Speaker 1: 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
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the contact form. If you want to support the podcast,
you can join our Patreon where we send exclusive stickers,
have bonus episodes. Eight dollar members get an exclusive key chain.
It's super cool. I got new ones and these ones
are huge. And if you want to support, but you
can or don't want to join the Patreon, that's fine too.
You can also get some merch. You can find shirts
that say a spooky and old English letters. There's a beanie.
I love the beanie. There's also a hat. There's a
no Mamous shirt, which is a fan favorite. There's a
lot of options, crap tops, sweaters, it's almost swetter weather.
We're nearing a spookie season, so yeah, get your hoodies.
You're gonna need them. If you don't want to do
all that, that's fine too. You can just listen like
you're listening now, and that's the best support that you
can give us, like I always say in our ad
break and yeah, if you like history, you can follow
Estodia's Unknown Mining, Carmen's other podcasts, and you can find
as Spooky tails on all of our socials at a
Spooky tells All. This is in the show notes and
we appreciate every single listen. Thank you so much. Stay
as Spooky