It was journalist Mercedes Ninci, from El Trece, who managed to intercept him at his doorstep with a direct question: "Were you the one who killed Diego Fernández?"
Graf, who arrived with his partner, reacted with discomfort, pushed the microphone away and forcefully exclaimed "Noooo!" Then, when Ninci followed up—"But you're the main suspect"—he chose to remain silent and closed the door.
The discovery that shocked Coghlan
The remains were found during construction work on a property on Congreso Avenue, right next to the house Cerati once lived in. A partial collapse exposed human bones that the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) identified as belonging to Diego.
Cristian Graf, sospechoso del homicidio de Diego Fernández Lima y Mercedes Ninci.
The analysis determined that the death was violent: stab wounds and injuries consistent with a possible attempt at dismemberment.
According to judicial sources, Graf lived in that same property in his youth. However, the crime has been time-barred for almost 20 years, since Argentine law sets a 25-year period to investigate homicides that are not crimes against humanity.
Investigation with no possible conviction
Although prosecutor Martín López Perrando is considering summoning Graf to give his version, there will be no criminal consequences for him. The goal now is to reconstruct the events and give the Fernández Lima family the answers they've been waiting for over four decades.
El lugar donde estaba la medianera y se hallaron los restos de Diego Fernández Lima.
Witnesses state that the accused knew the victim, although they were not part of the same social circle. The mystery remains as to how the young man's body ended up buried in that garden and what the Graf family knew during all these years.
The paradox is painful: scientific evidence and journalistic investigation bring the truth closer, but the judicial system prevents a trial from taking place. For the relatives, only the hope remains of finally learning what happened in 1984 and why Diego was buried for so long next to the wall of Cerati's house.
