Catalina Gutierrez, a 21 year old influencer from Argentina,
had no idea that she had a target on her back as she lived
her final days on this earth. She met with her friends, hung
out with her family, studied as an architect.
All the while her time was running out.
It wouldn't be long before somebody would betray her trust
in the worst way possible. In a matter of hours, people
began noticing her absence. Not just her family or her
friends, but her thousands of followers as well.
Everyone panicking, wondering what could have happened to her.
By the end of the night, an abandoned car would be found,
and inside it, a horrifying scene that blew this case wide
open. Outlaw.
Hello and welcome to Outlaw Podcast.
I'm Ellen O'Neill and in today's episode, we're in Cordoba,
Argentina in 2024, where a manhunt has just begun after an
architecture student vanished into thin air.
But Catalina Gutierrez was not your ordinary student.
She actually had over 100,000 followers across her social
media pages at the time. And given her online presence
and the amount of people following her every move, well,
it was only adding to the fear. Had an obsessed follower with
ulterior motives stalked her down?
Had a jealous ex seen her happy in her new relationship and
wanted her all to himself? Or did the person responsible
for her disappearance sit somewhere in the middle of the
two? Now, before we begin, I just
want to give my usual disclaimer that I mean absolutely no harm
or disrespect to anyone that we talk about in today's case.
Our episodes are made with the utmost care to honor those who
lost their lives and respect the profound grief that their loved
ones enjoy. Given the nature of today's
episode, we'll be covering some very sensitive topics including
assault, stalking, murder, arson, discussion of taking ones
own life and gender based violence.
This episode is created with the hope to raise awareness to
inspire change and further Victim Support.
Viewer discretion is advised. Now it's time to dive into
today's case, The story of a very normal girl with quite an
extraordinary life that would end far too soon.
But she's so much more than the true crime case that now
surrounds her. So let me introduce you to the
beautiful, intelligent Catalina Gutierrez.
Catalina Gutierrez was born on February 7th, 2003 in Argentina.
She was the second daughter to parents Eleanora and Marcella.
And she had an older sister named Lucia who was like a built
in best friend for life. They were a very close, very
happy family. They had a family dog that they
named Kitty, and maybe I'm picking up on a joke where there
isn't one, but the concept of a dog being called Kitty is really
funny to me. I love names like that.
I had a friend in school who named her tiny little hamster
Elephant, so it just tickled me when I first read about the dog
named Kitty. But my God did Catalina adore
this puppy. A girl and her first pet is like
one of the purest bonds that I think could ever exist.
And Catalina was an incredibly loving girl.
She cared for everyone and everything.
So flipping much and we're skipping ahead slightly here,
but eventually, when Kitty the dog passed away much later in
Catalina's life, she honored their bond and their time
together with a beautiful simple line work tattoo, which was just
gorgeous. The Gutierrez household was a
very musical one. Kata's dad played the guitar and
she'd always sing along with him since she was tiny.
She had a beautiful voice and she just loved to perform for
people. As she got older, Catalina
picked up a guitar herself. Her dad taught her to play, and
she began performing her own acoustic sets in bars and
restaurants. She was booked and busy.
She was just one those people who made things happen for
herself, even from a teenager. She had drive, she was hard
working, she was ambitious. She knew that she was destined
for big things. She was very much inspired by
her father, who was a very successful, very well respected
architect. Since she was a little girl, she
wanted to be just like him. She would sit there next to him
for hours and hours, just sketching out buildings
alongside him as he worked. And eventually, when the time
came for her to go off to university, she would follow in
his footsteps, studying architecture at the age of 18.
She enrolled at the University of Cordoba in 2021 for a really
quite intense course in architecture.
It was a lot of late nights in the library, a lot of
dedication. But this is kind of what
Catalina was built for. You know, both her mum and dad
were grafters and she wanted to make them proud.
I mean, she already was making them proud purely down to the
fact that she was growing up to be a brilliant human being.
Catalina was kind, respectful, confident, loving, reliable.
She really was everything that you would hope for your daughter
to grow up and be. She maintained her passion for
music throughout uni and of course when TikTok became a
thing later on in her life, she would post her singing videos on
there where she gained a pretty solid audience.
We're talking over 100K followers on Instagram.
I don't think she ever really intended on gaining that many
followers. They just kind of found her.
But people tuned in to watch her live her life and share her
passions, her music, the architecture that she would
visit and document just because they really liked her.
Catalina ended up getting a few different brand deals, she would
get things gifted from local companies and this was really
exciting because she'd managed to make her her passions and her
posting a little part time income to support her through
uni, literally just by posting what made her happy.
During this time, Catalina had been dating a boy from her
hometown, but their relationship ended towards the end of 2022,
when she would have been about 19 years old.
