Speaker 1: Hello, Avenger listeners, It's Steve Fishman and I'm really glad
Speaker 1: you've tuned in. I hope you love this show as
Speaker 1: much as we do. A quick word on an upcoming
Speaker 1: bonus episode. We're doing a bonus with Miriam, the real Miriam.
Speaker 1: We'll be asking her questions, your questions and getting answers.
Speaker 1: She'll update us on what's going on in her world
Speaker 1: and a lot has Please email your questions or thoughts
Speaker 1: or comments too. Info at Orbitmedia dot fm. Oh And
Speaker 1: Fisher Stevens can answer your questions too. He's our co
Speaker 1: founder and resident Oscar winner. He's an actor you saw
Speaker 1: him in Succession and director of actors like al Pacino
Speaker 1: and Justin Timberlake. For Avenger, he directed Alexis Bledel, who
Speaker 1: voices Miriam. If we're lucky, Alexis who was the star
Speaker 1: of Gilmore Girls and Handmaid's Tale and is the daughter
Speaker 1: of an Argentine. We'll chip in answers to so let
Speaker 1: us know your thoughts and questions, hopes and prayers. Info
Speaker 1: at Orbitmedia dot fm. Thanks. In today's episode, the disappeared
Speaker 1: people who were literally unaccounted for. No one could find them,
Speaker 1: no one had seen them, no one knew if they
Speaker 1: were still alive. The dictator of Argentina denied knowing anything
Speaker 1: about them, if they even existed, and then bodies bloated,
Speaker 1: bodies washed up on shore. A quick word about subscriptions.
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Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 3: Before we begin, please note that for this story we
Speaker 3: interviewed medium and everyone else for dozens of hours in Spanish.
Speaker 3: We hired actors to voice their words in English. In
Speaker 3: Buenos Aires, there's a particular weather phenomenon, a storm called aasulistada.
Speaker 3: Cold southern winds mixed with ocean humidity to create powerful gusts, rain,
Speaker 3: and rough seas. In December of nineteen seventy seven, Asulhstada
Speaker 3: slams into the coast of Buenos Aires. Days after the storm,
Speaker 3: six bodies wash up on shore. Witnesses who find the
Speaker 3: bodies describe them as swollen, severed. They call the police.
Speaker 4: The police. Magical examiner dem meant that the bodies that
Speaker 4: surfaced had vertical bone fractures. This happens when someone falls
Speaker 4: from a very high place.
Speaker 3: That's Carlos Somiliana, who goes by Marco. He's a forensic
Speaker 3: expert you heard from in the last episode.
Speaker 4: Since they couldn't identify the bodies, they buried them as
Speaker 4: an n that short for no menesco Latin for unknown name.
Speaker 3: In nineteen seventy nine, two years after those bodies washed ashore,
Speaker 3: General Jorge Rafael Videla gives a rare press conference at
Speaker 3: the presidential Palace. Pope John Paul the Second had recently
Speaker 3: called out the number of disappeared in Argentina, and a
Speaker 3: brave reporter asks a sensitive question. What the reporter asked,
Speaker 3: is the government doing anything about the disappeared. General Videla
Speaker 3: is thrown.
Speaker 2: He could not.
Speaker 3: He tries to fill the awkward silence as he thinks
Speaker 3: of a response. He starts saying he's going to speak
Speaker 3: from a Christian pro human rights perspective, which didn't make
Speaker 3: much sense, and then he says the disappeared are just
Speaker 3: a mystery. They're neither dead nor alive. They're just disappeared.
Speaker 5: Notty that no is that.
Speaker 3: But it won't always stay that way. More will be
Speaker 3: known about those six unidentified bodies that washed up on shore.
