An assault by a 29-year-old man on his ex-partner sparked a new case of vicarious violence that is shocking Colombia on Monday. “The children woke up because of the noise of the mirror when he broke it,” Rusmeiri González recounted this Thursday, who argued with the man before the crime, to the news channel City Tv. González is the older sister of Ana Lucía, a nine-year-old girl who, after the dispute, disappeared from the family home in Mosquera, a municipality adjacent to Bogotá. The body of the minor later appeared in a sewer in Ciudad Bolívar, in the south of the Colombian capital. Ana Lucía was Venezuelan, but she was in Mosquera on vacation visiting her sister.
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The police captured the aggressor, José Rojas, on Wednesday night. The Prosecutor’s Office confirmed it through a statement, in which it indicates that this Thursday he will be charged with the crimes of aggravated homicide, abusive carnal access, and sexual acts with a minor under 14 years old. The prosecuting entity hinted, without giving further details, that it is a case of vicarious violence, in which a man uses people close to a woman to harm her. “The activities of the judicial police allowed establishing that the accused today would have taken the girl from her home after an argument he had with one of the victim’s relatives,” the text reads.
The older sister of the girl recounted the argument with her ex-partner while managing the delivery of the body at Legal Medicine, the institute in charge of forensic services. “It starts with a message I receive in the morning. He checks my cell phone and realizes it was from a man. Then, he reacts very violently,” González told City Tv. Seeing the man break the mirror in the house, the woman went out to the street with her younger sister and another minor. She told the girl to ask for help at a bakery where there are usually police officers. “In the rush of fear, she tells me: ‘Okay, I’m running.’ And she ran off.”
Meanwhile, according to González’s account, the aggressor left the apartment. “He told me: ‘I’m leaving, I’m out so you can do whatever you want,’” the woman continued. But he was carrying his ex-partner’s documents and her cell phone. “I hurried to follow him to the parking lot where he always keeps his motorcycle so he wouldn’t go downtown [where he worked],” the victim added about the chase. She didn’t catch him. When she returned home, she realized her younger sister was no longer there nor at the bakery.
The mayor of Mosquera, Nelson Parra, informed the press about what happened when González lost track of her aggressor. “We managed to show in videos the departure of a motorcycle around 9:30 in the morning. The minor is the passenger; the captured person is driving,” he said on Blu Radio. According to the local mayor, the vehicle leaves the municipality, crosses the Bogotá river, and enters the capital. The trail of the girl is lost in the Fontibón locality. The searches began there on Monday afternoon. But the next day, the body appeared 15 kilometers south, in a sewer in the Juan José Rondón neighborhood. Investigators still do not know how it got there. According to the mayor, the police and the Prosecutor’s Office plan to advance this Thursday in that part of the crime reconstruction.
Legal Medicine, meanwhile, has reported that the preliminary results of the autopsy indicate that the girl died by asphyxiation. “We have not yet given a final report on the case [with laboratory results], but we can present the expert opinion to the Prosecutor’s Office,” explained the director of the entity, Ariel Cortés, to Noticias Rcn.
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The concern of the girl’s relatives now is the repatriation of the body to Venezuela, where they are originally from. From Legal Medicine, they have been told that the procedures can take up to 20 days. “We ask that it be as soon as possible. We cannot spend that time without any financial resources,” a relative told City Tv. The girl had arrived in Colombia three months ago to visit her older sister, who had been living in Mosquera for a year, according to Mayor Parra.
The Secretariat of Women and Gender Equity of the Government of Cundinamarca, the department where Mosquera is located, has condemned the crime. “We reject and condemn the femicide of the girl Ana Lucía González Mendoza,” it said in a statement. “This case reminds us of vicarious violence: girls and boys are not instruments to threaten, blackmail, or cause harm,” it added.
😡We reject and condemn the femicide of the girl Ana Lucía González Mendoza.🙏🖤
Solidarity and strength to her family. We demand justice and clarification.
This case reminds us of vicarious violence: girls and boys are not instruments to threaten, blackmail, or cause harm. pic.twitter.com/AQYSAHK40z— Secretaría de la Mujer y Equidad de Género (@MujerGeneroCund) September 17, 2026
The debate over toughening penalties
Several right-wing politicians have reacted to the murder with calls for a tough stance against the aggressor. Conservative Senator Nadia Blel, who is the author of a bill to increase sentences up to 100 years in prison, said on X that cases like this reaffirm that “the State’s response must be firm, forceful, and commensurate with the damage caused.” “Our children deserve a country that protects them,” she declared. Congress members from the Uribista Democratic Center have also spoken out. “Let justice act with full force,” said Senator Zandra Bernal. “The responsible must fall and pay LIFE IMPRISONMENT!” emphasized Representative Nelly Patricia Mosquera, despite the Constitutional Court having declared this penalty unconstitutional.
Some centrist or progressive politicians have spoken out. Representative Bleidy Pérez called for the State to do “much more” to protect children. Astrid Cáceres, former director of the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare (ICBF) during Gustavo Petro’s government, asked to remember her name, as well as those of other children murdered in recent years. “[It is] necessary so that their memory is present. Ana Lucía. Present: Yuliana. Present: Sara Sofía. Every girl and her family have the right to justice.”
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