Former policeman who murdered a sex worker and hid her in a suitcase is sentenced to 35 years in prison

Edwin Yesid Medina Ardila will have to pay 35 years in prison for the brutal murder of Julieth Johana Álvarez Mejia, on January 14 in Bucaramanga. According to the authorities, the former policeman would have reached an agreement with the justice system.

According to Oliden Riaño, Sectional Director of Prosecutors of Santander, Medina made a pre-agreement with the investigating body and accepted the charges of aggravated femicide and concealment of evidence.

Read: The story of the former policeman who would have killed a prostitute and hid it in a suitcase

“After an agreement, a judge sentenced Yesid to 35 years in prison for Julieth's death (...) the defendant took the woman to her place of residence, where she killed her and hid her in a suitcase,” said the Prosecutor's Office.

After his capture, aberrant details of his past as a policeman were known about Edwin Yesid Medina Ardila, from which he was dissociated 10 years ago due to psychological problems and addictions with hallucinogenic substances.

Julieth Johana Álvarez Mejía was a sex worker from the Centennial Park in Bucaramanga, who in the early morning of January 14 was walking the streets of the capital of Santander in search of customers.

During those walks she met Edwin Yesid Medina Ardila, who convinced her to go to the apartment, located on 36th Street with 22nd Carrera in the capital of Santa Dereana.

There, the former policeman murdered her after arguing over the payment of sexual services. In the middle of the fight, Medina Ardila murdered the sex worker and kept her body in the apartment for several hours.

The former police officer, 33, mentioned to the authorities that he did not have money to pay for the services he had purchased and that is why he would have decided to suffocate the young woman and when he realized that she had no vital signs, he hid her body.

According to investigators, the killer placed the body in a fetal position inside a suitcase and at 5:30 p.m. removed it from her apartment. Because he could not take it out alone, the former policeman called a friend to help him carry the suitcase, with the excuse that it was rubble.

Hours later, while the agents of the Technical Investigation Corps (CTI) of the Prosecutor's Office were carrying out the diligence of the body, which was located a few blocks from the apartment, a person called line 123. Call that changed the course of the investigation.

The witness reportedly assured that he helped to take out the suitcase, unaware that there was a corpse inside it and that the man had lied to him about the contents of it.

His story allowed the authorities to reach the place where they found the alleged perpetrator of the crime, who did not have time to escape.

According to the Santander Observatory of Femicide, in 2021 there were 15 cases of femicide in the department, making it one of the years with the most crimes of this type in this region of Colombia.

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