Speaker 3: They'll become crucial evidence that will lead to the truth
Speaker 3: about one of the most horrific operations carried out by
Speaker 3: the Junta, the death flights. It's a gruesome discovery that
Speaker 3: will finally confirm what Medium and Giancarlo say. They've uncovered
Speaker 3: the names of those responsible from Orbit Media. I'm Andres
Speaker 3: Caaba Scheedo. This is a Venger. The story of Medium
Speaker 3: Lewin Episode seven, The Bodies. Months after Videla's press conference
Speaker 3: where he talked about the mystery of the disappeared, Carlos
Speaker 3: and Medium are getting to know each other better. Carlos
Speaker 3: is a fellow prisoner Medium had started seeing around the
Speaker 3: time she was released from captivity. She's slowly fallen in
Speaker 3: love with Carlos, and now they have a baby on
Speaker 3: the way.
Speaker 2: I slowly warmed up to Carlos. It it took a
Speaker 2: while because I was still mourning the death of one
Speaker 2: the man I married before my kidnapping.
Speaker 3: Before her release from prison, Medium had gotten confirmation that
Speaker 3: Juan had been killed. He was the love of her life.
Speaker 3: A fellow activist. They had gone underground together, living every
Speaker 3: moment like it was their last. For Medium, her relationship
Speaker 3: with Cardlos developed slowly but steadily. They had been thrown
Speaker 3: together by circumstance, two survivors who understood each other's trauma,
Speaker 3: and she knew he would be a good dad to Juan,
Speaker 3: which is the name she gave her baby.
Speaker 2: Even with all the uncertainty about the future, I never
Speaker 2: doubted about not having the baby.
Speaker 3: With Medium out of captivity and about to give birth,
Speaker 3: she and Godlos decide that the only way for them
Speaker 3: to live a normal life is to leave Argentina become exiles.
Speaker 3: Medium had family in New York City, so that was
Speaker 3: their best option.
Speaker 2: But I couldn't leave the kind without government officials knowing
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 3: Remember, she had been released but with certain conditions. So
Speaker 3: Medium and Cardlos follow protocol and ask for permission to
Speaker 3: leave the country.
Speaker 2: I told them I was going to be a mother
Speaker 2: and that I wanted a new life far away from
Speaker 2: all the trauma I had experienced.
Speaker 3: At first, it seems Medium and Carlos will leave without
Speaker 3: any issues, but then three esthma survivors who had recently
Speaker 3: been allowed to move to Europe had held a press conference.
Speaker 3: They accused the Junta of its brutal crimes. Suddenly, the
Speaker 3: processing of Mediums in Cardluss's passports is canceled.
Speaker 2: We were frustrated. It was a reminder that we were
Speaker 2: still hostages.
Speaker 3: Medium will have to give birth in Argentina.
Speaker 2: My mom was still getting over her anger and shame
Speaker 2: because I wasn't married. I never thought I'd get pregnant
Speaker 2: in the first place, especially in such a new relationship,
Speaker 2: but still I was always sure I wanted to have
Speaker 2: the baby.
Speaker 3: Medium carried the painful memory of her two best friends
Speaker 3: who were captured and killed by the Junta years earlier.
Speaker 3: They were also pregnant.
Speaker 2: Having that baby was a way to honor life itself
Speaker 2: and my friends who were murdered before giving birth.
Speaker 3: But many women did give birth well captive, they didn't
Speaker 3: get to keep their children. During the six years in power,
Speaker 3: the Junta stole roughly five hundred babies from their mothers,
Speaker 3: selling them or giving them to families cozy with the military.
Speaker 3: Medium knew that tragedy up close. One day, when Medium
Speaker 3: was still captive at ESMA, a pregnant woman came into
Speaker 3: the prison. Medium immediately recognized her. That was Patricia, her
Speaker 3: friend from college. When she heard that Paticia was about
Speaker 3: to give birth, she immediately ran to see her.
Speaker 2: The doctor had this stern look on his face before
Speaker 2: he cut the umbilical cord. I smiled at Patricia and
Speaker 2: asked about the name of the baby. She replied Rodolpho.
