In love with her family, an adoptive mother more than a grandmother for her nephew Antonio, who turns 18 in December. This is how they describe Maria Teresa Chavez Flores, a social health worker originally from Peru who was found mysteriously dead yesterday morning at dawn in her apartment in via Niccolò da Tolentino, in the Careggi district of Florence. An end still shrouded in yellow, which however clashes with the smiling face of the 65-year-old, mother and grandmother also devoted to the growth and education of her heirs. Above all him, Antonio, her daughter’s son, with whom she lived in a foster relationship regulated by an authorization from the juvenile court.
It was the 17-year-old who raised the alarm, but it is always his version of what would have happened in the rent-controlled apartment where they both lived that requires many investigations. And then there is that body, with marks on it and in particular on the neck, which suggest strangulation. And therefore to a murder.
Who would have killed nurse Maria Teresa? The young man, he told the investigators, returned home around five o’clock and found a stranger in the house, with whom he had a fight. Version that coincides with the commotion heard by some neighbors of that little “railing” house on the first floor of a recently built building, but which clashes with some investigative evidence. And also with some wounds that the young man had to treat in hospital. But how would he have entered the house, the stranger? In what condition did the 17-year-old return home yesterday morning? “No hypothesis can be ruled out”, say the investigators in the most frenetic hours of the investigations which began at dawn yesterday morning. The magistrate on duty, Giacomo Pestelli, went to Careggi’s apartment together with the flying squad and the forensic team. The medical examiner carried out an examination of the body. The house is now under seizure. The 17-year-old, who practices boxing, was then interviewed for a long time at the police station, with a social worker next to him. The juvenile prosecutor’s office is also on alert, because the young man’s story has many gaps.
These are in fact feverish moments and the feeling is that, if it is a homicide (excluding natural death), there could be a response from the judiciary in a very short time. Flores Chavez was a social health worker and worked in two facilities. Esteemed and appreciated by colleagues, the woman was also a point of reference for her family. Although married, she was very often without her husband because he often works outside of her: on Sunday she was in Germany. But never alone, because her nephew lived permanently with her. For Maria Teresa she was like a son. “You are a wonderful young man, I am sure that you will make your dreams come true – he wrote, dedicating a post to him on Facebook dated December 23rd, the day of his 17th birthday, celebrated with all his relatives in Peru –. This year we will be here in Lima and we will have a great time Christmas and New Year with our dear family, I love you my love.”
