Dive into the mysterious and heartbreaking story of Luján and Janina—a case full of twists, unanswered questions, and wild theories. Was it a pact or something darker? We break down all the evidence, family suspicions, and strange clues. If you love true crime stories that make you think, this one’s for you! Subscribe for more deep dives and comment below with the part that shocked you most! #TrueCrime #Mystery #Unsolved #Investigation #Storytime
👉 This channel was created in collaboration with https://www.youtube.com/@paul_lando
0:06 - Introduction and Overview of the Case
1:21 - Discovery and Immediate Aftermath
3:53 - Backgrounds of Luján and Janina
6:54 - Timeline and Initial Investigation
10:11 - Forensic Results and Alternative Theories
16:56 - Reopened Investigation and Official Closure
18:49 - Key Evidence, Communications, and Unanswered Questions
26:00 - Hypotheses, Suspects, and Reflections
We're now available on Spotify! Listen now https://open.spotify.com/show/033MgMUOXQEOYvZBJxmxir
👉 This channel was created in collaboration with https://www.youtube.com/@paul_lando
0:06 - Introduction and Overview of the Case
1:21 - Discovery and Immediate Aftermath
3:53 - Backgrounds of Luján and Janina
6:54 - Timeline and Initial Investigation
10:11 - Forensic Results and Alternative Theories
16:56 - Reopened Investigation and Official Closure
18:49 - Key Evidence, Communications, and Unanswered Questions
26:00 - Hypotheses, Suspects, and Reflections
We're now available on Spotify! Listen now https://open.spotify.com/show/033MgMUOXQEOYvZBJxmxir
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NewsTranscript
00:05There are cases that you don't understand from the very beginning, and this was one
00:10of them, two teenage friends, a night that ended in the worst possible way, and a dinner
00:16that left everyone without answers.
00:19Their bodies were found hanging from the same tree, not far from their homes.
00:24But what drew the most attention wasn't just that discovery.
00:32From the beginning, there were details that made many people doubt what had happened.
00:38The first autopsy mentioned swelling and didn't find clear signs of violence.
00:45But as time went by, new expert reports appeared, new doubts arose, and a family that never stopped
00:50asking for answers.
00:52Years have passed since that July night in 2012, and there are still people who keep
00:58wondering what really happened to Lujan Penalba and Janina Nwesh.
01:03Because when a story leaves so many doubts from the beginning, it's hard to accept an explanation
01:10without first reviewing each and every piece.
01:21On Monday, July 16, 2012, in the Rio Ancho area, near the San Carlos neighborhood and south
01:28of the city of Salta, the search for two girls ended in the worst possible way.
01:33Lujan Penalba, 19 years old, and Janina Nwesh, 16 years old, were found hanging from a tree.
01:41A plainclothes police officer found the bodies of Lujan and Janina.
01:45They were inside a property located next to a canal in an area that was difficult to access,
01:51which previous searches had not yet reached.
01:55By that time, the two teenagers had been missing for two days.
02:00The last time they had been seen was at noon on Saturday, July 14, and since then no one
02:06knew where they were.
02:08From the very beginning, the tree where they were found became one of the most important
02:13elements in the case.
02:15Authorities reported that both of them were tied with the same rope, a detail that drew
02:21a lot of attention and from that day on gave rise to different ways of interpreting the scene.
02:29When they found the girls, the then governor of Salta quickly went to speak to the media
02:35and said that it was possibly a double suicide.
02:39And that possibility started to be mentioned publicly very soon, when the investigation
02:45was not yet finished.
02:46The first autopsy indicated that there were no visible signs of abuse or violence, and
02:52they concluded that both teenagers had died from mechanical asphyxiation.
02:57But far from closing the case, that report was just the beginning.
03:01As days went by, doubts began to arise, as well as questions and new expert analyses.
03:08Which made the investigation take a much more complex turn, because the scene still left
03:13many questions unanswered.
03:15How did the girls get to that place?
03:18Or what happened during the hours they were missing?
03:20How could the rope, the height of the tree, and the position in which they were found be explained?