Speaker 2: Then the doctor congratulated her and took them away, mother
Speaker 2: and newborn. I never saw Patricia or the baby again.
Speaker 2: It never crossed my mind that they were stealing babies.
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe people were capable
Speaker 2: of doing such a thing. Pregnant women were told their
Speaker 2: babies would be given to their grandparents. They were encouraged
Speaker 2: to write letters to their family members them know the
Speaker 2: baby's name, the instructions on how to raise them until
Speaker 2: their release. Unfortunately, these mothers never got to see their
Speaker 2: children again. Instead, they would be put on death flights
Speaker 2: about Patricia and her baby. I actually helped her family
Speaker 2: search for him, and we found him. He was twenty three.
Speaker 2: He had been stolen by an agent from the Air Force.
Speaker 2: They named him Guillermo. He had no clue who his
Speaker 2: real mother was. It was very hard for him to
Speaker 2: learn the.
Speaker 6: Truth Abla el tal donjorhir Rafael Vivela.
Speaker 3: By nineteen eighty one, an economic crisis is brewing and
Speaker 3: among the junta members there's a growing conflict. Some want
Speaker 3: to adopt a harder line, others want democracy. In the
Speaker 3: middle of this, the junta follows through with a plan
Speaker 3: for Videla to step down. During a televised speech, General
Speaker 3: Vivela relinquishes power to another junta leader. While this is happening,
Speaker 3: Medium and her family's passports are finally issued. They're free
Speaker 3: to go into exile, away from the fear, the paranoia.
Speaker 2: And we finally landed in New York City. We moved
Speaker 2: into the second floor of a two family house in Flushing, Queens.
Speaker 2: It was close to a botanical garden in an immigrant neighborhood,
Speaker 2: mostly Latinos, but also a lot of people from India China.
Speaker 2: Our place was big, a lot of light came in.
Speaker 2: The walls were covered in beige wallpaper with a little
Speaker 2: square powder, and downstairs from us lived a Filipino family.
Speaker 3: Medium's aunt also lives in New York, so she has
Speaker 3: family there and they spend most of their time working
Speaker 3: a lot to pay the bills and support their new baby.
Speaker 3: Life wasn't easy. Godless gets a van and delivers newspapers.
Speaker 2: Carlos didn't really want to be there. He found it
Speaker 2: hard to adapt. He didn't want to learn English either.
Speaker 2: He'd get up at four am and when he was done,
Speaker 2: we would have breakfast. I'd drop my baby off with
Speaker 2: a babysitter and head straight to work.
Speaker 3: Medium works as a paralegal at an immigration law firm.
Speaker 2: We still lived in fear. Every time someone asked me
Speaker 2: about my past, I'd look around, paranoid I'd be kidnapped
Speaker 2: again at any moment.
Speaker 3: She's also careful who she shares her past with.
Speaker 2: It was normal for many survivors to be accused of
Speaker 2: being traitors by friends or family members of the disappeared.
Speaker 2: If you were a man like Carlos, you would be
Speaker 2: accused of giving away information that led others to getting captured.
Speaker 2: And if you are a woman, you likely survived because
Speaker 2: you slept with your captors and because you gave away information.
Speaker 3: With that stigma comes guilt, a.
Speaker 2: Lot of guilt. Because we survived. Many times I burst
Speaker 2: into tears and asked myself, why didn't I manage to
Speaker 2: swallow that pill. Why why am I not dead right now?
Speaker 2: It was unbearable. I mean, it's the early eighties. D
Speaker 2: Arunta was still in power in Argentina. At that time,
Speaker 2: no one dreamed of a trial against the arunta still
Speaker 2: Carlos and I never doubted that sounding the alarm about
Speaker 2: what was happening was the right thing to do.
Speaker 3: Medium connects with the human rights lawyer.
Speaker 2: The lawyer would call me from Washington, d C. To
Speaker 2: ask questions, and I would write down my experiences and
Speaker 2: mail the documents to their office.