I mean, at that age, you're changing so much in such a short
space of time that relationships do tend to take a hit.
You outgrow one another and instead you require someone
who's more suited for the past that you're heading down.
I mean, you don't require anyone, but you know what I
mean? If you want a partner, it's got
to be a bit more reliant to the newer version of you.
So then halfway through 2023, Kata would have been 20 years
old now when a new man entered her life.
Well, he wasn't exactly new. His name was Ezekiel Garcia,
known as Zaza. They'd met in uni and they'd
been friends this whole time, but Zaza had a huge crush on
Catalina practically from the moment that they met.
It was like a slow burn, yearning crush.
He was besotted by Miss Gutierrez, but obviously this
whole entire time she'd had a boyfriend.
But once that was no longer the case, Ezekiel shot his shot,
shooted his shot. They dated casually for a while
and by March 2024 Catalina was 21 years old and the two of them
were in a committed relationship.
Catalina had also gained this solid trio friend group there at
uni. It was Kata and a girl named
Ornella and a boy named Nestor and they were all on the same
architecture course so it was quite perfect.
They had so much in common, they totally understood each other.
They would help one another study, and then they would all
go out in the evenings to let off some steam.
Katta was originally the shy one in the group, but that didn't
last very long. She came out of her shell very
quickly with them. Or Nella was seemingly like the
mom of the group, she would offer rides to the others when
they needed it. And Nestor, I guess you could
say he was kind of like the glue, both for their little trio
but also the connector to their wider circle.
He was a social butterfly, he knew so many people and he was
always introducing his friends to one another.
Catalina was just so happy with this little life that she was
building for herself. Everything was going so well,
her studies, her social media, her relationships with her
friends and her boyfriend. She was just as close to her
family as she'd always been since she still lived at home
through university. It was all quite perfect.
But obviously things didn't stay so perfect for Catalina,
otherwise we wouldn't be here today telling her story.
And tragically, little did she know, her time on earth was
running out. In Argentina, they have an
annual celebration called Dia del Amigo Day of Friends.
Friends Day. It's exactly what you'd imagine,
a day to celebrate your friendships.
It's on July 20th. But in 2024, Catalina and her
friends decided to celebrate early on July 17th.
So she spent the first half of the day just chilling out.
She didn't have much work or studying to do.
And so she really took advantage of that rare opportunity for
rest, knowing that the hangout out later was probably going to
take it out of there. So Catalina and the group had
planned to go bowling that night at the local shopping mall.
It was going to be her, Nestor and three other friends that
were part of her slightly wider circle.
Around 9:00 PM, she asks her mom if she could borrow her car, and
off she goes. No one had any reason to think
that this might be the last time that Catalina Gutierrez was ever
seen or heard from. Only two hours later, just after
11:00 PM that night, Catalinas mum Eleanora gets a call from
Catas boyfriend Ezekiel. He says, look, I'm worried.
I've been calling Catalina for about an hour and she's not
answering. The last time that he had heard
from her was at 9:22 PM, when she'd sent him a voice note
basically just letting him know that she was about to go and
meet her friends. You know, just the usual update.
She even told him that she was going to be leaving her car near
his apartment to avoid the insane parking charges at the
mall. But since then, she'd gone radio
silent. And the fact that her boyfriend
picked up on how odd this was within just two hours is really
quite impressive. That is a man who knows his
partner. He knows her patterns.
He knows it's odd for her to not be in touch, or maybe he got a
bad feeling about something. Even though it had only been an
hour and a half since anyone had heard from her.
Everyone was starting to worry now because she wasn't picking
up her phone to anyone. Not her boyfriend, not her mum,
not her sister Lucia. And it was ringing.
It wasn't switched off, it wasn't out of battery like it
was ringing all the way through to voicemail.
She just wasn't picking it up. So her family immediately get
Lucia to trace Catalina using her phones GPS location.
Luckily it was switched on, but it revealed that she wasn't
actually at the mall as per her plan.
For the last 35 minutes, Catalina had seemingly just been
at someones house and Lucia recognized the address as that
of Katta's best friend, Nestor. Obviously this was a huge
relief. She was with someone that she
trusted, in a safe place that she'd been many times before.
I mean, it was weird that she wasn't picking up her phone, but
maybe they were all watching a movie or something.
Maybe she'd left her phone in a different room in order to ease
their minds. Eleanora pulled up Nestor's
contact and began writing a text to him asking if Catalina was
there and if she was OK. But halfway through writing this
text, she thought it was just easy, easier to just call him
and get immediate answers. He picked up and Eleanora began
asking about Kata, but Nestor actually said that she wasn't
there. In fact, he had no idea where
she was. He said that they yeah, they
were meant to meet up at the bowling alley, but Catalina had
been a no show. She ghosted the rest of the
friend group and never turned up to the plans.