03:28What at first seemed like an investigation with a pretty clear answer ended up becoming a case
03:34that, as the years went by, continued to raise doubts and divide opinions.
03:52Lujan Pinelba was 19 years old and Janina Nuez was 16.
03:56They were friends, lived in the same area of the city of Salta, and spent a lot of time
04:02together.
04:03Lujan lived in the San Carlos neighborhood with her family.
04:07She had a strong connection to music.
04:10She had started a singing career.
04:12She took part in several local festivals, and had even participated in the show, Soñando
04:18por Cantar.
04:20Music was something important in her life.
04:22And it was what she wanted to do in the future.
04:25For those who knew her, she was a young woman with plans, her own interests, and a special
04:30love for music.
04:32As for her partner, Lujan was dating Ezekiel Fredes, who at that time was 23 years old.
04:39They had known each other for about 3 months, although the relationship had started just a
04:44month before her death.
04:46According to Ezekiel, Lujan had a much closer relationship with her father than with her
04:51mother, because they used to argue.
04:54Ezekiel also explained that their relationship was accepted by the family after he spoke with
04:58Lujan's parents.
05:00He said that conversation went very well, and the father gave them the opportunity to be
05:06together, as long as they respected the rules they had set about not coming home too late,
05:11and similar things.
05:12Now let's talk about Janina Nuez.
05:14She was the youngest.
05:16She was only 16 years old.
05:19Her life revolved around her family, her friends, and the activities typical of any teenager.
05:26Less is known about Janina's personal life.
05:29It is known that she had a partner or ex-partner named Ivan Ortega, whom she was very much in
05:36love with.
05:37And apparently, a few days before the incident, they had ended their relationship.
05:42According to what Ivan said, both he and Janina could be quite jealous.
05:47He even said that this ended up influencing their relationship to the point that they decided
05:54not to have social media accounts like Facebook, for example, to avoid problems between them.
06:00Although it seems that later they reactivated these accounts.
06:04The last time he saw Janina was the same day she disappeared, around one in the afternoon.
06:10He said that she had passed in front of his house with Lujan, and at that moment he saw them
06:15happy and laughing.
06:16According to what her sister told the magazine, the relationship she had with Ivan was going through some problems.
06:24It was a rather troubled relationship.
06:26She also explained that since their parents did not approve of the relationship, they both pretended to break up.
06:32Although they kept seeing each other in secret during the day, but not at night.
06:38Both friends had a lot in common, but there were also details that didn't match.
06:43Their families had different opinions, and the people who knew them also said different things about them
06:50and about the last days before the disappearance.
06:54Saturday, July 14th, 2012.
06:59The two friends left the San Carlos neighborhood.
07:02They planned to go downtown to meet Lujan's father.
07:06At his workplace, that meeting, which seemed to be part of a normal day, never happened.
07:14And something that stands out is that Lujan had told her father that she had something important to tell him.
07:21But it was never known what that was.
07:23There was no audio left.
07:26There was no note or statement that would allow us to know what she wanted to tell him.
07:32That detail remained as one of the unanswered questions in the case.
07:37Lujan's father was waiting for her and Janina to arrive at the auto repair shop where he worked.
07:42But the girls never arrived.
07:44He tried to call Lujan and her phone was turned off.
07:47Then family members, friends and acquaintances started looking for them.
07:50Shortly after, the police also got involved.
07:53And the missing persons report was formally filed.
07:56That's how the official search for the two young women began.
07:59The search continued until, unfortunately, they were found dead on Monday.
08:04Different versions started to appear about what could have happened to them.
08:09But first, it's important to know what was found on the bodies.
08:20When Lujan and Janina were found dead, no one yet had a clear explanation of what had happened.
08:27And they were found like a tree near the Rio Ancho Canal in the San Carlos neighborhood of Salta.
08:34The scene was hard to understand.
08:36A single rope, two slipknotes, and two friends aged 19 and 16.
08:44From that moment, questions began to arise about what had really happened that day.
08:49That same night, the autopsies began.
08:52The investigating judge was at the scene and then closely followed the first medical reports.
08:58What they reported at that time was that the two teenagers had died from asphyxiation caused by hanging.