Speaker 3: Going public is a necessary step for Medium for her
Speaker 3: own sanity, but it's not easy.
Speaker 2: After all those years of being held captive, I became
Speaker 2: hypervigilant that feeling that I was being surveilled, especially when
Speaker 2: I started collaborating with the human rights groups, telling them
Speaker 2: everything I knew.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, in Argentina, foreign debt and record inflation are pushing
Speaker 3: the country closer to financial collapse. The Junta's desperate and
Speaker 3: creates a distraction. It starts a war against England. They
Speaker 3: call on patriotism, nationalistic pride, and many butt into this
Speaker 3: cul to unity.
Speaker 6: Siege and benitheveng and represent Vataza.
Speaker 3: In nineteen eighty two, the dictatorship orders its troops to
Speaker 3: invade the Malvinas, also known as the Falkland Islands, off
Speaker 3: Argentina's southern coast. They had long been disputed and occupied
Speaker 3: by the British.
Speaker 2: It was a risky and ridiculous move by the junta, but.
Speaker 3: It works in a way. The Calton nationalism is powerful.
Speaker 3: People rally behind the junta. Medium even notices it.
Speaker 4: In New York.
Speaker 2: I saw how a lot of anti junta activists were
Speaker 2: so invested in this war that they got into a
Speaker 2: feastfight with an Englishman on Fifth Avenue.
Speaker 5: Argentina has seized the British Falkland Islands, whose ownership she's
Speaker 5: been disputing with Britain for two centuries. Britain has suffered
Speaker 5: its first major losses in the Falklands inflict the Ministry
Speaker 5: of Defense.
Speaker 3: But the tide turns in Britain ramps up its assault.
Speaker 3: The war lasts seventy four days. There's more than six
Speaker 3: hundred dead Argentines and thousands of wounded soldiers. The military
Speaker 3: junta surrenders.
Speaker 4: As were of the Argentine defeat, leaked out in winners Iris.
Speaker 4: Thousands of demonstrators began to gather outside the presidential palace.
Speaker 4: Will the junta lasts and if so, for how long?
Speaker 3: The dictatorship falls? And after six years democracy returns to Argentina.
Speaker 2: The war was just a desperate move by the junta
Speaker 2: to stay in power. They once actually used the World Cup,
Speaker 2: which helped them, but this war meant the end of
Speaker 2: the dictatorship.
Speaker 3: People are ecstatic, hopeful. The newly elected president, Raoul al
Speaker 3: Fonsine promises freedom, peace. He waves from a balcony as
Speaker 3: tens of thousands of people cheer below in the main square,
Speaker 3: Confetti flying everywhere outside of Argentina. More survivors in exile
Speaker 3: are denouncing the junta and its crimes. Medium and Carlos
Speaker 3: are called to testify at the Argentine consulate in New York.
Speaker 2: And really, that was the first time I even imagined
Speaker 2: the possibility that survivors like us would ever find justice
Speaker 2: and that we would become such key players in the
Speaker 2: trials against the junta.
Speaker 3: It's been three years since Medium in Carlos left Argentina.
Speaker 3: Now they start talking about going back.
Speaker 2: We wanted to raise our kids in our own country,
Speaker 2: a free country. Life in New York was complicated at
Speaker 2: one point. We were offered to be part of a
Speaker 2: housing program and buy an apartment in the city, but
Speaker 2: Carlos didn't want to get involved. He thought it was
Speaker 2: too much of a commitment. I didn't mind it. My
Speaker 2: aunt wanted me to stay. I was still young and
Speaker 2: I had a green card, so I could stay and
Speaker 2: go to college.
Speaker 3: Gordless prevails. In nineteen eighty four, Medium and her family
Speaker 3: board a flight to Buenos Aires.
Speaker 2: Exile is like having a hole in your soul. I
Speaker 2: was happy to go back, hopeful about the future, these
Speaker 2: trials that were in the making. I knew that I
Speaker 2: could potentially be a part of something important, a new
Speaker 2: process that could transform the country.
