The 'Armendáriz monster': He was accused of killing a child because of his skin color and claimed his innocence until the time of his shooting

It was 5:25 in the morning of December 12, 1957. A tall, thin Afro-Peruvian man appeared, guarded and dragged by five policemen to a wall. He was tied to a three-meter-high pole. In front of him, eight guards were waiting for him with rifles in hand. “I'm innocent!” , he shouted before the bullets were unloaded. Those who had witnessed the execution wondered if he was really guilty of the crime of killing and raping a child; whether Jorge Villanueva Torres was really the 'monster of Armendáriz', an enigma that has never been solved in Peruvian justice and that left doubts about the death penalty in this country.

The fatal story of this accused without evidence began in the early days of September 1954 near the beaches of Lima, in the Armendáriz ravine - which divides the districts of Miraflores and Barranco - when two students found the body of Julio Hidalgo Zavala, a three-year-old boy. The young people ran for help. The curious people approached, the press arrived and the cops closed the place. Among the people was Abraham, the father of the minor, who, when he saw the beaten corpse of his son discovered, began to scream. I wanted justice.

The boy's body was subjected to an autopsy at the Central Morgue in Lima. He had lesions in the frontal eminence, as well as the lower extremity on the same side. There was dirt in his nostrils. He had some parts of his body bitten by rodents, so it was determined that death had occurred 24 hours before the discovery. Something strange happens here: the Peruvian Investigative Police did not reach any further conclusions about the case.

In the streets, on radio stations and in the newspapers, they were asked to capture the culprit. Parents would not let their children go out to play in the streets. Dozens of civil and republican guards guarded Lima's streets in search of a clue to find the murderer: there were raids on the bars, billiards and canteens, but nothing was achieved. The capital's population began to press.

WITNESS

“He was a tall black guy. He bought me 20 cents of nougat for the boy. I can recognize it,” said Ulderico Salazar, a nougat seller who worked on the same block where little Julio lived. The authorities relied, above all, on his testimony.

The seller claimed that he had seen the culprit, a black individual, take Julio through the Armendáriz Ravine. They arrested the vagabonds who were near the district, took several photographs of them and, on a table, asked him to point out the murderer. “This is it,” he replied. It was Jorge Villanueva Torres, better known on the streets as the 'Negro Torpedo'.

The defendant was seated opposite Ulderico. He examined him again and insisted, “It's him.”

When questioned about the details, the merchant specified that when he was leaving Barranco Villanueva Park he was stopped to buy some sweets for the boy. “He wore brown pants, moccasins shoes and a flat thumb”, just like Villanueva Torres had it.

“I managed to identify him because he had a crooked finger, like the man who bought me the candy for Julito,” he told the press.

From that moment on, Jorge Villanueva Torres was no longer the 'Negro Torpedo' and became the 'Armendáriz monster'. Racism and the conservative Lima of the time brought out a leading role: there was someone responsible for the murder of the child and they wanted him to pay with his life.

THEY ASKED FOR THE DEATH PENALTY

Jorge Villanueva Torres had a bad reputation in the Barranquino neighborhood. He stole purses on the trams. He was a small-time criminal known in police stations and, at the age of 35, he had already set foot in jail several times. However, he always claimed his innocence about that crime.

The people of Lima demanded that death be applied. There was a public demonstration outside the victim's house. “Death to the monster,” shouted the people who had gathered there to ask for justice.

Investigators continued to question the accused until after several days, on September 14, 1954, the alleged murderer accepted his guilt. Newspapers and radio stations began to spread the news: the 'Armendáriz monster' was the murderer. He was confined to the Central Penitentiary pending his trial.

THE TRIAL

Journalists, curious people, lawyers and protesters demanding the death penalty against Villanueva Torres crowded every morning at the door of the Third Correctional Court, the place of the trial.

The defendant's defense was taken by Carlos Enrique Melgar, a young lawyer from San Marcos University, who wanted to prove that his client was not guilty. He managed to get the rape charge dropped because there was no evidence and argued that he could have been the victim of a driver of a car, who after running over the minor would have left him apart on the way down Armendáriz. He also mentioned that the confession of his sponsor about the crime had been due to pressure, since, in his words, he had been promised that he would spend less time in jail.

Jorge Villanueva Torres shouted that he had been forced to blame himself, that he had not killed the boy and that he was there by mistake. No one believed him. The rebellious attitude of a small-time thief played against him.

The turronero Ulderico Salazar was the star witness; he continued to swear time and again that the 'Armendáriz monster' was the defendant. He had seen it. He was the culprit. It was not enough for the defendant to defend himself, but the screams he was throwing in the courtroom did not help him much either.

Two years, between comings and goings, the trial lasted. On October 8, 1956, the sentence was handed down under popular pressure: sentenced to death for the murder of juvenile Julio Hidalgo Zavala, judged by the 1933 Constitution, which was approved by the government of former President Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro.

The cries of Villanueva Torres were heard in the room. He broke out in anger. He wanted to attack the magistrates. He had to be controlled and tied by the police while the word “justice” was heard in court.

“I have committed many crimes. I have been a bad man, but this crime does not belong to me,” he said in a broken voice in his defense.

In December 1957, the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court upheld the conviction by reviewing it. “With unequivocal certainty that he is an agent responsible for exceptional dangerousness and unmodifiable behavior, he claims the most severe sanction,” the ruling reads.

The defence lawyer, who had fully involved himself in the case, replied: “There are no signs of condemnation to death. There is no conviction, the nougat farmer lies. In case of doubt, you have to be in favor of the defendant, Indubio pro reo!” , referring to what is stated in the Constitution.

SHOOTING

At 5:25 in the morning of December 12, 1957, the investigating judge Carlos Carranza Luna and the notary Froilán Manrique entered the carceleta where Jorge Villanueva Torres was in order to record the execution in the Lima Penitentiary.

The ill-called 'monster of Armendáriz' was beaten and dragged, at the point of insults to the shooting ground. He kept claiming his innocence. At one point he stopped resisting, no one would help him or get him out of there. Around him there were 67 spectators in that courtyard that was twenty-four meters long by twenty-two meters wide.

Eight members of the Republican Guard regiment, commanded by Ensign Orlando Carrasco, entered the scene to proceed with the death penalty. They offered the man a hood, but he wouldn't. He only let them put a black cockade on top of his suit because that's where the shots were supposed to go.

“You are to blame for my death,” Villanueva Torres said directly to the judge and scribe before hearing the “boom” of the gunfire. As the law indicated, Carrasco approached and gave him the shot de grace on the right temple.

“Gentlemen, justice has been served,” the prison director told the audience.

THE UNRESOLVED ENDING

Days after the shooting, Ulderico Salazar, the most important witness in the case, said: “I hope that society will give me a stable job to support my three children.” The newspaper La Prensa reported that the merchant had contradicted himself more than 30 times in the process.

Juan Bautista Caspari, the priest who accompanied Villanueva Torres until the last minutes of his life, said that he always pleaded not guilty.

Fifty years later, Victor Maúrtua Vasquez, a medical lawyer and witness to the execution, said he observed an inaccurate reconstruction of the sequence of injuries to the minor's body. Apparently, the boy had been run over and left to the side of the Armendáriz descent, something that the defense lawyer had assumed during the trial.

In 2017, the then president of the judiciary, Duberlí Rodríguez, confessed that the institution would evaluate the possibility of posthumously acquitting Jorge Villanueva Torres. However, nothing was ever achieved and until now it has not been formalized.

KEEP READING