09:06Which ultimately caused a cardiorespiratory arrest.
09:11It is believed that the first to die was Janina due to the fracture of the hyoid bone.
09:17That was the first medical conclusion about what happened.
09:20Although, over time, doubts began to arise about how that conclusion was reached.
09:27At first, one of the hypotheses was that the two of them had climbed the tree, walked along a branch,
09:34and placed the rope across it.
09:37Then they would have sat on the branch with their feet in the air, both at the same time from
09:43a height of about 2.10 meters.
09:46One of the first facts that marked the investigation was that no visible external injuries were found on the bodies.
09:52There were no marks indicating a fight or an attack.
09:56No signs of abuse were found either.
09:59They also reported that the girls' clothes showed no tears.
10:04There was no stretching or any sign that would suggest the clothes had been disturbed in any kind of struggle.
10:10And another thing was that no defensive wounds were found on the bodies.
10:17They also analyzed whether they were pregnant.
10:20This was done as a protocol to rule out a possible fertilization and because during the first hours after the
10:27discovery,
10:28unconfirmed rumors had started to circulate about a possible pregnancy of one of the girls.
10:33The autopsy ultimately ruled out this possibility.
10:39With those initial results, the hypothesis of a pact, of an agreement between friends to do what they did.
10:48It quickly started to gain traction.
10:51There was a detail that began to raise doubts.
10:55It wasn't the cause of death, but rather the moment when the deaths had occurred.
11:02That calculation, known as the time of death, wasn't the same in all the reports.
11:07And that change began to matter because it could change how people understood what had happened during the hours when
11:15the two girls were missing.
11:17In the first communications and publications, they talked about a time between 24 and 28 hours before the discovery.
11:24That placed the deaths between Sunday afternoon and Sunday night of Sunday, July 15th.
11:31But later, a supplementary report appeared.
11:34And with that new review, the window widened to between 24 and 48 hours before the bodies were found.
11:43This new estimate left open the possibility that the deaths could have occurred even on Saturday, the 14th, the same
11:52day, both disappeared.
11:54Psychological analyses were also performed during the autopsy.
11:58The idea was to check if Lujano and Anina had consumed any substances before they died.
12:05For example, medications or other compounds that could have influenced what happened.
12:13The tests carried out did not find any substances that were significant from a toxicological point of view, for the
12:20judge at that time.
12:23That result also ruled out the possibility that Lujano and Anina had been drugged to reduce or eliminate their ability
12:30to make decisions.
12:33Genetic analyses were also carried out on the bodies, the clothing and the rope.
12:38The results indicated that no genetic profile of another person was found that would identify the presence of a third
12:44person at the scene, up until that moment.
12:49The autopsy and the other studies seemed to tell a fairly clear story.
12:54Two deaths from abuse, with no significant external injuries, no signs of abuse, no toxic substances detected, and no DNA
13:04from another person on the rope.
13:06But this story didn't end with the first forensic report.
13:09The family of Lujano accepted that conclusion and decided to request a new review of the evidence in 2013.
13:17The expert, named Lucas Delgado, questioned whether the two young women could have set up the scene exactly as it
13:26was found by themselves.
13:28And he focused on something very specific, on the measurements of the scene.
13:33The branch was 2.63 meters above the ground and the rope was approximately the same length.
13:43Lujano was 1.57 meters tall and Janina was 1.66 meters tall.
13:49Based on those measurements, the expert stated that the two of them would not have been able to place the
13:55rope from the ground and set up the scene at the same time.
14:00His report also cast doubt on whether the two young women could have climbed the tree on their own.
14:07He said that the clothing was in good condition and that there were no injuries that, according to his interpretation,
14:13could be related to that effort.
14:16Based on all of that, he argued that the participation of one or more people would have been necessary to
14:23prepare the scene.
14:24But it's important to clarify that this was the conclusion of an expert presented by the family, not the conclusion
14:31of the court.
14:32It doesn't take away its significance, but we have to clarify this detail.
14:37Over the years, new questions have arisen.
14:40A group of American experts hired by the Penalba family argued that mistakes had been made in the autopsies
14:47and that some clues had not been considered during the official investigation.
