The Caracal case, in Court
Prosecutors accuse Gheorghe Dinca of having kidnapped, raped, murdered and burnt two teenage girls.
Roxana Vasile, 16.01.2020, 14:00
More than half a year after the opening of the Caracal case, Gheorghe Dinca, who is in pre-trial arrest, has been charged in an eight-count indictment: human trafficking, child trafficking, rape (2 crimes), first-degree murder and desecration of corpses. Prosecutors accuse Gheorghe Dinca of having kidnapped, raped, murdered and burnt two teenage girls — Luiza Melencu, aged 18 and Alegandra Macesanu, aged 15.
Evidence show that on the day she was kidnapped, Luiza was simultaneously raped by Gheorghe Dinca and a neighbour of his, Stefan Risipiteanu. The latter has been detained by the police a few days ago. Luiza was allegedly killed three days later, for refusing to obey Dinca. According to prosecutors, after murdering her, Dinca burned her body into a metallic barrel in his backyard and then got rid of the bone fragments and ashes, which he threw in a forest near Caracal. Alexandra Macesanu shared a similar faith three months later. Kidnapped and kept hostage by Dinca, she managed to call emergency services three times.
In spite of the information that she gave the operator, the Special Telecommunication Service (STS) was unable to locate her so the police needed 19 hours to find her. The delay was also due to the case prosecutor who invoked legal provisions that prevented the police from intervening right away. Dinca admitted during the hearings that he murdered Alexandra Macesanu right after he realised she had called the police and then burned the body. Towards the end of the inquiry, early this year, the defendant changed his testimony, denying he had killed Luiza Melencu and claiming she had been taken by other people from his house after he and a companion had raped her. The girls’ families believe they have been victims to human trafficking and have refused to take their death certificates.
There are still a number of unanswered questions in this case: why, in spite of the fact that one of the girls managed to call the police three times to give indications about her location, she was not found on time? Why hasn’t been issued an international search warrant in their case? Why, has the investigation initially been conducted in a faulty manner, risking to evidence? There is, however, a different version to the case, according to which Dinca did not act alone, for which reasons investigations are conducted for complicity to murder, complicity to human trafficking and to child trafficking. (Translated by Elena Enache)
