The body of a young woman who survived a stabbing attack in May of this year was found abandoned in a sack last Friday near the Cauca river in Marsella, Risaralda state.
Diana Ximena Castañeda Lozano, 20, disappeared on September 25 in Ansermanuevo municipality, Valle del Cauca state, almost four months after reporting being abducted and stabbed 95 times. She had said in her report that two acquaintances contacted her over a social network and then robbed her and attempted to slit her throat. She survived the attack and spent almost a month in hospital.
Speaking three months after attack, Castañeda said that her attackers “pulled my hair and robbed me, I didn’t realize that they had taken out a knife… Santiago held his hand over my mouth and began to cut my throat, Camilo began to stab me in the chest, the hands… the gut and then they thought I was dead.”
One of the attackers, Santiago Alexander Betancourth Piedrahita, was apprehended on September 26 in Valle del Cauca, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office, and is being held at Ansermanuevo prison.
Castañeda’s mother, Maria Idalba Castañeda, believes that it was Betancourth and ‘Camilo’ who returned for her daughter and murdered her. She said, “Why, if my daughter denounced them, were they not captured right then and there?”
“The justice department did nothing, those guys walked around town without anyone doing anything to make them answer for what they did to my daughter.”
Betancourth had denied the charges and claimed to not know the whereabouts of Diana Castañeda. the current status of ‘Camilo,’ the other alleged attacker, is unclear.
Diana Castañeda went missing in Ansermanuevo, Valle del Cauca (bottom). Her body was found in Marsella, Risaralda (top).
Sources
- Hallan descuartizada a joven que había sido apuñalada en el norte del Valle (El Pais)
- A cárcel hombre en Ansermanuevo por apuñalar a una mujer (El Pais)
- Aseguran a hombre que le propinó 95 cuchilladas a mujer en el Valle (El Tiempo)
- Asegurado por tentativa de homicidio a una joven (Prosecutor General’s Office)