14:54Among those points, they also mentioned a blood stain on Lujan's pants, which had initially been considered menstrual blood.
15:02But the experts noticed something that caught their attention.
15:06The stain had an upward trajectory that is going up, according to the forensic interpretation.
15:13That pattern could indicate that Lujan had been lying on the ground when the bleeding occurred and not hanging from
15:21the rope.
15:21They also found a shoe print that, according to the investigators, did not belong to the young women.
15:28And they also found male DNA on one of the garments.
15:33These elements led to the assumption that they could have been brought there by other people
15:39and that someone else may have intervened to place the bodies in the tree.
15:44In addition, according to a pathologist, more than 30 important photographs from the first autopsy were missing.
15:51He also said that a dissection of Lujan's neck had not been performed to study in greater detail a bruise
15:59that was located above the mark left by the rope.
16:03Bruises were also found on Janina's abdomen and marks on Lujan's hands, which could be consistent with the previous assault.
16:13Lujan also had blows to the head and a recent nosebleed that is not related in any way to asphyxiation.
16:22They think the scene may have been staged because, despite the heavy rains in the area,
16:29before they were found, the girls' clothes and shoes had no mud or dirt on them, as would be expected
16:36if they had walked through the ploughed field.
16:39Those new analyses by other experts did not change the official conclusion,
16:43but they were used by those who disagreed with the authorities' hypothesis.
16:48And they pointed out that there were still aspects of the investigation that needed a deeper review.
16:55In 2018, the case was reopened as a suspicious death investigation.
17:01The following year, in 2019, a new inspection was carried out at the place where the prosecutors had found the
17:09bodies.
17:10The judge, the private prosecution and the police personnel went back to the area and reviewed different points of the
17:17scene.
17:18For example, the canal, the tree, the branch, and also the footprints that were already in the case file.
17:26They also tried to reconstruct what movements the girls would have had to make to get to that point and
17:31set up the scene.
17:32During a court-ordered reenactment at the same tree, they first tried to repeat the double suicide hypothesis with two
17:43female police officers who had similar physical characteristics to the young women.
17:49They tried to place the rope in the same way it had been found and couldn't do it without using
17:56a ladder.
17:57They also tried with mannequins with weights similar to Lujan and Yanina, but the rope wouldn't slide over the branch.
18:05How does this affect the initial hypothesis?
18:08Afterwards, they did a test considering the possibility that another person or other people might have been involved.
18:15In this simulation, two police officers were able to place the bodies in the tree without difficulty.
18:23Despite these differences, in May 2021, Judge Monica Moultri classified the case from suspicious death to suicide and after that
18:31the case was closed.
18:36She considered that the evidence was not sufficient to support that it had been a homicide or a double homicide.
18:49The last known path in the story of Lujan and Yanina does not begin at the tree where they were
18:54found.
18:55It begins much earlier among calls, messages and a conversation that never happened.
19:01Witnesses said they saw the girls for the last time around noon at a bus stop.
19:06After that moment, one of the biggest gaps in the investigation begins.
19:12More than two days went by without anyone knowing where they were or what happened to them.
19:18It was only on Monday that they were found dead.
19:22Fifty-six hours had passed.
19:25But one thing is the time between the last moment they were seen and the time they were found.
19:31And it's a very different thing to know when they actually died.
19:36During those hours, there were no verified messages that could reveal where the girls were.
19:42That's why one of the tasks of the investigation was to review the communications they had before they disappeared.
19:50Among them were the text messages exchanged between Lujan and Eksekiel and a Facebook conversation attributed to Yanina with a
20:00friend identified as Nacho.
20:02To understand the case, we need to look at what those messages actually said, but without turning them into a
20:11definitive answer.
20:12The most widely shared conversation begins in the early hours of Saturday, July 14 after a night out with Lujan
20:21Eksekiel and another couple of friends.
20:25According to that message, Lujan got home around 2 a.m. and from that moment, the text message exchanges began.
20:36At 2.17 in the morning, Lujan wrote Eksekiel a message saying,
20:41Kiss, I love you. I hope you believe that.
20:46And he asked her what was going on.