He reassured Eleonora that he was just as confused and
concerned about the situation. He'd been trying to get a hold
of her too, texting her for an hour prior when she failed to
turn up saying what's up girl? And after no reply to that, he
sent another text saying we're not doing anything.
As it approached 10:00 PM, an hour after their planned meeting
time, Nestor ended up texting another one of their friends
that they were supposed to meet saying dude it's cancelled.
I think too many people are upset.
To which the friend said, oh really?
But we were going to get together dude.
While Dia del Amigo wasn't exactly a public holiday, it was
still very widely celebrated, and the fact that everyone had
made plans and they'd fallen through last minute left a lot
of people disappointed, including Nestor himself. 10
minutes later, he sent another text to one of the groups
saying, I'm leaving, man. Katta stood me up.
And then he sent a voice note to another friend saying, hey,
dude, I'm really pissed off. I don't know what's up.
Like, no, she just didn't answer me.
So whatever, I'm used to it by now.
And then just after 10:00 PM, he calls Katta herself.
She doesn't pick up. And so he leaves her a voicemail
saying, hey, what's up, Katta? I just wanted to let you know
I'm home. I don't know what's going on
with you. I told the guy guys, it was
cancelled, you weren't coming anymore.
I'm not even going to show. I'm angry.
All this time, Catalina's phone GPS was still right by Nestor's
house. He said that this didn't make
any sense and he just couldn't explain it, considering he
hadn't seen her at all that night.
She hadn't come to pick him up or to come visit him, so maybe
it was some sort of glitch. Lucy had told him to just go
outside and check for her anyway.
Maybe she was parked up in her car outside, scared or upset
that she'd pissed off all her friends.
So Nestor goes outside and he says that he can't see Catalina
or her car anywhere. He just couldn't explain why or
how her location was showing up at his house, but by now it
hadn't moved for over an hour. Nestor really wasn't much help
for the family and now that it was getting late, everyone was
getting desperate to know that Katta was safe.
Her sister called up another one of the friends that she was
supposed to meet up with for bowling that night, a girl named
Augustina, and everything she said matched up with Nestor that
Catalina had no showed for the plans.
None of them had seen or heard from her since the plans were
supposed to begin. It really was like a full
ghosting. None of them had any level of
info that the others didn't have, and by now it was reaching
midnight and everyone was worried sick.
Even though it had only been two hours since she'd last been
heard from. The circumstances under which
she had vanished were just not right.
There just didn't seem to be many reasonable explanations for
this. If not, one of her friends was
with her, if her phone was unaccounted for.
And actually by now texts had stopped delivering through to
her phone, so it had either died or been switched off.
And actually it seemed to be the latter, because at 11:46 PM, all
of a sudden text went through and her location updated.
It had been switched back on. Now it showed a totally
different address, one that no one was familiar with.
It was an area of town that Catalina didn't know very well.
She never really had any reason to go over there, so why would
she possibly be there right now, all alone at midnight?
Everything was getting weirder and scarier, so Catalina's
family wasted no time getting straight down to the police
station and reporting her as a missing person.
While they were there filling out the report, Catalina's phone
location updated once again, and now it was in a totally
different neighborhood, even further away from the previous
locations. So, I mean, luckily they were at
the police station now, so officers were immediately
dispatched to that exact location to check it out.
When they arrived, they found something.
Catalina's mum's car was parked right there, right where the
location said it would be, but it seemed empty and they
couldn't see Catalina around it. It was parked in an odd location
as well, like just off the road. And as they approached, things
got even weirder. A peek into the inside showed
clear signs of burning in the interior.
Someone had seemingly tried to set this car on fire, and after
that things went from weird and concerning to absolutely
devastating. A look in the back seat revealed
what looked to be a person laying across the seats,
completely motionless and also partially burned.
Police broke into the car as quickly as they could, and they
pulled the person out to see if CPR could be performed, but it
was too late. They'd been dead for a little
while. No amount of effort could bring
them back. And although police couldn't
confirm anything right now, in this moment, they were pretty
sure they knew exactly what they had just found.
Back at the station, Eleanora was asked about what her
daughter was wearing that night and what she usually carried
with her. So her mom talked about her
black patent leather wallet that she would hold all of her bank
cards and her ID, and she said that her daughter had an iPhone
15 Pro with a pink Apple case. She always carried a geek bar
vape. She was wearing high top vans
when she left that day. All of these description points
tragically lined up with the woman that they had just pulled
from the car, deceased and burned.
