FLORENCE. Sixty pages, after three years and three months of investigations. “The collected evidence does not allow a reasonable prediction of conviction.” This is the phrase that brings the investigation into the disappearance of Kataleya Mia Alvarez Chicclo, the little Kata who disappeared at 5 years old on June 10, 2023, from the former Astor hotel on via Maragliano, before the judge. Prosecutor Christine von Borries has requested the dismissal for the last two suspects: maternal uncle Abel Argenis Vasquez and paternal uncle Marlon Chicclo, accused of kidnapping.
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The last certain image remains that of a five-year-old girl on the external stairs of the occupied hotel. It is 3:13 PM. Kata goes up, then returns towards the ground floor. Her mother Katherine Alvarez is working in a supermarket and had entrusted the children to her brother. From there begins a void that the carabinieri and magistrates have tried to fill with searches, DNA analysis, sniffer dogs, videos, interrogations, rogatory letters, and checks abroad.
The Astor was already a place under pressure. Occupied since September 2022, it housed dozens of families and 42 minors. Inside, according to a parallel investigation, a room racket had developed: money to enter or stay, threats, violence. On May 28, 2023, thirteen days before the disappearance, an Ecuadorian man had thrown himself from a window to escape an assault. Abel, later arrested in that proceeding, was considered by investigators one of the men of the system. From here one of the most pursued leads: Kata kidnapped as revenge matured in the Astor. In September 2023, the suspects for the kidnapping became five. Three people were recorded leaving the hotel with suitcases and a duffel bag; in some rooms traces considered bloodstains emerged. Tests excluded Kata’s DNA, the luggage gave no evidence, and three positions were removed from the file. Abel and Marlon remained.
The Prosecutor’s Office also followed leads of drugs, mistaken identity, and abuse. A rogatory letter in Peru led to the hearing of relatives and acquaintances. Reports outside Italy were verified. No breakthrough.
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In 2024 prosecutor Filippo Spiezia spoke of four leads and an organized plan. In 2025 investigations established that Kata had not remained in the Astor and had not exited through the accesses recorded by the cameras. A route from the courtyard towards via Monteverdi, climbing over the wall, was also tested: feasible, but never tried as an escape route.
Katherine has continued to ask that those who know speak. Over the years she has said she is convinced that her daughter is alive, perhaps “sold” or illegally entrusted to someone. It is her conviction, not the outcome of the investigation. Today Kata would be eight years old. In the files, the last image remains that girl on the Astor stairs.