20:50And a few minutes later, the conversation changed tone.
20:52Lujan told him that everything was wrong at her house.
20:57She said her family wanted nothing to do with him or anyone else and that she was afraid they would
21:03kick her out of the house.
21:05According to Eksekiel, argument between Lujan and her parents started because she had come home 2 hours after the time
21:12her father had set for her.
21:15In the messages that followed, Lujan talked about feeling distressed, wanting to cry and overwhelmed by the situation.
21:23She also mentioned that she felt nauseous and even said that she wanted to die.
21:28But that phrase can also be understood in a colloquial sense.
21:32Like when someone says, I want to die.
21:34To express that they are very distressed, exaggerating or that they don't know what to do in a difficult situation.
21:42Also, I should say this is a phrase that's used a lot in Argentina.
21:47You can see it on social media, on television, in series and so on.
21:53Eksekiel tried to calm her down, ask her what had happened and told her not to get upset.
21:58In the middle of that conversation, Lujan said that her father had told her she wasn't going to record her
22:04album.
22:04As we mentioned, music was important to her.
22:08It's not known if it was a final decision about her music project or just something said in the heat
22:15of the moment during the argument.
22:17In that same conversation, Lujan said she didn't want him to call her and wrote something that stood out.
22:24Are they going to kill me again?
22:26Most likely, she was referring to the fact that her father would get angry with her if they found out
22:32she was talking to Eksekiel.
22:33She also asked Eksekiel to buy the pill, known as the morning after pill, because she wanted to avoid a
22:40pregnancy.
22:41Afterwards, she wrote that she couldn't take the pain anymore and that she didn't want to continue with that horrible
22:47life.
22:48She also told Eksekiel that she didn't want to leave him, but she thought they wouldn't be able to see
22:54each other again.
22:55Eksekiel responded by trying to save the relationship and asked her not to break up with him.
23:00He told her to try to calm down and to obey her parents.
23:05These messages were the elements that from the beginning were linked to the possibility that Lujan was going through an
23:13emotional crisis.
23:15They are not fake messages.
23:17They are easy to read, but they also do not allow us to say by themselves that she had decided
23:23to do what the first hypothesis suggests.
23:26The conversation didn't end at dawn.
23:29Around 11.02, she wrote to him that she would pack her bag and that she had to leave, that
23:35supposedly they were kicking her out of the house.
23:38These messages are extremely important because they happened just a few hours before Lujan and Yanina were seen together for
23:46the last time.
23:47At 12.16, Lujan sent Eksekiel a message saying that she was going to kill herself.
23:53That was one of the messages that carried the most weight in the initial direction of the investigation and that
23:59the media presented as an important piece to support the hypothesis.
24:05Let's call this a pact.
24:08The fact that someone writes that can show real suffering and should be taken very seriously.
24:15But in a criminal investigation, could a phrase like that be used to close the investigation without first answering all
24:23the other questions?
24:25In Yanina's case, a previous conversation also appeared, which was included in the reconstruction of her last days.
24:32Yanina had written a Facebook to a friend identified as Nacho, whom we just mentioned, saying that she had found
24:38out that Ivan, her boyfriend, had cheated on her.
24:41The message showed Yanina saying that she felt a deep pain because of what happened with Ivan and that she
24:49felt like she couldn't live without him.
24:51In that conversation, she had also written that she wanted to leave this world so that Ivan would understand how
24:57much she had loved him.
24:58And that was considered a support for the hypothesis that Yanina was also going through a very difficult emotional situation
25:05before she disappeared.
25:07The initial investigation used those messages, along with Lujan's, to support the case.
25:13The possibility that both of them had talked about those wishes and that the meeting on Saturday had ended in
25:21this pact.
25:23But that still didn't answer the main question.
25:27What really happened between the moment they were last seen and the moment they appeared at that tree?
25:34Unfortunately, this question could never be answered.
25:38After those messages, there's a bus stop, a family gathering that never happened, and more than two days of silence.
25:47And the scene that, even after the case was shelved, never stopped dividing those who tried to understand it.
26:00From the beginning, the case had two main hypotheses.
26:04On one hand, that the two girls had made a pact or that it was actually a double homicide.