Right now they had no idea what had happened to her, but they
could officially confirm that this was Catalina Gutierrez, a
21 year old woman with big dreams and such a promising life
ahead of her. She was dearly loved by everyone
that knew her. Gone far too soon.
Now before we continue with Catalina's story, I just want to
take a moment to talk about something that is sadly very,
very relevant to this case. In Argentina, there is a growing
movement called NI Una Menos, which translates to Not One
Woman Less. It began in 2015 after a series
of high profile femicides shocked the country, and it
quickly grew into a nationwide movement, one that was calling
for stronger protections for women and greater accountability
when it comes to gender based violence.
NI Una Menos has organized huge demonstrations across Argentina
and Latin America, raising awareness about the reality that
many women still face violence just for wanting independence,
OR for ending relationships, or for simply just living life on
their own terms. Catalina's story is of course
very deeply personal to her family and her friends and the
people that loved her, but it also sits within a much bigger
conversation about what's happening across Argentina about
violence against women. It's why movements like NI Una
Menos continue to push for change.
And since NI Una Menos is a movement and not strictly a
charity, they direct any forms of donation through the Global
Fund for Women, which we have linked down below in the
description of this episode. If you have the means, please do
consider donating to fund such a crucial cause.
Women are dying at the hands of men every day all over the world
and we need to be making as much noise about it as possible for
our own safe and for that of our sisters, our mothers, aunties,
friends. Alongside the link to the Global
Fund for Women in the description, you'll also find
our link tree that has all of our usual links to help lines,
organizations and charities. So if you need any form of help,
hopefully you can find it in our link tree.
Or if you're looking to support some really incredible causes,
then you can find a directory right there.
And now let's pick back up where we left off in this case.
Catalina's family have just been informed only hours after they
last saw her that she has been found dead and burned in the
back of their own family car. And now it was time for police
to catch a killer. The case was very quickly
determined to be a homicide. I mean, what reasonable
explanation could there be for Catalina to be found burned in
the back seat of her own car? Someone else had clearly done
this to her. Forensic officers were called
out to the crime scene to analyse the burned car.
Mind you, it wasn't that burned. Clearly someone had tried to
have the whole thing engulfed in flames because there were traces
of alcohol all over the seats. They tried to put flammable fuel
in there. Whoever had lit the flame had
also tried their best to make the whole thing flammable enough
to destroy all of the evidence, including Catalina's body
inside. But the flames had seemingly
died out before they could cause too much damage.
Damage probably due to the fact that the windows of the car had
been left closed. Flames need oxygen to grow and
just to maintain, so that was probably what killed the fire
off. Despite the extra fuel that was
poured all over the seats, the only thing that really burned in
there was a blanket. I believe it was wrapped around
Catalina or maybe just used to cover her up.
And this is what had given her burns to her neck and her arms,
though it was determined that she was already dead when this
happened. As this search of the crime
scene continued, all of Catalina's loved ones had
gathered at the police station. Her family were of course
already there, but now they were joined by Catters boyfriend
Ezekiel and a few of her friends, including Nestor and
Augustina, who was supposed to be bowling with her that night.
Everyone was in pure disbelief, and it was showing up
differently in each person. Some were quieter, probably not
speechless and unable to process what they were going through.
Others were angry and loud, already feeling the sudden, very
unfair loss of such a huge part of their lives.
Especially Nestor, who had actually been angry at Catalina
just hours prior to this, believing that she had just
abandoned them and ghosted on plans.
Now he was learning that her silence was actually because she
had been murdered. He couldn't contain his anguish.
He was clutching his head, throwing himself against the
walls, screaming. Who was it?
It can't be. Who could do this to Katta?
Nestor and Catalina had always had a very, very close
relationship. It was honestly more of a
brother sister type bond than just a friendship.
He spent so much of his time with her then it must have felt
like losing a part of himself. He was trying to process the
unimaginable, but actually, as Catalina's loved ones watched
him carrying on and putting on this scene, they started to
wonder how authentic it actually was.
They'd never had much of a reason to doubt Nestor's
intentions with Catalina, because he seemed like quite a
respectful young man. He was friendly, he was familiar
to her parents, he visited her house often, he played with her
dog Kitty when she was still with them.
Her mum and dad would invite him round for dinner a lot, knowing
that he didn't have family in the area since he'd moved out
there for uni. He had this brother sister
dynamic with Catalina, and her parents treated it as such too.
They treated him like an honorary son, inviting him to
family get togethers and barbecues.
But while he and Catalina had indeed been very, very close,
their friendship wasn't exactly healthy.
Katta's own boyfriend, Ezekiel, had always had a funny feeling
about Nestor. He always spoke about Catalina
like she was his whole entire world, and he would occasionally
get jealous of her relationship with Ezekiel.
