Witchcraft, plot and a strange disease: the mystery surrounding the death of successful businessman Elías Musiris Chahín

It was Monday, October 16, 2006. They reported on the news about the death of former President Valentín Paniagua, but on the other hand, at his home, they fired magnate Elías Musiris Chahín, a successful textile businessman, director of the Jockey Club of Peru and owner of the Atlantic City casino, among other companies, who was involved in sorcery rituals and alleged conspirations against him. He was bedridden in a wheelchair for more than 10 years due to a painful and strange illness, although his death did not have the impact on a complaint of his possible poisoning.

When his evil became known, it shocked Lima society. Neurologist Pilar Mazzetti - who was Minister of Health in the governments of Alejandro Toledo, Martín Vizcarra and Francisco Sagasti; and Minister of the Interior in Alan García's second government - diagnosed her with lateral amyotrophic sclerosis, a strange disease that would end up paralyzing her entire body. She had gone to the doctor because of the numbness of one of the fingers of her left hand.

A few months earlier, his family doctor listed him a list of prohibitions so that he could overcome an obstruction that prevented him from breathing normally. He didn't drink alcohol or smoke, let alone eat fried foods. I jogged every morning for 40 minutes. He fulfilled everything. However, he did not understand why he was detected for lateral amyotrophic sclerosis if no member of his family had suffered it before. Although he researched and traveled to the United States for treatment, little by little, his body wore down to a wheelchair and could only communicate with slight movements of his left eyelid. The attractive, tall and strong man, 53 years old, with several textile companies, a casino in Miraflores and some horses, had ended up in silence.

No one could believe it. Neither his friends nor his family, who remembered him as an athletic guy and who always looked so good. Five months before hearing the bad news, he had inaugurated the Atlantic City casino, one of his last projects that prevail until today.

María Peña, his personal secretary at the Jockey Club of Peru, kept him in mind as a person who was always joking with the other directors and then dedicated himself to work. “Of Mr. Musiris I have the image of a tall, strong man with black eyes and a perfectly groomed mustache (...) He was always on the legal path, I never saw him doing strange things, but very worried about his companies,” he told the newspaper La República in 2006.

MUSIRIS LIFE

Elias Victor Musiris Chahín was the son of Palestinians who began living in their early years in the Rimac district. He studied Civil Engineering at the National University of Engineering (UNI) and, at the same time, started a clothing business that was gradually consolidated. He left university studies because he wanted to grow his company, which had great resonance in the following years.

He held several positions on the board of directors of the Jockey Club of Peru. He shared a lot with the workers and the other employers. Even, thanks to him the employees of the Racecourse were uniformed with a special cloth, which was selected by the entrepreneur.

When he fell ill, in his wheelchair, he was taken to the premises of his casino, by his nephew Polo Ripamonti, who claimed to understand him through gestures and pulses that only he could understand. Due to his constant respiratory complications, he was forbidden to go out and put on an artificial respirator that made his understanding more complicated.

WITCHCRAFT THEORY

Due to the lack of explanation about his sudden illness, theories began to be woven: the main one was that of witchcraft. It was speculated that his second wife, Maria Estrella Aguad Vaccari, had poisoned him in complicity with his sister-in-law Gladys Simon, wife of his brother Antonio; and his children Arturo and Javier would also be engaged to take over all their companies.

The Sunday program Panorama aired a video in which Gladys is seen half-naked cursing her relatives. Also said Eva Egúsquiza, an alleged witch from Balconcillo who had agreed to prepare a brew for the businessman at Gladys' request. This version was confirmed by the former bodyguard, Juan Davila, and added that a series of spells were buried in some hills near Santa Maria beach, which was the favorite place of the Murisis in the summers.

Upon learning this, Davila and the businessman's son, Javier Musiris, found jars full of blood, along with photographs of Gladys Simon's family and stepdaughters.

Aguad Vaccari learned what had happened and filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor's Office, which reached the hands of the head of the Sixth Provincial Prosecutor's Office, Mirtha Chenguayen Guevara. However, everything took a turn when the same prosecutor denounced the businessman's partner for being the alleged perpetrator of poisoning in aggrieved by her husband: the complainant had become a complaint.

The report specified that the toxicological tests carried out on Musiris Chahín found thallium, mercury and arsenic, “foreign and toxic elements for human health, which affect the body, gradually destroying the central nervous system and causing progressively, depending on the dose the loss of the musculoskeletal system until it is left in the state in which it was found”, based on documents from the Toxicological Center of the University of San Marcos (CICOTOX).

José Ugaz, who was a defender of the Musiris, contradicted what the data meant: “Both in the CICOTOX report, he says, and in the results of the tests carried out on Elias Musiris abroad and in Lima, reveal that all humans carry within our body certain doses of arsenic, mercury and thallium, and those carried by him are within normal values.”

The Musiris family prepared their defense very well and used the examinations of the General Hospital in Massachusetts, the Roe clinical laboratory, and the toxicology test of the Peruvian National Police (PNP). Thus, the prosecutor's accusation was left without support.

“It is normal to have some of these metals (thallium, mercury and arsenic) in our tissues and urine... these studies did not indicate the presence of toxins,” explained the US hospital, and this showed that Musiris was not poisoned.

Judge Ana Paredes Rojas declared the case dismissed and cleared Aguad Vaccari of all suspicion. Although prosecutor Chenguayen Guevara said she didn't believe in witchcraft, she mentioned that she had at some point read the letters to learn about her future. She herself excluded Gladys Simon and Eva Egúsquiza from the case. Eight years after the case, the same public representative assured that her investigation was carried out within the legal framework.

DEATH

Elías Musiris Chahín died on the same day as former President Valentín Paniagua, on October 16, 2006. He suffered a heart attack that was complicated by the pneumonia that was afflicting him. They removed the ribbons that held her eyelids open for her to rest. He was buried in the Jardines de la Paz cemetery, with the silence of his relatives who never again offered statements to the press.

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