26:13As we mentioned, the first hypothesis was that they had made this decision.
26:17And that was the main theory from the very first days.
26:21And the second hypothesis was that of a double homicide.
26:24The possibility that the two young women had staged the scene by themselves was questioned.
26:29And it was argued that there were aspects that did not fit with the official version.
26:35And in this case, it's important to know what each family thought.
26:39From the very first days, the families of Lujan and Yanina took different positions regarding what happened.
26:44While Lujan's family questioned the idea of a pact and maintained that it could be a double homicide.
26:51Within Yanina's family, there were those who did consider it possible that the two girls had made that decision of
26:58their own free will.
26:59An uncle of Yanina, named Javier Flores, was one of the first people in the family.
27:05He spoke publicly about this possibility.
27:08He said that, for him, there were some things that made that explanation possible.
27:13He mentioned reports according to which Lujan had searched on the internet how to tie a knot.
27:20And suggested that Yanina might have accompanied her without fully understanding the consequences of what they were doing.
27:27Yanina's sister, named Anan Wesh, also publicly expressed a position that matched the initial hypothesis.
27:36On July 18, 2012, she posted a message on Facebook in which she described what happened as a teenage decision
27:48and linked Yanina's suffering to her relationship with Ivan.
27:52The message said the following, even though it breaks our hearts, it was a teenage decision.
27:59Yanina didn't want to see us suffer and felt that if she wasn't by her boyfriend's side, her life wouldn't
28:06have any meaning.
28:08The boyfriends of both young women also gave their opinions about what happened.
28:12In the case of Ivan, Yanina's boyfriend, his position did not match what some of her family members had expressed.
28:18In an interview, he said that the hypothesis that it was a decision they made of their own free will
28:24didn't make sense to him.
28:26And that he didn't agree with Yanina's parents.
28:28He also stated that if Lujan's family hadn't questioned the idea of a pact, the case probably would have been
28:34closed.
28:35On the other hand, Lujan's family, as we mentioned earlier, did not accept the conclusion that it was a pact.
28:43Her father, Gustavo Peñalba, became one of the most visible voices in the case, and he publicly supported the hypothesis
28:51of a double homicide.
28:54Lujan's parents made it clear that they were not going to stop looking for answers and that they wanted to
29:00know who could be behind their daughter's death.
29:03The family maintained that the two girls could not have reached that point on their own.
29:08And they also found it impossible that they could have set up the scene the way it was found.
29:13And there's a detail that stands out.
29:16Vecchiel Fredes, Lujan's boyfriend, did not agree with her family's position.
29:21He stated that Lujan had told him she wanted to leave her house and that she wanted to do what
29:27hypothesis one suggests.
29:29Sorry for saying it this way.
29:31I'm trying not to use, you know, certain words too much.
29:36YouTube doesn't like that.
29:37He also said that she had allegedly told him she was tired of her life and of the problems she
29:43had within her family.
29:45While some saw what happened as a desperate decision by two teenagers, others were convinced that behind all of this
29:52there was a crime.
29:55And if there really was a crime, then who could have been behind all of this?
30:00Some people started to come under scrutiny and their names began to appear again and again in the case.
30:14Before talking about the suspects or the names that came up around the case.
30:20There's something important we need to keep in mind.
30:24The investigation never had a suspect formally charged for the deaths of Lujan and Janina.
30:33No one was arrested, prosecuted or brought to trial for this case.
30:38Even in the first days, the provincial government stated that there were no culprits.
30:42The names we are going to mention appear for different reasons within the investigation and the hypotheses that emerged.
30:51The person who fell under the greatest public suspicion was Ezekiel Lujan's boyfriend.
30:58The Penyalba family pointed to him from the very beginning because they did not accept the pact hypothesis.
31:07For them, the relationship between Lujan and Ezekiel needed to be investigated thoroughly to understand what had happened before the
31:14young woman's death.
31:17The suspicion arose mainly from the family's pain, from their distrust of the initial investigation and from the stories about
31:25the problems the couple might have had.
31:27The night before the disappearance, Lujan had gone out with Ezekiel Fredris and another couple they were friends with, as
31:34we mentioned.