And hey, maybe that could be explained away as like an
awkward little crush that Nestor never wanted to tell anyone
about. But Ezekiel wasn't the only one
who had spotted some red flags. Cater's sister Lucia was well
aware of some occasions where Nestor had been quite possessive
and toxic with her sister. And it turns out Catalina hadn't
been the only female friend to experience this side of him.
Nestor seemingly had a pattern. The other girl in their trio
friend group Remember Ornella. She had been through all of this
with Nestor before he became almost like a controlling
boyfriend. Despite their relationship only
ever being platonic. Nothing was ever romantically
charged, but he would want to know where she was at all times.
He would want to be with her at all times.
He was smothering. If she missed a call from him or
took too long to respond to a text, he would fly off the
handle or start guilt tripping her.
It got to a point where he would was even tracking her location
when she didn't respond so that he could bring it up to her and
be like well you were just sat in class or you were just at
home. Insinuating that she has no
excuse to not be in constant contact with him, as if she
doesn't have her own life. On one occasion, Ornella had
left her phone at home and she was in class using her laptop to
respond to him instead. Clearly, he determined that she
was taking too long to text back and so he texted her having a go
and she explained to him that she didn't have her phone on her
at first that day. She had actually since gone home
to collect it, but for the first half of the day she genuinely
didn't have her phone on her and that's why she was being slow to
respond. Well, Nestor immediately sent
her a screenshot of her phone's location, which obviously now
was with her in class, but it hadn't been along with a voice
note that was almost 2 minutes long just berating her.
He said don't lie to me if I see you in class with your cell
phone. I asked someone who's there with
you and they said yes, you're in the classroom with your cell
phone. Like is he the fucking police?
All of this for what? She doesn't owe him a text back,
especially when she's busy in class, but he felt really
entitled to the women around him and their time and their energy.
Eventually on, Ella's friends began clocking onto this toxic
friendship that she was in and they told her to get out.
Just because it wasn't her boyfriend didn't mean that this
wasn't becoming an abusive dynamic.
Friends can be possessive and abusive too, so by the time of
Catalina's murder and the night at the bowling alley, Ornella
was pretty distanced from the group, hence why she wasn't a
part of the bowling plans. But it wasn't just Ornella and
Catalina that he had treated this way.
There was a third young woman named Luna that he had seemingly
had the exact same dynamic with. And what's interesting about
these possessive friendships is that they truly were never
anything more than just that. Possessive friendships.
Who knows, maybe Nestor did have unspoken crushes on these women,
but he never really made that known or obvious if it was the
case. He really was just an
overbearing friend, but he never approved of any of the men that
these female friends would date. No man was ever good enough for
them. He would even put the girls down
for their choices in men and in dating, telling them that they
just go for players or losers. So I mean, that could well have
been some romantic jealousy in that I think above anything
else, he really didn't see himself as worthy of the women
in his life. They were all too good for him.
So he tried to bring them down a peg, bring them down to his
level, insulting their life choices, their dating choices,
and keeping them close so that they couldn't be independent or
shine too bright. When he had first met Catalina,
he told one of his friends that he felt inferior to her, saying
look at all the followers she has, I'm nowhere near that.
Soon after they formed a friendship, Nestor's possessive
tendencies latched on to Catalina as a new target.
Now if she didn't respond quick enough, she would receive call
after call from him. There was 1 occasion on an
architecture trip where another student had asked Catalina if
they could sit next to one another on the bus, but she had
to politely turn them down, saying that Nestor had told her
if she didn't sit with him he would get angry.
So now after speaking with Catalina's loved ones and
hearing all of their less than positive opinions of her best
friend Nestor, he had officially become their number one suspect
in her murder. Nestor Soto had been questioned
by the police at the very beginning of this case,
obviously, since he was supposed to be the last person to see
her. And you know, the fact that her
phone's GPS was pinging at his house for the first hour that
she was gone. And he told police exactly what
he had told Cater's mum, that she never showed up at his house
to pick him up. And he eventually made his own
way to the mall bowling alley. But when she still didn't show
up there, he just ended up going home on his own.
But now they had pulled him in for a secondary questioning.
Now that he was a suspect and his story was changing, it's
like he couldn't remember the exact details of what he told
them the first time. So they asked him how he had
gotten home from the mall when he decided to give up on the
bowling plans and he said a taxi, but he couldn't give them
the exact company. He couldn't remember if it was
Uber or Cabathai or something else.
He also couldn't give investigators a time that he had
arrived back home barely even like a rough estimate.
It became clear that his version of events just wasn't adding up,
and there were a lot of little moments like this where holes
began to appear in his story. The more he spoke, the less
reliable he seemed, and clearly Nestor knew that too.
