The initial shock generated in mid-October by the news that a famous Chilean cinematographer had killed his twin children and then took his own life increased in the last hours when the Chilean justice system charged and ordered the arrest of the brother-in-law of the cameraman Eduardo Cruz-Coke Japke as the author of the three crimes.
On Monday, October 18, Chilean society was stunned to learn through the media that Cruz Coke Japke, 62, had been found shot deada few meters from where their lives also lay lifeless. two twin sons with disabilities, 17 years old.
Jorge Ugalde, from calling the police to being accused of triple crimeThe photographer and cameraman was renowned for his collaborations with the Telethon Foundationwhich raises money for the comprehensive rehabilitation of boys with motor disabilities.
The case took a momentous turn this week when A Guarantee Court ordered the arrest and charged him with the crimes to the man who in October had called the Police to report that he had found his three relatives dead in one of the houses on the land they shared in the exclusive community of La Reina, on the outskirts of the Chilean capital.
Jorge Ugalde, 59 years old and husband of Cruz-Coke Japke’s sister, was charged with the triple crime in the context of domestic violencenoted the Chilean press and warned that in a trial he could face a sentence of life imprisonment.
Ugalde, who with his family lives in another house on the Cruz Coke land, He had notified the police about the discovery of the bodies of the three dead men.
The photographer suspected of killing his two twins was the victim of his brother-in-lawBut, in the investigation by prosecutors Francisco Lanas Madrid and Carolina Remy, the photographer’s brother-in-law was surrounded by different evidence, especially by the discovery of a gorilla mask with genetic traces of Cruz-Coke which would have been used by Ugalde during the attack.
The photographer had been found in a room next to his children’s, on Saturday the 18th after 7 p.m. with a gunshot wound and the weapon next to his body.
Los two minors, Meanwhile, they were in the main bedroom of the house with signs of suffocation. His mother was in Bariloche and returned to Santiago after being informed of the tragedy.
The investigation by the Eastern Prosecutor’s Office also attempts to determine whether Ugalde had previously tried to get rid of his brother-in-law and his children, causing a poisoning with spoiled ice cream.
Prosecutors suspect that an economic motive would drive Ugalde to attack his relatives and in the presentation of evidence they indicated that the photographer and his children They had to be assisted in a Chilean clinic in November 2024 for that intoxication.
