arrest. The first autopsy allowed to confirm blunt injuries to the face and a severe cut caused by a sharp weapon in the neck area. Even so, the prosecutor requested a new autopsy to determine the date of death, the mechanism, and the circumstances. In it, it was determined that the victim had a six-centimeter wound in the neck below the left ear, which caused her to bleed out. As was ascertained in the investigation, the accused worked as a gardener on the victim's property and on the day of the crime they would have had a strong argument after Franco discovered that Echeverguren had stolen belongings from her home. Investigators believe that, to hide the crime, the detainee murdered her and then fled. He was only detained at the end of November in a settlement in Quilmes when he was trying to escape to the province of Tucumán. In the case, two autopsies were performed. In turn, it was possible to verify the existence of defensive injuries such as cuts on the scalp, ear, eyelids and eyebrows, a fracture, and hematomas.