He was getting nervous and quiet.
There were times where he would fall silent, clearly, I guess
trying to think of answers to the questions that they were
were asking him. And then under that pressure,
Nestor suddenly broke down. He looked at investigators and
admitted what had happened. I killed her.
I ruined Catalina's life. I ruined my life.
I ruined the lives of our families.
And I am very sorry. He went on to say that Catalina
had been the love of his life. Mind you, he had never expressed
any romantic feelings towards her whatsoever.
Nobody had any knowledge that he felt this way.
And I mean we we kind of could have guessed.
Katta's boyfriend felt a weird vibe from him and that level of
possession that he had over her really hinted to much more going
on beneath the surface than just a brother sister type
friendship. Obviously these feelings had
never been reciprocated by Catalina.
She was in a happy relationship with no romantic interest in
Nestor and he probably knew that full well, hence why he never
said anything or made a move. But maybe it had all gotten too
much for him, pretending to just be friends, unable to have the
one thing that he wanted more than anything.
He could tell that she was never going to leave Ezekiel for him,
so maybe he was thinking if he can't have her, no one can.
So now Nestor Soto's suspect questioning had turned into an
official confession and halfway through he told the police that
he would like to go and find Catalina's father, Marcelo.
When officers asked why, he said that her father should be the
one to kill him for what he had done to his daughter.
Not only is that batshit insane, but how incredibly misogynistic.
As if Catalina was a possession of Marcelo's that Nestor had
destroyed not a whole entire human being with her own life
that he so evilly stole. Why should this be dealt with
man to man rather than in a courthouse?
Would he be saying that same thing if he'd killed a son of
Marcelo's? Or is it because he only views
women as the extension of a man? Of course the at least didn't
let him go and find Marcello. Instead they made Nestor sit
there and run them through his version of events.
Now just a pre warning. This is a load of bullshit
actually. Even when he is trying to tell
the truth, Nestor Soto is never actually telling the full truth.
He told investigators that Catalina had arrived at his
house in what was meant to be a brief stop by just to pick him
up, and together they would drive to the bowling alley.
But before they could set off to the mall, Nestor said that the
two of them got into an argument.
He said that she was tense and cold.
I told her I was going to change my clothes and she said come on
asshole. On top of not inviting me, now I
have to wait. We don't really know what is
meant by not inviting me. Mind you, this only comes from
Nestor's version of events and we believe most of it is
horseshit, so it probably was never even said.
But if it was true, maybe Catalina hadn't been involved in
these bowling plans from the very start.
Who knows. Nestor told the investigators.
I answered her rudely and told her to leave.
That's when she got angry and said, Nesty, you can be such an
idiot and slapped me. He said that when Catalina
slapped him, he hit her back, to which she said, you idiot, you
hit me really hard. And from that point, a physical
fight apparently broke out. Nestor said that Catalina fell
backwards towards the kitchen and they both tumbled into the
washing machine. They were both on the floor
fighting. And he said that Catalina
squeezed my Adam's apple and I passed out.
Now, this is where things get weird because Nestor explained
to investigators that he and Catalina apparently had this
little game that they would play where she would grab his neck
and squeeze it. In fact, they would do it to
each other relatively often. What kind of game is that?
If that's true, that would be so incredibly bizarre.
But chances are he's lying through his teeth, isn't he?
He said that after he woke up from being passed out, I grabbed
her hands, pulled them free from his neck and put her in a rear
naked chokehold. Now, this is a move that is
often done in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu or MMA.
It's quite brutal and it's meant to make the person pass out from
restricting the blood flow to their brain.
It's essentially A headlock with way more intensity and danger.
It's also known as the lion killer, and Nestor even had the
cheek to tell investigators that Catalina herself had taught him
how to do it, which is not believed to be true at all.
But this is what he said that he did to her.
He continued to the investigators saying that after
he put her in this chokehold, it hit me when I let go, the first
thing I did was listen to see if she was still alive and I saw
that she wasn't. He added that he only realized
that she was dead when he tried to move her and she didn't
scream or make any noise. Nestor told investigators that
he was just caught up in the heat of the moment of this
fight. The confrontation had spiraled
out of control and in that chaos and panic and he had killed her.
But then there he was, standing in his kitchen with the dead
body of the girl that he called his best friend, his sister.
He's now a murderer, and he knew that he had to start covering up
what he had just done. He said that he immediately
changed his clothes because he was nervous and hot and sweaty.
And then he proceeded to move Catalina's body into the back
seat of her own car so that he could figure out where to take
her, where to dispose of her as if she wasn't a human being.
He drove the car out to where it was eventually found.
He doused the whole thing in alcohol.
