Between August 1980 and November 1981, ten people were killed in separate events in and around Viña del Mar, the resort city on the coast of central Chile. In several of these events a companion of the man killed survived. In March 1982 two members of the Carabineros, Jorge Sagredo Pizarro and Carlos Topp Collins, were arrested. A judge sentenced both to death in January 1983. The Court of Appeals of Valparaíso confirmed the sentence, the Supreme Court ratified it in January 1985, President Augusto Pinochet refused a pardon, and on January 29, 1985, both men were executed at Quillota. No one has been executed in Chile since. Capital punishment was abolished in 2001.
The case was investigated and tried under a military government. Which man was sentenced for which killing is not on record.
Chilean reports describe both men as carabineros, members of the national uniformed police, and most call them former carabineros at the time of their arrest. Jorge José Sagredo Pizarro served in Viña del Mar; BioBioChile and Infobae both place him in the same unit as the corporal who later reported him, and Infobae says he was off duty when that corporal saw him. The Mexican newspaper Excelsior gives his birth date as August 22, 1955. Carlos Alberto Topp Collins, according to the same paper, was born on January 25, 1950.
Little else about their early lives is on record. The documentary maker Tevo Díaz, interviewed by El Mostrador in 2013, said that Sagredo had worked at the Viña del Mar police prefecture a few blocks from the house where Díaz grew up.
Accounts give the killings in broadly the same order, with small differences in names and dates.
The first victim was Enrique Gajardo, 35, killed in Viña del Mar on August 5, 1980 (El Mostrador gives August 4). His companion survived. His surname is spelled Fajardo in Infobae. On November 12, 1980, Alfredo Sánchez was killed in Viña del Mar; his fiancée survived.
On February 28, 1981, Fernando Laguna (El Mostrador writes Lagunas) and Delia González were killed in Viña del Mar on the night of the city's song festival, according to BioBioChile. BioBioChile attributes this attack to Sagredo alone, off duty.
On May 26, 1981, Luis Morales, 33, was killed. Jorge Inostroza, 31, was killed the same night in another part of the city, and a woman who was with him survived. On July 28, 1981, according to BioBioChile, Óscar Noguera was killed near the city, and a woman with him survived. Raúl Aedo León had been killed shortly before. El Mostrador gives Aedo's age as 25 and Noguera's as 27, while BioBioChile gives Noguera's as 25.
The last two victims were Roxana Venegas, 22, and Jaime Ventura, 17, killed in Viña del Mar on the night of October 31 to November 1, 1981 (El Mostrador gives Ventura's age as 18). BioBioChile attributes this double killing to Sagredo alone.
The Chilean press puts the toll at ten killings and four rapes.
One survivor told Chilevisión that he had supported the death penalty until he saw archive footage of the execution, after which he changed his mind.
The killings frightened the city. El Mostrador, writing in 2013, said the crimes had reduced tourism and nightlife in a city that depended on both, and that neighbors had begun suspecting one another. Some people at the time, it said, even wondered whether the crimes were a deliberate strategy of the government to show that crime in Chile was not only political.
Two police groups worked the case separately. Infobae says a team from the Carabineros unit OS7 and a team from the Policía de Investigaciones, the civilian investigative police, worked with little cooperation. El Mostrador describes an investigative group set up for the case that took statements from about 150 suspects. Orlando Gutiérrez, then the Investigaciones prefect in Valparaíso, called it the hardest case in Chilean police history, according to El Ciudadano.
In early March 1982 a businessman, L. G. D., was detained. Infobae gives the date as March 2, 1982, and says he was held for six days, confessed and was released for lack of evidence. He told it differently afterward. El Ciudadano reports that a team from the Policía de Investigaciones under subcomisario Nelson Lillo held that he bore intellectual responsibility, that he accused Lillo of obtaining a confession from him by torture, and that Lillo later left the force. Infobae says a senior Carabineros chief held a personal grudge against him. El Mostrador says only that he was the first suspect, was later released for lack of grounds (falta de méritos), and that the release left doubts for some about who the real perpetrators were.
BioBioChile reported in 2013 that, after their arrest, Sagredo and Topp Collins claimed in court that the killings had been ordered by this businessman, and that this claim led to his arrest and trial before he was again released. The court that dealt with him is not on record. He was not convicted of anything in connection with the killings.
The case against the two men began inside the police. Juan Quijada, a corporal who worked in the communications center of the first police station of Viña del Mar, according to Emol, began to suspect Sagredo. Infobae says that Quijada was struck by how closely Sagredo and Topp Collins discussed one of the killings, and that Sagredo later confessed to him on patrol.
Chilevisión says Quijada befriended Sagredo to confirm his suspicion, learned that Topp Collins was the second man, and gathered what he needed for a report. Emol says he tried three times to report the men within the institution before going to the Carabineros intelligence directorate. Infobae also says his superiors first took no action and that he went over their heads to the national police. In the words reported by Chilevisión, he received no recognition for what he had done and met much hostility.
