The Photographer: Murder in Pinamar

That morning,

like every summer morning,

I went out to go fishing.

I took the same route every day.

At one point,

I saw four or five people around a smoking car.

I thought it was normal, the car had a problem,

so I kept going.

I stopped for a second but didn't ask anyone, and I kept going.

JANUARY 25, 1997

Around 6:00 p.m.,

I was on my way back.

But it was no longer just three people,

there were helicopters, lots of police cars.

So I asked what happened.

GOVERNOR OF BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE 1991-1999

They came and told me someone had died,

and they said,

Cabezas had been killed.

A journalist had been killed.

And I immediately realized the magnitude.

The magnitude of what had happened.

It's an event shrouded in mystery.

A Ford Fiesta was set on fire.

A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY

Apparently there was a body in the car,

in a ditch.

The Inter American Press Association has condemned

the murder of a journalist working for the Argentine magazine Noticias.

The photographer José Luis Cabezas was murdered this weekend,

and his Argentine colleagues suspect that the murder has political implications.

The national government

is being asked to clarify what happened to José Luis Cabezas.

It's unbelievable. This is such a horrible event.

Justice!

-Cabezas! -Here!

Cabezas! Here!

Ríos, if asked to testify, what will you tell the judge?

Nothing says this cannot happen again,

that this was unique.

It's one of the darkest periods in Argentine history.

Yabrán, what do you think about being linked to the murder?

Yabrán is just another businessman.

Mr. Yabrán leads a mafia.

They are criminals.

This is a gangster flick.

The car is totally burned up.

It was deliberately put there and then burned.

I always think back to that summer of 1997.

Its something that stays with you for your whole life.

GABRIEL MICHI JOURNALIST

Honestly, you're never prepared for something like that.

I worked with José Luis Cabezas at Noticias magazine.

We covered summertime in Pinamar.

And working that story together made us closer, we became friends.

Pinamar is more than just the mixture of green, sand and ocean.

Pinamar is like the fashion mecca of the Argentine coast.

Pinamar in the '90s was a synthesis

of what was going on in national politics.

There was this frivolity

being promoted by president Carlos Menem.

A system of space flights will go up to the stratosphere

and from there, in an hour and a half, we can go from Argentina

to Japan, Korea or anywhere in the world.

Being in politics was showing off

with a Ferrari, dancing with escorts.

It was showing off power

and a fascination for consumption and ostentation.

The jet set mixed precisely with politics.

Pinamar was this place where

every summer, we said,

there was a thread, there was political negotiation.

The main participants in "Menemism" of the time, all went there.

Between reports and negotiations, if there is time for the beach,

the politicians choose the exclusive CR resort.

Pinamar was one of the most beautiful seaside resorts on the coast.

We journalists liked going.

Pinamar was the soundtrack to life.

OSCAR ANDREANI BUSINESSMAN

We really enjoyed the beach, the whole place.

We had a group of great friends who were in Pinamar.

On January 24, 1997…

Hi. How are you?

…Oscar Andreani had a party, which was a very important party,

very characteristic of Pinamar,

because he really liked setting off fireworks.

Since we had so many friends, we said,

"Let's throw a party." A little, let's say, more extravagant.

I started to realize that the party had grown much larger than I thought.

It had become a Pinamar party.

And we covered it, you could say, with José Luis taking photos,

me seeing who was there.

We spent the whole time together.

Around 4:00 a.m., I tell José Luis,

"Look, I want to go." I ask him what he wants to do.

José Luis tells me, "No, I want to stay."

It was just so much fun there.

So I give him the car keys

and that was the last contact I had with José Luis.

I remember at the time, it was about 5:00 in the morning,

I ran into José Luis Cabezas.

I was going upstairs and he was going down, to leave.

There was no need to say anything, we were just crossing paths,

and he said to me, "Incredible. Incredible."

JANUARY 25, 1997

On January 25th,

we planned to go out to do our tour around 2:00 p.m.

So, I send him a message, because he didn't arrive at 2:00 p.m.

José Luis was very punctual. I called his home.

José Luis's mother-in-law tells me not only that José wasn't there,

but that, "Actually, he hasn't come back since you picked him up last night."

I thought, "How could he not have come back?"

That's where I started to worry. I thought, "What happened?"

The first thing I do is call our colleagues,

and I find out that José Luis had left Andreani's house at 5:10 a.m.

I call the hotel, where we had our office.

Nobody knew anything.

So I tell my friends there, I tell them, "Hey, let's go to the hospital,

see if there was an accident or something."

To the Pinamar hospital, right?

We go inside and before reaching the hospital,

we swing by the police station.

MAP OF PINAMAR

PINAMAR POLICE STATION

I see him, the Pinamar commissioner, Alberto Gómez.

POLICE

So I went downstairs and asked him, "Gómez, do you know anything?"

"I'm looking for José Luis Cabezas, the photographer from Noticias."

And he told me, "No, I don't know anything."

"What car do you guys drive?" And I tell him, "A white Ford Fiesta."

He tells me, "I think I have some bad news for you."

I thought, "What happened here?"

I thought of an accident, I thought the car might have been stolen,

Something like that.

He goes to his office, I'm behind him,

and on his walkie-talkie he talks to the team

where the car had appeared.

And I hear him tell the police officer there,

"I think we have identified the body."

"It is José Luis Cabezas, from Noticias magazine."

And I tell him, "But you have to know whether or not it is José Luis."

And he tells me,

"There is no way to identify him, because the body is completely burned."

We're going to try to film this site.

Yes.

Here you can see the place where the car is.

It's almost impossible to see it.

Yes, what we have here is a car that is burnt out.

Totally burnt out, containing a body with male features,

and the CSI is coming to work on it.

My name is Mariano Cazeaux.

My role during the Cabezas case was

secretary of the Criminal and Correctional Court No. 2 of Dolores,

under the leadership of Dr. José Luis Macchi.

COURTHOUSE DOLORES

The judicial department of Dolores has a very wide jurisdiction,

and that means that it reaches the coastal municipalities.

ATLANTIC COAST DOWNTOWN DOLORES

JANUARY 25, 1997

On January 25th, a police report arrives,

detailing the discovery of a vehicle on fire with a corpse inside.

COMPLETELY BURNT

The initial police report

was so unclear, so short,

that it could be read as an accident.

TO SALADA GRANDE LAGOON

They take me to the ditch in General Madariaga.

A policeman comes, they tell him, "This is Cabezas's partner."

They let me in.

I get to the ditch.

I see that terrible image,

which is an image

that comes to mind so clearly,

I will never forget.

I couldn't believe that what I saw there was José Luis.

It's… it was, it was terrible.

So, I ask him if they had found a camera.

And they tell me, "No, no camera."

And I ask if they had found film rolls, they show me some burnt rolls.

And they start showing me a series of objects.

They show me a piece of a cowboy boot, they show me a watch,

some handcuffs.

That's when I found out that he had been handcuffed.

And they show me a set of keys.

I see a key that seems to be the one for the office we had in Pinamar.

And since I had another set of keys,

I go to my backpack, I get my set of keys,

and we compared them and they were the same.

And we went to Pinamar.

We went to the office.

We tried the keys.

The keys fit and opened the office.

That's when it hit me.

That's when I knew that the person who had been murdered and burned

was really José Luis.

JOURNALIST MURDERED AND BURNT ON THE COAST

JOURNALIST'S BODY FOUND IN GENERAL MADARIAGA

The first moment was one of enormous confusion.

EDI ZUNINO JOURNALIST, NOTICIAS MAGAZINE

I didn't really understand what was going on.