And then he set it alight, hoping that he could incinerate
all the evidence of what he had just done, although, as we know,
that failed. He told the officers that after
he set the car on fire, he thought about taking his own
life. In fact, he said, I wanted to
kill myself. I didn't have the guts and while
I can maybe believe that part to be true, the 1st 75% of that
story seems like half truths and cover ups.
So in the trial section of this episode, we'll break down what
investigators actually believe happened that night when
Catalina arrived at his house. But as far as Nestor goes, just
20 minutes into this questioning, police had heard
enough. He was placed in handcuffs and
taken into custody. So a date was set for Nestor
Sotos murder trial. And in the meantime, he was
being held in a prison ward without any form of bail being
set. During this time, he very
quickly became a target for the other inmates.
They taunted him and implied that they would attack him if
they could figure out which cell he was in.
He reported this to the prison staff and was quickly shifted to
another ward with lower risk inmates.
All of this before he's even put on trial.
The proceedings would eventually begin on February 27th, 2025.
Nestor had been required to undergo a psychiatric evaluation
that revealed absolutely no underlying mental illness or
issues that could have led to the heinous acts that he
committed. He was deemed mentally sane,
fully aware of his actions, and completely fit to stand trial.
The prosecution even mentioned as part of their argument that
Nestor had grown up in a very happy, stable, loving
environment. There were very few pressure
points in his life that could have had such negative effects
on him. They did say, however, that a
narcissistic stance could be attributed to his personality.
Now, this is not to be confused with narcissistic personality
disorder. It was just kind of a trait that
they acknowledged in him. He was narcissistic just as a
person, and this would of course shape how he interacted with
others. Everything in his world revolved
around him, which I think gives even more context to his
possessiveness. When his various female friends
weren't answering his texts, he'd fly off the handle because
to him, he is the center of the universe.
He can't comprehend the fact that other people have whole
entire lives outside of him. Detectives believe believe that
by July 17th, the night of the murder, Nestors feelings for
Catalina, along with his entitlement and frustration over
not being able to have her, had all reached a climax.
So now let's discuss the version of events that the prosecution
presented to the court. They couldn't say for sure that
this is exactly what happened, but based on all of the evidence
that they have, it aligns much closer than the story that
Nestor had given them. At 9:35 PM, Catalina arrived at
Nestor's house in her mum's car. They believe a conversation may
have transpired between the two of them outside, with Nestor
somehow asking Catalina to come back into the house with him.
Maybe he told her that he wasn't fully ready yet.
It's believed that it only took 10 minutes or less for an
argument to break out between the two.
I mean, whether it was reciprocal or not, we don't
know. Was it actually an argument with
two sides, or was it Nestor going off at Catalina?
Of course, we can't possibly know what the topic of the
conflict was either, although it has been theorized that Nestor
could have told her how he truly felt about her and she rejected
him very quickly. The conflict went from verbal to
physical, and Nestor struck Catalina at least four times in
the head and the abdomen, it's believed just with his own
fists. One of the blows to her head had
immediately left her with a massive black eye, along with
several other bruises all over her temple, her cheek, her jaw.
He hadn't just struck her a few times, he had violently beaten
her once. She was defenseless.
He tightly bound her hands with three meters of Gray tape so
that she couldn't get away from him.
It's unclear if she had been rendered unconscious at this
point. I mean, hopefully she was.
Hopefully she wasn't aware of what was happening as Nestor
climbed on top of her and proceeded to strangle her to
death with a ligature. Her autopsy had revealed that
she had been strangled with something almost 3 centimeters
wide, which of course goes against Nestor's initial
confession where he said that he performed this lion killer
chokehold that he insisted that Catalina herself had taught him
to do. All of this evidence, like from
the autopsy and stuff, was very significant, improving Nestor's
version of events to be lies. The way that he had described
it, you know it like if he was being honest, then it could
actually have been a spur of the moment killing.
But now that the evidence proved that a ligature had been used, a
weapon essentially, that immediately shows us that a lot
more thought and time had gone into this murder.
He had at least a good few seconds where he was looking
around for something to strangle her with.
At least a good few seconds to come to his senses and realize
what he was doing to the woman that he called his best friend.
In fact, never mind finding a weapon to strangle her with, he
had had a similar brief break in the attack when he stopped to
find the tape to tie her up. There were so many opportunities
for him to stop himself, opportunities that he simply
didn't take. Because in that moment, he
wanted Catalina dead. He couldn't have her, and he
knew that. And if he couldn't be with her,
then she couldn't even be alive. This was a deliberate and fatal
expression of control and violence.
After he had committed the murder, Nestor proceeded to send
a bunch of texts and voice notes to their mutual friends about
how Catalina had ghosted him and never shown up to their plans.
