The Huayno Murders Sentence

When Huayno star Alicia Delgado, aka “the Princess of Folk,” the most famous musician in the scene, was brutally murdered in June 2009, everyone in town went into a frenzy. We went to Lima to investigate for our latest Music World series, the , which takes a look into a whole rash of murders in the Peruvian folk music scene, including Alicia’s. We met everyone linked to her crime, which involved a lot of people, including Abencia Meza, Alicia’s secret lesbian girlfriend of eight years—who, by the way, is also a huge star. (A lot to take in, we know.) We left Lima totally uncertain of who was guilty. Meanwhile, Delgado’s driver, Pedro Mamanchura, who she’d recently fired, confessed to the murder and was sent off to prison. But it didn’t end there, as the case became more and more complicated when evidence began to focus on Meza, who was always very open about her desperate, aggressive love for the singer (and explicitly spells it out on camera for us).  Three days ago Meza was also found guilty and sentenced to 30 years in prison for ordering the murder, the maximum sentence in Peruvian jurisdiction, and a shockingly severe punishment for someone who didn’t actually commit the crime.

We talked with our friend Jesus Palomino, head reporter of the homicide department at Trome newspaper, who updated us on the case.

VICE: For the people unaware regarding the story of the Huayno murders, can you tell us what’s happened? I imagine it’s a total shit show over there right now.  

Jesus Palomino: It’s been insane. I mean, I can’t tell you I think they’ve “done the right thing” because I don’t want to lose objectivity. They’ve given Abencia Meza 30 years in jail because she’s behind the crime, and a lot of people are backing this up.

What’s next?
She’ll take her appeal to the Supreme Court to see if they can determine if at least they can bring down her sentence or not. That could happen in a month or two. The judges gave her the opportunity to speak up and tell the truth and she said that she was condemned because of her sexual orientation. But they didn’t see her in a positive light for a lot of other reasons. One being that she did poorly in her psychiatric analysis.

What did it say?
The psychiatrists said that Abencia is a complete narcissist and they that her crime is in line with her attitude. She’s cold and aggressive and she just couldn’t handle being left for the harpist. Alicia had been having an affair with the harpist for well over six months.

OK, what about the harpist, Miguel Salas, whose semen was found inside Alicia when she was pronounced dead?
He says that this whole thing happened because of Abencia’s jealousy and that she definitely sent Pedro Mamanchura, the driver, to kill Alicia. What is happening here is that they think Abencia Meza killed Alicia Delgado out of jealousy and vengeance. That’s what the judges decided--that she instigated the murder and that’s why she’s receiving the same penalty as the person who actually committed the crime.  But no one really expected this, for her to receive the same punishment as the person that committed the crime with their own hands.

So what about the driver, Pedro? What’s been going on with him?
He confiessed to the crime, but get this: He tried to clean Abencia’s name. It was insane. It happened on Sunday. Apparently Abencia made her friends send Pedro Mamanchura money in jail in order for him to say it was “all him” and that Abencia had nothing to do with the crime.

Oh my god. Did anyone believe him? How did he tell everyone?
He sent a letter to all of the people involved in the case in Lima saying that Abencia had nothing to do with it. And this raised a lot of suspicions. He was like, “Nah she didn’t have anything to do with it,” like two days before the day they were declaring the sentence…. So as of now she’s supposedly gonna stay in jail until 2041. But we’ll see.

And how is Abencia doing?
Well, she’s very calm. But she’s been pill-popping in order to be able to sleep, and she’s been sick, like she’s had an upset stomach.

That’s kind of gross to know.
Well, the public doesn’t care. Everyone sees her as the instigator to this crime, even though Pedro tried to switch it all up three days ago.

Isn’t that just completely insane that he would think it would work though?
Well, let me tell you it’s a bit of a tactic. Because Alicia Delgado fired Pedro, he said he reacted in a violent way. He wanted to help himself out with that one. In Peru there is a legislation that states if you act violently and you have a violent reaction, due to emotion, the amount of time in jail is less. Like if you diss me and I get mad and I killed you, that would be a violent emotion on my behalf, and it wouldn’t weigh the same as someone thinking through a murder and looking for a murder weapon and everything.

So it’s like “Latin rage,” sort of.  That’s insane.
I know. Anyway, he tried to pull this off. But the judges didn’t believe it.

What’s up with her sister, Clarissa? I mean, she seems pretty guilty.
She owned up to cleaning everything and says she’s happy it’s all settled and that her sister will rest in peace. She’s totally exonerated.

And Abencia’s son? He’s talking to the press isn’t he?
Yes, he is going around, saying to the cameras, “Mommy, you’ll be OK, they’ll see that you don’t deserve this. Mamanchura did this to you.” I don’t know, between you and I, I can say that no one expected this to happen, everyone expected 15 years, or 20 or less. No one knows why it got so heavy.

What do you think the issue here is? Why did this happen?
We’ve let so much time go by. Don’t forget we’ve been dealing with this since June, 2009. So much time has gone by, people went home, Abencia was let free. And she went back to her old ways and a lot of things were just left to “happen.”

Right. She’s a party animal, can you elaborate on that?
She was back in jail two months ago. They told her not to party, not to drink, not to drink and drive. She didn’t care, so much so that she knew she couldn’t talk about Alicia’s case to the press, and yet she talked about it. And at some point they found her in a car, completely drunk, was talking about Alicia Delgado when she wasn’t supposed to. So she’s been back in jail for two months already.

The Huayno scene seems pretty messed up. What are the “relevant” players saying?
The artists are saying this is excessive and others say its not. I can’t give you names because we just started conducting interviews today. But a lot of folk stars are saying this was fair.

It’s a coincidence this is going down right now that the murderers of Rina Chiara Prado AKA La Voz del Incuyo were sentenced for life in jail. Remember her? She was pregnant and was burnt alive. The people guilty of that crime were a female cop who was married to a sheriff with whom Rina Chiara Prado had had an affair. The wife hired someone and they both went in it together and killed her.

Seems everyone is pretty brutal with their choice of murder in the Huayno Scene.
Alicia’s was definitely messy to say the least. It was so violent, to be honest. She got slapped around, they punched her, they stabbed her with a knife, strangled her, dragged her around…. it was terrible. And you know “Cancer de Amor” [Love Cancer], her last song…

Of course- it’s a jam. What do you think that even means though?
She knew it was coming. And today, every newspaper in Peru has this story on their cover.

My obvious question is this: Are they making a mini series or a novella or something?
Well, there are all the ingredients here for a really dark novella. They were thinking about doing a mini-series about the crime of Alicia Delgado, but the artists have refused to make this happen because you know…

Because that would be fucked up?
Yeah, exactly.

Who do you think did it? Watch the  here.