“It was a devastating investigative work”, said Attorney General about the clarification of murders of the stylist Mauricio Leal Hernández and his mother

There is not a perfect crime!

Given the conclusive evidence provided by the Attorney General’s Office, the murderer, Yhonier Rodolfo Leal Hernández, accepted his responsibility for the double crime.

The assignment of a specialized investigative and technical team, and the prompt and effective evaluation of the technical evidence, allowed the Attorney General’s Office to clarify, in 53 days, the murder of the stylist Mauricio Leal Hernández and his mother, Marleny Hernandez Tabares.

The victims’ brother and son, Yhonier Rodolfo Leal Hernández, was prosecuted as allegedly responsible for the double homicide that occurred on November 21, 2021, in a residential complex located in the rural area of ​​La Calera (Cundinamarca).

“We are solving the cases in record time. Normally in delayed cases, the truth is eventually revealed”, emphasized the Attorney General, Francisco Barbosa Delgado, when providing details about the clarification.

The Prosecutor’s Office charged Yhonier Rodolfo Leal Hernández with aggravated homicide by kinship, due to a state of defenselessness, and brutality in a consistent sequence of serial crime; and concealment, alteration, or destruction of evidence. Given the conclusive arguments and evidence presented by the Prosecutor’s Office, the defendant accepted his responsibility for the events in a free, spontaneous, and voluntary statement.

“When a person does not plead guilty to the charges and then the next day, says ‘I admit what happened, it is based on a work that was devastating from the evidentiary point of view, and that allowed us to demonstrate, and to show  Colombian citizens that think or could think about carrying out similar facts, that there is not a perfect crime”, said the Attorney General.

After pleading guilty to the charges, the judge imposed a prison sentence.

“The Attorney General’s Office does not make accusations out of proportion. We are serious. When there is a hearing, it is because we have evidence that allows us to achieve a reasonable inference of authorship or participation in some criminal types”, clarified the Attorney General Barbosa Delgado about the possibility of adding other crimes at this stage.

Evidence of the Prosecutor’s Office

At a hearing, prosecutors stated that the security cameras at Mauricio Leal’s residence show that the defendant was the only person that was on the property. On November 22, he apparently left the house and contacted the stylist’s driver to help him to look for his brother and his mother.

Given his insistence, the man agreed to accompany him to the house. After 2:30 p.m., and entering the house and looking over all the spaces, the driver warned that his boss’s room was closed. Finally, in the company of Yhonier Rodolfo Leal, he entered and found the bodies of Mauricio Leal and Marleny Hernández in a bed, with injuries caused by a sharp weapon. In addition, there was a letter in which the stylist said goodbye and left properties to his brother and his nephews.

With technical and scientific evidence, the Prosecutor’s Office determined that Yhonier Leal allegedly gave his brother nine pills for sleeping, an overdose that left him defenseless.

The forensic results allowed the investigators to establish that, initially, the defendant allegedly attacked his mother with a sharp weapon. Later, with the same tool, he attacked his brother. Pathologists found two knives on Mauricio Leal’s corpse, one without a handle and the other one in his abdomen. Additionally, they found four wounds. In this way, it became clear that it was a double homicide (mother and son).

“Based on the evidence there is not a third person. Right now, I want to discard this idea before the country. No more speculation”, assured the Attorney General about the eventual participation of another person in the crime.

The criminalistic experts inspected the 300 meters of the house and detected biological evidence associated with the victims. On the second step, which leads to the kitchen of the house, there was a bloodstain, which corresponds to Marleny Hernández. They also found a towel with traces of human blood from two people, one compatible with Marleny and another one that would belong to a third person who shares the mother’s mitochondrial cells, but is not Mauricio Leal’s. They also found human blood in the siphon of Yhonier´s bathroom.

The Prosecutor’s Office was able to infer that the mother and son’s cell phones were manipulated by Yhonier Rodolfo Leal after carrying out the double homicide. Regarding the letter located at the scene, it was written by the stylist, with irregular and weak lines, which the Prosecutor’s Office interpreted, together with the forensic experts, as the product of the state of drowsiness caused by the nine pills found in Mauricio Leal´s corpse.

Finally, testimonies and evidence collected show that Leal Hernández gave different versions and contradicted himself before family members, and the authorities. The main hypothesis is that the crime was motivated by his economic problems.

“There are criminal cases in the country every day. We finish a case and we begin another one, that is what happens in Colombia and that allows us to act promptly. So, criticizing the Prosecutor’s Office collapses under its own weight”, concluded the Attorney General.

The arrest

Yhonier Rodolfo Leal Hernández was arrested by CTI investigators in a building in the Polo Club neighborhood, in Barrios Unidos, in Bogotá. $50,000,000 in cash and relevant documentation for the development of the investigation were found in the proceeding.

The investigations continue to establish the origin of the assets affected with precautionary measures for the purpose of assets seizure. These are two real estate properties, two cars, a motorcycle, two companies, and two commercial establishments.

When we speak, results follow.

The information contained in this press release corresponds to the narration of the objective news provided by the officials in charge of carrying out the criminal investigations within the Office of the Attorney General. By the time this communication is disclosed, the legal status of the people mentioned is still pending to be resolved by the competent judicial authority, always under the presumption of innocence contemplated by Article 29 of the Political Constitution and Article 7 of Law 906 of 2004.