He knew that he now had to play the part of a concerned friend
and give himself an alibi. And I think the most twisted
part of all of that is that as part of this concerned friend
role, he was angry at Catalina, knowing full well that he had
just murdered her. He was leaving her texts, her
voice notes being like, where are you?
Why did you stand us up? During the trial, Catalina's
mum, Eleanora took the stand to explain her family's dynamic
with Nestor, and she told the court just how much they all
trusted him, especially her daughter.
To the point where on the night that Katta was found dead, Nasta
turned up at the police station seeking comfort from her family.
At first this didn't seem off since they treated him like I
said, like an honorary family member, but now they knew for
sure that he had killed her. It made them sick to their
stomachs that they had reassured him and hugged him the whole
entire night. He had even confided in Eleonora
that night. I'm getting really nervous
because the police are asking me so many questions.
Like there is a special place in hell for someone who can kill a
woman and then go to her mother to comfort and reassure him in
the aftermath. But actually, Eleanora had a bad
feeling about him from that exact point.
She pulled her other daughter Lucia aside and told her.
I'm going to say something that might be wrong.
I suspect Nestor and Lucia was actually shocked at this and she
replied. No, Mum, how can you suspect
your friend you'll regret what you're saying for the rest of
your life? Like, I can't even stress to you
how unlikely Nestor's involvement seemed to everyone,
even to Kata's own family, but Eleanora just knew.
She just had a feeling. Mother's instinct, isn't it?
During his trial, several other witnesses took the stand to tell
different stories of moments where Nestor had gotten
frustrated or violent. Ex girlfriends and former
friends told of his domineering, possessive nature.
One girl even took the stand telling a story of a time that
she'd been at camp with Nestor and he had tried to force
himself onto her. It all clearly paints a very
dark picture of this man's patterns and how he views women.
Nestor had an obsessive need for control, and when paired with
his narcissistic tendencies and fragile emotional state, it had
created a dangerous personality. And when he felt like he was
being rejected, he decided to kill.
Nestor was convicted of aggravated homicide involving
gender based violence. This is what Argentina's legal
system recognizes as femicide, and for this he was sentenced to
life imprisonment, the harshest penalty in Argentine law.
Catalinas murder wasn't an isolated act of violence.
It was the culmination of jealousy, psychological
domination, and deliberate actions to conceal the crime.
It was gender based violence. It was femicide.
The reason that this is important and likely why Nestor
lied about this being a spur of the moment argument, you know,
gone out of hand, is because in Argentina a homicide can get you
a long prison sentence but not the maximum penalty of life in
prison. However, when the crime does
involve violence against a woman because of her gender or
including any other aggravating factors such as control,
jealousy, or attempts to conceal the ACT, it can be classed as
femicide and this This is where the killer can get life
imprisonment. In Catalinas case, prosecutors
successfully showed the pattern of psychological control and
possessiveness that characterized Nestors
relationship with her as well as with other women.
I arguing that his actions reflected A broader context of
gender based violence and the justice system must take that
seriously. Catalina's story is just one
part of a deeply disturbing reality.
Violence against women and girls is not rare, it's an epidemic.
We cover so many of these cases because around the world, 10s of
thousands of women are intentionally killed every year,
and this is usually by the people closest to them.
Globally and an estimated 50,000 plus women and girls were killed
by intimate partners or family members in 2023 alone.
And in Argentina, femicides continue at extremely concerning
rates. A woman is killed because of her
gender roughly every 35 hours. Catalina case should remind us
that the most dangerous place for many women is not the
streets or around strangers, but in the very homes and
relationships where they should feel safest.
In order for this to change, we need to keep talking about these
cases, raising awareness and fighting for systemic change.
Talk to your brothers, talk to your sons, your friends,
especially if you're a man. We need allies since woman's
voices are far too often dismissed or spoken over.
Too often is inherent misogyny fobbed off as just banter or
boys being boys. But it's literally killing
women, killing your friends, your sisters, your mums.
We need collective action to prevent more lives from being
taken so unfairly. So as we come to the end of this
episode, I want to take one last moment to remember Catalina
Gutierrez for the beautiful girl that she was.
So full of love for her family, her friends, animals.
She was well on her way to not only live an incredible life as
a talented architect, but to touch so many lives through her
relatable social media posting that had already attracted so
many young women who found comfort in Catalina.
She was so kind, showering her friends with compliments and
gifts and joy. She was someone who always put
others first. From all of us here at Outlaw
Podcast, we send our sincere condolences to the loved ones of
Catalina Gutierrez and that is all we have for today's case.
Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Outlaw
Podcast. If you're watching on YouTube,
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Bye.