OS7 of the Carabineros arrested both men within days of Quijada's report. The date is given as March 2, 1982 by Chilevisión, which says the authorities first described them only as two unidentified men, and as March 8, 1982 by BioBioChile, Infobae and Excelsior. Emol says they were handed to the courts in March 1982. Every account of the early stage agrees that both men confessed, and Emol says they confessed publicly and in court.
Excelsior says Sagredo confessed repeatedly while Topp Collins stayed silent for years and later acknowledged taking part, with Sagredo or alone. Its editorial note questions how fast the trial moved and how the confessions were obtained under the military government. Chilevisión likewise reports that during the dictatorship the press was controlled and the police sometimes implicated innocent people.
The proceedings took place in the Valparaíso judicial region under the old Code of Criminal Procedure, in which a judge investigated and decided the case. Excelsior reports that the first-instance sentence was handed down on January 8, 1983 by Judge Julio Torres Allú, acting as a ministro en visita. BioBioChile, Infobae and Excelsior give the same date and say both men were sentenced to death. The sentence was for the ten killings and four rapes, with robbery, according to Emol, Chilevisión and Infobae; The Clinic describes the penalty as for four rapes and ten killings.
The exact offence names in the judgment, and which man was sentenced for which killing, are not on record. BioBioChile writes that Sagredo, acting alone, was responsible for the February 1981 and November 1981 double killings. Infobae and Excelsior describe the sentence as covering both men for the series, and both men were sentenced to death in the one proceeding.
The Corte de Apelaciones de Valparaíso confirmed the sentence unanimously, in its first chamber, according to Infobae. The date is not on record. The Third Chamber of the Corte Suprema ratified it unanimously on January 17, 1985, according to Infobae and Excelsior.
Counsel for the two men then asked Pinochet to commute the sentence. Emol, Infobae, Excelsior and Meganoticias report that he refused. Meganoticias says they asked more than once. The date of the refusal is not on record. The sentence was carried out twelve days after the Supreme Court ratified it.
Sagredo and Topp Collins were executed at the prison in Quillota in the early morning of January 29, 1985. Emol, Chilevisión and BioBioChile put the time at about 5:52. BioBioChile says two prison chaplains were present. Cameras were barred; José Gai, night editor of Las Últimas Noticias, was there as a drawing artist and also wrote an account, and his illustrations became a visual record of the day, CNN Chile reported.
Both executions were reported as the last carried out in Chile, which had recorded 58 officially recognized executions in 126 years, according to Infobae and Emol.
Capital punishment was abolished by law on May 28, 2001, under President Ricardo Lagos, and replaced by a qualified life term with no release before 40 years, El Dínamo and Emol report. In 2013 the documentary Pena de muerte, directed by Tevo Díaz, drew on archive material and interviews on the case; El Mostrador reports that it won the Viña del Mar international film festival in 2012. Díaz says the film does not aim to name the culprits and that he does not know exactly what happened. The case has remained a reference point whenever Chile revisits the death penalty, and BioBioChile, Chilevisión and Infobae each marked its anniversary or the execution video.
Several points remain open. The date of the first killing is given as August 4, 5 and 20, 1980 in different reports, and the date of the arrest as March 2 or March 8, 1982. The ages of Noguera, Aedo and Ventura differ between reports.
Which killings each man was sentenced for is not set out. Whether the confessions were reliable is questioned by Excelsior's editorial note and by Chilevisión's description of police practice under the dictatorship. Laura Soto, a lawyer on the victims' side, told El Ciudadano in 2015 that the intelligence services of the military government might have been involved; she gave it as her interpretation. BioBioChile says the two men claimed in court that the killings were ordered by the businessman held in 1982; he was released for lack of grounds, and no evidence for the claim is on record. None of these points changes the sentences, which were confirmed on appeal and ratified by the Supreme Court.
August 5, 1980: Enrique Gajardo is killed in Viña del Mar (one report gives August 4).
November 12, 1980: Alfredo Sánchez is killed.
February 28, 1981: Fernando Laguna and Delia González are killed.
May 26, 1981: Luis Morales and Jorge Inostroza are killed.
July 28, 1981: Óscar Noguera is killed; Raúl Aedo León was killed shortly before.
October 31 to November 1, 1981: Roxana Venegas and Jaime Ventura are killed.
Early March 1982: a businessman is detained, held for about six days and released for lack of evidence; Sagredo and Topp Collins are arrested (March 2 or March 8).
January 8, 1983: first-instance sentence of death for both men.
Date not on record: the Corte de Apelaciones de Valparaíso confirms the sentence.
January 17, 1985: the Third Chamber of the Corte Suprema ratifies the sentence.
Date not on record: President Pinochet refuses a pardon.
January 29, 1985: Sagredo and Topp Collins are executed at Quillota.
May 28, 2001: capital punishment is abolished.