31:35The people who were with them were investigated and testified as witnesses, but they were never charged.
31:41That's why the boyfriend was included in the reconstruction of her last hours.
31:46He had dropped Lujan off at her house around 2 in the morning.
31:50During the first autopsy and during Ezekiel's interrogation, it was revealed that he and Lujan had had intercourse that night.
31:59At that time, it was considered consensual.
32:02But some time later, Lujan's family pointed out a report made by an expert from the United States.
32:09It described injuries to her private parts that could be consistent with a non-consensual encounter.
32:16From that point on, the family began to suspect that Lujan may have been abused and that Ezekiel might have
32:23had some involvement in what happened.
32:26When Lujan's family began accusing him publicly, the boyfriend replied that he hadn't killed her.
32:33And that he also wanted to know what had happened to Lujan.
32:36His answer didn't manage to put an end to the doubts.
32:40For the Penalba family, his denial wasn't enough.
32:44And they believed that a more thorough investigation was needed.
32:48For the justice system, however, there wasn't enough evidence to formally accuse him of Lujan's death.
32:55Years later, another person was linked to the case.
33:00A woman who had called 911.
33:04Three days after the young women were found, this woman called 911 four times.
33:11With those calls, she claimed to have information about who might have killed Lujan and Janina, how it was done,
33:20and how she found out about what happened.
33:22It should be said that there is no reliable public information that allows us to say whether this woman was
33:28involved in the deaths, or if what she said was investigated.
33:31What is documented is that her statement was considered important for the investigation, and that when she was called to
33:39testify again, she said that it had all been a lie.
33:43That she made everything up.
33:46She was even arrested for perjury.
33:49There isn't a man whom the justice system has established as responsible for the deaths.
33:54What there was, however, is a family that continued to suspect a boyfriend, experts who questioned the scene, and finally,
34:02a judicial resolution that closed the case without anyone being charged.
34:20The justice system in Salta closed the case with a firm conclusion that Lujan and Janina died because it was
34:28their own decision.
34:29They didn't find enough evidence to say that another person was involved, and that's why no one was arrested, charged,
34:37or convicted for their deaths.
34:39The remains of both young women were laid out for a wake in Salta.
34:43Janina was cremated by decision of her parents, while Lujan was taken to Metan, where she was buried.
34:50Years later, Gustavo Peñalba, Lujan's father, kept reporting irregularities and an investigation that, according to him, was left incomplete.
35:00The family maintains that important evidence was overlooked, and that the packed hypothesis was accepted too quickly.
35:07After years of complaints and the obvious strain caused by the case, the relatives decided to withdraw from the proceedings.
35:15Although they continued to maintain that the young women were victims of a crime, there was no culprit, there was
35:22no trial, and there was also no answer that convinced everyone.
35:26All that was left was a closed investigation, expert reports that contradict each other, and a question that keeps lingering.
35:35What really happened to Lujan and Janina during those hours when no one could say where they were?
35:42And whether it was their decision, or if it was a homicide, this case reminds us of something important.
35:50A decision by the justice system can close a case file, but it doesn't always manage to answer all the
35:56questions.
35:56Lujan and Janina were two real young women, with families, friends, relationships, and plans that were left behind back in
36:04July of 2012.
36:06Because behind a case file there aren't just names and numbers, there are people, families, and lives that can no
36:13longer tell their own story.
36:15What do you think?
36:17I want to read your theories and opinions in the comments, because this is a case that really gives you
36:22a lot to think about.
36:24And there's something worth remembering, especially when talking about a story like this.
36:30If you, or someone you know, has these kinds of thoughts, of hurting themselves, or feels like they can't go
36:38on anymore, you shouldn't face it in silence.
36:40You should talk to a friend, a family member, someone you trust.
36:45It's super important to talk to professionals, and there are also hotlines in every country, so you can face this
36:52with people who are prepared to help.
36:54Asking for help is not a weakness.
36:56There is always someone willing to listen, and also to be there for you.
37:00That's it for today's case.
37:02I look forward to your comments below.
37:05And with that, we'll meet again in the next story.