By Marta Morales Urcola

Early years

Walter Di Giusti -also written DeGiusti-, was known for killing Fito Páez's grandmothers and three other women. He studied in Dante Alighieri High School, where he met Páez. Di Giusti played the bass in a metal band, while Páez played the piano and lived with his father and grandmothers. They were like his adoptive moms, since Paéz's mother, Margarita Zulema Ávalos, a piano soloist, died when he was eight months old.

Crimes

The series of murders started on October 31, 1986, when Di Giusti, 23 years old, accompanied by his 18 year old brother, Carlos Manuel Di Giusti, entered a house with the excuse of doing some plumbing work at 1081 Garay street, where he hit and stabbed two women to death: Ángela Cristofanetti de Barroso (86 years old) and her adopted daughter, Noemí (31).

One week later, on November 7, 1986, at 681 Balcarce street, in the same city where Di Giusti brothers committed the brutal crime, they shot and stabbed Belia Delia Zulema Ramírez, 76 years old (Páez paternal grandmother), Josefa Páez, 80 years old (paternal great-aunt) and Fermina Godoy, who was a 33 year old domestic worker of the house and was pregnant. It is believed that Di Giusti knew their victims and frequented their houses.

Investigation & arrest

On December 4, 1986, a month later, Di Giusti, as he was a police agent, went to the substation in Pueblo Esther, 15 km to the South of Rosario.

It took police almost a year to solve the crimes. De Giusti was given away by a transvestite of the area, who wore a necklace that belonged to Páez grandmothers and declared -to an undercover agent- that it had been given to her by her boyfriend Walter. Next day, police broke into the house of Di Giusti family. They lived at 2130 Güemes, some blocks away from Páez family. The first thing they found was the engraver Fito Páez gave some time ago to his grandmother Belia.

Criminal proceedings

Court found Walter Di Giusti guilty of five assassinations. During the trial it was evident that Di Giusti was a frustrated bass player that showed an envious attitude towards Fito Páez. In front of judge Benjamín Ávalos, Di Giusti confessed his authorship in the five crimes.

On August 24, 1987, judge Ávalos sentenced him to life imprisonment in Coronda city (provincia de Santa Fe). His brother, Carlos Manuel Di Giusti, was under probation due to his participation in the event. He was being followed by Rosario police, they considered him dangerous.

Once Di Giusti was confined in jail, he got a compulsory retirement off police: he kept receiving a 70 percent of his salary during six years, until November, 1993. Nine years after he was convicted, on May, 1996, Di Giusti's defense appealed and the sentence was reduced to 25 years.

On August, 1997, defense, again, required a commutation and obtained a benefit that lowered the sentenced to 24 years and seven months. Finally, taking into consideration, that he had been infected with AIDS in jail, his defense requested the home confinement. After the check-ups, forensics informed judge Lurá that ex policeman was virtually blind. This was decisive so that the magistrate stipulated house arrest.

Release

A year later, a neighbor of ex judge Benjamín Ávalos, who sentenced Di Giusti in 1987, and was now retired, told him that Walter Di Giusti wandered around the streets of Rosario and usually went to a bar in a northeast corner of San Luis and Balcarce streets. Ávalos talked to the bar's owner. He asked if it was true that Di Giusti had been there, and the owner told him that he went everyday. He also mentioned that the convicted man even boasted about having served the sentence. Some other people saw him driving a yellow Fiat 600 car, in spite of his house arrest due to alleged blindness.

After verifying these irregularities, judge Ávalos got in touch with judge Lurá and told him everything. On May 19, 1998, provincial government made a decree exonerating Di Giusti from police and asked district attorney to force Di Giusti to give back all the money he had earned. On May 27, 1998, at 5:45 pm, Lurá could prove that Di Giusti was not at home. That meant he had violated the rules of home confinement.

On June 3, 1998, at 12:30 pm, given the order by judge Efraín Lurá, Di Giusti was sent to prison to serve the sentence the way it was supposed to be. The magistrate based the decision on a medical report which ruled that ex policeman was compensated and did not showed foreseeable treatable complications. But on June 8, Di Giusti had a fainting and he was admitted in a hospital in Granadero Baigorria. On June 10, he was taken to Sanatorio Americano (in Rosario), where he passed away on June 12, 1998.

Source
Wikipedia en Español

Marta Morales Urcola - gd4ever.80@gmail.com