Speaker 3: Medium's excitement about the future about this new free Argentina
Speaker 3: doesn't last long. As she steps off the plane with
Speaker 3: her kids, she sees two men in uniform at the egg.
Speaker 3: They're staring right at her.
Speaker 2: As soon as I made eye contact with them saw
Speaker 2: who they were, I started to panic.
Speaker 3: These men had been in the torture room with Medium
Speaker 3: years earlier, the day she was kidnapped.
Speaker 2: I tell Carlos who those men were. I thought they'd
Speaker 2: been sent to kidnap me again. So my instinct was
Speaker 2: to turn around and walk back onto the plane.
Speaker 3: But the men weren't there to kidnap her. They were
Speaker 3: working as security now employed by the airport.
Speaker 2: When they recognized me, they also started panicking. I think
Speaker 2: they thought I was going to accuse them of kidnapping
Speaker 2: and torture, right there in front of everyone.
Speaker 3: But as she walks past them, she keeps quiet, and
Speaker 3: so do they.
Speaker 2: Not only were they free, they were security guards, and
Speaker 2: they were carrying out their lives as if nothing had
Speaker 2: ever happened.
Speaker 3: The dictatorship has foun democracy has returned, but these men
Speaker 3: are free, living with impunity, working as airport police.
Speaker 6: Sea do wios antecedent and then moved.
Speaker 3: Not long after Medium returns to Buenos Aires, President Alfonsine
Speaker 3: announces that a trial will begin to prosecute the military leaders,
Speaker 3: the Trial of the Juntas. It's the first of its kind,
Speaker 3: not just for Argentina but for all of Latin America.
Speaker 3: The first time military leaders will be held responsible for
Speaker 3: human rights abuses. Some see it as the most significant
Speaker 3: since the Nuremberg trials. The commanders refuse to recognize the
Speaker 3: trial as legitimate. Some elected officials dismiss it as retaliation
Speaker 3: by the subversives, and many Argentines are skeptical too. Is
Speaker 3: it all a show? Could these junta leaders really be
Speaker 3: sentenced for their crimes? The military is still powerful.
Speaker 6: The cougom opinion termina racons in quendanio de froutracion democratica.
Speaker 2: In the.
Speaker 3: An estelevised speech, the president promises the trial will help
Speaker 3: heal the country.
Speaker 2: I started getting recruited to testify in all sorts of cases.
Speaker 2: My mother was horrified by the idea. It was scary
Speaker 2: there could be retaliation. Many of my comrades didn't feel safe.
Speaker 2: Some came back from exile to testify and then immediately
Speaker 2: left the country.
Speaker 3: The prosecutors tell medium to avoid her home during the
Speaker 3: days before and after the trial. She could be a target,
Speaker 3: and so could they.
Speaker 2: It was my duty to testify, also my chance to
Speaker 2: address that guilt for having survived, to avenge the torture,
Speaker 2: the murder of my friends, of all the victims of the.
Speaker 5: Junta quioi alas members dilatares de jamalo pro.
Speaker 3: It's nineteen eighty five and the trial begins. The court
Speaker 3: has high ceilings, wood paneled walls, and it's packed with journalists,
Speaker 3: relatives of the disappeared and activists fill the balcony. Medium
Speaker 3: sits in front of the judge ready to testify. She's
Speaker 3: wearing a black blazer, her reddish brown hair at shoulder length,
Speaker 3: and sitting in the road. Just behind her are the
Speaker 3: nine Junta commanders on trial, most of them still in uniform.
Speaker 3: There's Admiral Masceda, then the main Junta leader, General Videla,
Speaker 3: in a gray blazer and thick glasses.
Speaker 2: The whole scene was intimidating, nine of the commanders and
Speaker 2: their defense attorneys looking right at you.
