The Lissette Ochoa domestic violence case was one of the best known cases of spousal abuse in Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

 because of the couple's elite social status and for the brutality of the battering perpetrated on Lissette Ochoa by her husband Rafael Dangond.

Events

On July 29, 2006, Rafael Dangond and Lissette Ochoa attended a wedding party in the exclusive Country Club in the city of Barranquilla

Barranquilla

Barranquilla is an industrial port city and municipality located in northern Colombia, near the Caribbean Sea. The capital of the Atlántico Department, it is the largest industrial city and port in the Colombian Caribbean region with a population of 1,148,506 as of 2005, which makes it Colombia's...

, Colombia. Dangond became aggressive after his wife Lissette was invited to dance by a group of friends who had traveled from Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

 to attend the wedding, among them a young male who danced with her. While Ochoa was dancing, some of the wedding guests recount seeing Dangond sitting alone at the table. He later walked towards the bathroom and then came out with reddened eyes, presumably caused by alcohol or drugs. Apparently, Dangond became angry and jealous.

Once she returned to her seat, Dangond immediately ordered his wife to exit the event and, once outside, Dangond began battering her and pushed her into their car where the beating continued at approximately 2:00 AM. He drove the car erratically around the city while constantly hitting her for more than two hours. When they arrived home at approximately 4:00 AM, the violence continued. Ochoa desperately locked herself in a bathroom and used a cellphone to call her father, Jorge Álvaro Ochoa, who told her he was on his way to her apartment. She also warned him that her husband was armed and was yelling threats about killing himself, her, and her father. At this moment, Dangond knocked the door down, fired his weapon, and the bullet scratched his wife's armpit.

When her father, Jorge Álvaro, arrived at their building, she had managed to exit the apartment building where she met with her father, who recounted looking at her as if she were a character from the film The Exorcist

The Exorcist (film)

The Exorcist is a 1973 American horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty and based on the exorcism case of Robbie Mannheim, dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl and her mother’s desperate attempts to win back her...

. Her eyes were purple and swollen, her upper lip was basically touching her nose, and she had come out crawling. Her father immediately tried to report the incident to the police

Colombian National Police

The National Police of Colombia is the national police force of Colombia. Although the National Police is not part of the Military of Colombia , it constitutes along with them the "Public Force" and is also controlled by the Ministry of Defense. They are the largest police force in Colombia...

, but was told to return later in the morning when the person in charge of those cases arrived, negligence that he and others would later criticize in the media. He then took her to a clinic where she spent more than a month interned after suffering multiple physical trauma

Physical trauma

Trauma refers to "a body wound or shock produced by sudden physical injury, as from violence or accident." It can also be described as "a physical wound or injury, such as a fracture or blow." Major trauma can result in secondary complications such as circulatory shock, respiratory failure and death...

s mainly on her head. Doctor Humberto Caiaffa, who cared for Ochoa, said she had multiple fractures and had arrived at the clinic in a "lamentable" state.

National attention

The case gained notoriety thanks in part to Ochoa's aunt, Astrid Amador, who took pictures of her during the wedding and afterwards at the hospital. She e-mailed the pictures, and the story was basically spread by word of mouth until the most influential Colombian news media reported the event and produced other numerous reports related to these types of cases that had been widely ignored in Colombia.
The investigation on the case was initiated, and Ochoa also filed for divorce.

Husband jailed and released

On August 4, 2006, Dangond turned himself in to authorities after a brief absentia and was jailed in El Bosque Prison for three months. He was formally accused on November 17, 2006, by Ochoa's family members in a sectional attorney's office in Barranquilla. He was accused of assault and battery, homicide intent, and carrying an illegal weapon. The attorney later decided on the case and absented himself from a final resolution and revoked the preventive detention, setting Dangond temporarily free.

SoHo magazine article

Ochoa wrote an article called "¡Nunca más!" (Never again!) in the Colombian SoHo magazine, telling her side of the story. She called men who are violent toward women beasts and recalled her married life of nine years, during which she had had two children by her husband; she also mentioned that her husband had previously been violent to a lesser extent with her, signals that she had ignored and which had escalated to a point that had almost gotten her killed.

Public apology and reunion

On December 1, 2006, Dangond recognized that he had psychological and drug addiction problems, including personality issues, and that he was being treated by professionals who were also treating their two children. He also said that he continued to love his wife and publicly apologized for the events of that night, apologized to her and his family and the society in general. He publicly thanked her for giving him a second opportunity to rejoin her as her husband.