Nibaldo Villegas, a teacher from Villa Alemana, disappeared in August 2018. Ten days later, a group of tourists out on a boat found a torso with no limbs floating in the sea off Chile’s Valparaíso Region.
His family described him as a quiet and responsible man. Even his ex-wife, Johanna Hernández, the perpetrator of the crime, would acknowledge years later that he had been a good husband, a kind-hearted person who helped those he could.
Johanna and Nibaldo met when she was 23 and coming out of a long, turbulent relationship. Nibaldo welcomed her and her two children into his family and even encouraged and supported her in completing her nursing studies. That knowledge would ironically later help her take his life.
The couple had a daughter and built a life together that, unfortunately, began to deteriorate over time.
After eight years together, they decided to separate, and serious conflicts arose over the family home and disputes about caring for their young daughter. Nibaldo even filed a domestic violence complaint against Johanna, in which he described alleged harassment aimed at making him sell the house and split the money. However, at the time, Chile did not take violence against men seriously, and the justice system did not act on the complaint.
What followed was a macabre, calculated plan. According to the investigation, his ex-wife, Johanna Hernández, and her boyfriend, Francisco Silva, both nurses, drugged Nibaldo with crushed clonazepam in a glass of malt drink with egg.
Within 10 minutes, Nibaldo could no longer coordinate. He would fall asleep with a piece of sushi in his mouth, so I took it out to keep him from choking.
They then killed him with a wound to the chest and dismembered him at Las Docas beach, in Laguna Verde. They burned some of his limbs in a bonfire and threw the rest into the sea from a ravine.
What happened next was even more terrifying. As Nibaldo’s family and friends searched for him, Johanna appeared on television in tears, asking for justice, but his family had already begun to suspect that something terrible had happened. Nibaldo never came back to pick up his daughter, something completely out of character to those who knew him. When his brother Edson went into his home, he found his jacket put away, the keys hanging behind the door, the car parked outside, and a broken glass on the floor.
The police investigation began to uncover contradictions. Phone records placed Johanna with Nibaldo on the night he disappeared. In addition, Francisco Silva had used the teacher’s bank card to withdraw 35 thousand pesos from an ATM, wearing the victim’s clothes.
Another clue was especially disturbing: just hours after it was confirmed that the torso belonged to Nibaldo, Johanna went to the Villa Alemana Real Estate Registry to inquire about the property registered in her ex-husband’s name.
The court sentenced Johanna Hernández to qualified life imprisonment for parricide, which means she must spend at least 40 years in prison before she can apply for parole. Francisco Silva received a sentence of simple life imprisonment for aggravated murder, with a minimum of 20 years in prison before he can apply for the same benefit. Neither is guaranteed release after serving those terms.
The case shook Chile because of the brutality of the murder and the cold-blooded attempt to cover it up. But behind the macabre discovery was a much more painful story: that of a good man who was not taken seriously when he asked for help.