Speaker 3: The trial is public, which means anyone can attend, but
Speaker 3: it's not broadcast live on TV. Only minutes of each
Speaker 3: hearing were broadcast. Some say because of pressure intimidation by
Speaker 3: the military in different sectors of society. Others going to
Speaker 3: the media still being fearful of upsetting the military. And
Speaker 3: then there's Medium, the Avenger, confident, fearless. That's the real Medium,
Speaker 3: testifying in Spanish. She smokes and ashes a cigarette while
Speaker 3: she testifies in detail about prisoners being sedated and thrown
Speaker 3: out of planes into the sea. It was upsetting, but
Speaker 3: this is a moment Medium was waiting for. She was
Speaker 3: focused at peace.
Speaker 2: At that moment, I was so calm and collected, I
Speaker 2: could have eaten a slice of pizza and testified.
Speaker 3: At the same time, she talks about the prisoners she
Speaker 3: met in captivity and names her captors, among them Alfredo Astis,
Speaker 3: the blond angel of Death. She also mentions Admiral Maceda,
Speaker 3: who ran Esma now the ten Defender. The junta commanders
Speaker 3: refused to admit guilt. They called the trial unconstitutional. They
Speaker 3: deny that clandestine torture centers existed and say they had
Speaker 3: never met any of the survivors testifying against them. But
Speaker 3: Medium has proof. She tells the story of the Taimastis
Speaker 3: knocked on her door when she was living outside of
Speaker 3: Esma under surveillance. The Deasties took her to a cafe
Speaker 3: before he left the country and wrote his contact information
Speaker 3: in ink on a napkin.
Speaker 2: I told the judge, here's the napkin for the court
Speaker 2: to see. I found it inside one of my notebooks
Speaker 2: from nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 3: The judge tells Medium to hand over the napkin to
Speaker 3: one of the clerks. That napkin becomes crucial evidence. It
Speaker 3: proves that the junta leaders are lying about not knowing
Speaker 3: the prisoners, there's no way to deny it.
Speaker 5: Emilio Elmira, Raa, Gualo Rossi and Delitos.
Speaker 3: The trial lasts several months. Hundreds of witnesses testify. Finally,
Speaker 3: Chief Prosecutor Julio Cesar Strasera delivers his closing argument. It
Speaker 3: will go down in Argentine history. He says, quote, I
Speaker 3: want to use a phrase that doesn't belong to me,
Speaker 3: because it now belongs to the Argentine people. Never again
Speaker 3: a Totalino, Senor quess. People are chanting and crying, shouting
Speaker 3: things like murders at the commanders. General Videla stands up
Speaker 3: scans the room, anxious to get out. Videla and Macera
Speaker 3: are convicted for kidnapping, torture, murder to life in prison.
Speaker 3: The trials for sexual abuse and stealing of babies would
Speaker 3: follow years later. Yes, this trial was historic, the first
Speaker 3: of its kind, but justice was still not at hand.
Speaker 3: They were found guilty, but the former junta leaders and
Speaker 3: their accomplices wouldn't be punished, not yet.
Speaker 2: In the years that followed, the new president came under
Speaker 2: a lot of pressure from the military. They were still
Speaker 2: very powerful. The government felt pressure to pass new amnesty laws.
Speaker 2: Those laws brought twenty more years of impunity.
Speaker 3: Exactly one year after the trial, the so called full
Speaker 3: Stop law interrupts all new or ongoing trials related to
Speaker 3: the junta's crimes. Impunity becomes the watchword. Soon after the
Speaker 3: Due Obedience Law takes effect. It exempted lower military members
Speaker 3: from charges because they were quote just following orders. Those
Speaker 3: who kidnapped medium, those who tortured her were free.
Speaker 2: The survivors we'd continue to come across our kidnappers torturers
Speaker 2: on the street, at a stoplight, at the movie theater,
Speaker 2: wherever we felt helpless, because it showed that these trials
Speaker 2: had brought no real punishment, no real justice.
Speaker 3: Fast forward two decades. In December of two thousand and four, Mako,
Speaker 3: the guy from the forensic team, gets a tip about
Speaker 3: a mass grave where the remains of people who had
Speaker 3: disappeared may be buried.
Speaker 4: This information led us to a cemetery where we found
Speaker 4: six bodies buried in a mass grave. They were all unidentified.
Speaker 3: They were the same bodies that had been discovered on
Speaker 3: the beach two decades earlier, in nineteen seventy seven. The
Speaker 3: bodies described by witnesses as swollen severed, the medical examiners
Speaker 3: could tell that the storm that powerful Sudhestalla had driven
Speaker 3: the bodies to shore. But then they made a surprising discovery.
Speaker 3: The victims didn't die from drowning. They died from impact
Speaker 3: from falling from a high altitude. These were, without a doubt,
Speaker 3: bodies of the disappeared who had been tossed from death
Speaker 3: flights for years. Maco's job was to identify the remains
Speaker 3: and return them to their families, but this case is different.
Speaker 3: By the time Michaeo digs up the grave, new forensic
Speaker 3: technology helps him identify some of the bodies and confirm
Speaker 3: dates and causes of death. Maco's team is also tasked
Speaker 3: with analyzing all the Skyline flight logs the courts had
Speaker 3: in their possession, cross referencing the logs with the bodies.
Speaker 2: Giancarlo had been documenting Maco's work, so he had direct
Speaker 2: access to him and there was trust. As soon as
Speaker 2: they finished analyzing more than two thousand logs, Maco tells
Speaker 2: Giancarlo to come to his office. He has something to
Speaker 2: share with him. At his office, Maco asks Giancarlo if
Speaker 2: he's familiar with El Grupo de la Santa Cruz, the
Speaker 2: Santa Cruz church group.
Speaker 3: Giancarlo knew all about them. I had just read a
Speaker 3: book about them. There are a group of mothers who disappeared,
Speaker 3: along with two nuns kidnapped by the Junta. The mothers
Speaker 3: who attended the church group were also part of the
Speaker 3: relentless and legendary Madres de Plasa de Macho, which formed
Speaker 3: a year after the coup and marched in silent protests
Speaker 3: around the Plaza de Macho in Buenos Aires, near the
Speaker 3: presidential Palace. They demanded information about the fate of their disappeared.
Speaker 2: They had all been kidnapped, betrayed by Alfredo Astis, the
Speaker 2: Blonde Angel.
Speaker 3: The guy who wrote his phone number on medium snapkin.
Speaker 2: That one day, Astis had infiltrated this group of mothers
Speaker 2: and nuns while they were raising money to publicize the
Speaker 2: names of their missing sons and daughters. They wanted to
Speaker 2: pressure the government to do something.
Speaker 3: Aste posed as a brother of a disappeared and gained
Speaker 3: their trust. The day of the fundraiser, he marked the
Speaker 3: leaders of the group, tagging them by kissing them on
Speaker 3: the cheek as his fellow undercover officers washed from a distance.
Speaker 2: Then they kidnapped the mothers and the nuns.
Speaker 3: The junta almost got away with it, but the nuns
Speaker 3: were not Argentine.
Speaker 2: So when the rest of the world found out there
Speaker 2: were two French nationals missing, things got heeded and the
Speaker 2: French government got directly involved.
Speaker 1: Iused the Rigius francaise.
Speaker 2: A misance was on this set ris Eltigre. Acosta came
Speaker 2: up with an idea to try and defuse the attention.
Speaker 2: He had the nuns take a picture with the flag
Speaker 2: used by the Monteneos, holding a newspaper with the current
Speaker 2: date showing it.
Speaker 3: Was a fake photo. Acosta sent it to the press.
Speaker 3: The photo made it seem like the nuns were kidnapped
Speaker 3: by the Gorilla group, and this is key. The date
Speaker 3: on the newspaper visible in the photo read December fourteenth,
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy seven. This date was the missing link. Maco
Speaker 3: tracked to one of the flight lugs.
Speaker 4: We found a very regular and suspicious flight. It flew
Speaker 4: at night on December fourteenth, nineteen seventy seven, the same
Speaker 4: date they took the picture of the nuns, and all
Speaker 4: the other information we had gathered through the years checked
Speaker 4: with this. The storm pushed the bodies to shore two
Speaker 4: days after the flight. The bodies they recovered were all women.
Speaker 4: We had testimonies from the survivors at Esthma who painted
Speaker 4: the flag and took the picture of the nuns, and
Speaker 4: we have the remains remains we had identified as the
Speaker 4: nun and the mothers of the Santa Cruz church group.
Speaker 3: All of this is extremely rare. Only around two percent
Speaker 3: of the bodies suspected to have been killed via death
Speaker 3: flights had been found. It's a huge discovery. These bodies
Speaker 3: had been passengers of the plane that Medium and Giancarlo
Speaker 3: tracked down in Florida, the sky Ven. It was Medium
Speaker 3: in gih Caado's investigation that provided documented proof of the
Speaker 3: death flights.
Speaker 2: What really surprised me was the fact that this plane,
Speaker 2: the one we had found, was the one that was
Speaker 2: actually used for these particular killings.
Speaker 3: And now something else was clear. The lugs that Medium
Speaker 3: and Gihcado had discovered, they contained the names of the
Speaker 3: pilots who flew the flights that killed the mothers and
Speaker 3: the nuns, and that would prove crucial to finally getting justice.
Speaker 2: In the next episode, two of these pilots were still
Speaker 2: flying for irolinas agentinas the other had retired. If they
Speaker 2: don't act soon, these pilots will never be arrested.
Speaker 3: From Orbit Media. This is Avenger, the story of Medium
Speaker 3: Lewin I'm Your Host and seior producer andres Caaachedo. The
Speaker 3: series was produced by Seguielrodries and and edited by Monica Campbell.
Speaker 3: Original score Nicolas Paschela, mixing and mastering Christopher Hoff and
Speaker 3: Austin Smith. Assistant producers Andres Feschtenholz and Eleanna Gillespie. FactCheck
Speaker 3: Alejandro Marinelli and leonardos Canani. Legal review Neil Rossini. Casting
Speaker 3: director Paula Gammon Wilson. The executive producers from Orbit Media
Speaker 3: are Steve Fishman Fisher Stevens, Marcy Wiseman, and Katie Springer.
Speaker 3: The voice actors in Avenger include Alexis Ploddell as Media
Speaker 3: Lewin Fulvio de la Volta as Giancarlo Serraudo, Gonzalo Vargas
Speaker 3: as Sandrique Pinedo, Edgardo Manono, Gasto as Bruno Vain, and
Speaker 3: Tom Schubert as Carlos, Macosmiliana and Gustavo. This podcast was
Speaker 3: produced in association with Sonodo. The Sonodo executive producers are
Speaker 3: Camilla Victoriano, Joshua Weinstein and Jasmine Romero. The rest of
Speaker 3: the Sonoda production team includes Senior producer Carmen Ratdol, Editor
Speaker 3: Rodrigo Crespo, Producer, Paloma Navarro, Nicoletti, Evelyn Uribo, Marianna Cornel,
Speaker 3: Sara Mota, Manuel Parra, Hanna Baram and Tasha Sandoval. Special
Speaker 3: thanks to Radio and CASA and POMERAEC Recording Studios in
Speaker 3: Buenos Aires, and to Medium Lewin and Giancarlo Serraaldo for
Speaker 3: letting us tell their story. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: A quick word about subscriptions. If you love ads, listen on.
Speaker 1: If you're not so keen on ads, sign up for
Speaker 1: True Crime Clubhouse on Apple Podcasts no Ads and also Bingeability.
Speaker 1: You can hear the entire Avenger series all at once.
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