https://jurnalul.ro/special-jurnalu...are-apar-pana-acum-trei-politisti-599595.html
Six years after the disappearance of Andrea Simon. How a child got lost in a complicated story in which three policemen appear so far
It was a Thursday evening. December 15, 2005. Ioana, Andrea Simon's mother, needed a box of cream and announced that she wanted to go to the store across the street. Andreea offers to go herself. She was 9 years old, but she was not afraid in the evening on the street. She had been doing karate for a year and a half, taekwondo, and would come alone, in the dark, from training. On Friday, the next day, she would have had the exam for the white belt with the yellow stripe.
On that Thursday evening, Simon Andreea Simona disappeared from Miercurea Ciuc, on the way from the Napsugar store to the house. It was less than 100 meters. According to the data from the investigation, Tiberiu Burcuta was the last to see Andreea alive. It was only in January 2010, after the file reached the General Prosecutor's Office, that he was charged with the crimes of deprivation of liberty and qualified murder. All the evidence in the file incriminates him: his contradictory statements, the existence of a motive for the crime, the lack of an alibi on the night of December 15/16, 2005, the fact that he failed the polygraph test four times.
Burcuta is 42 years old and is from Bicaz (Neamt). He graduated from a technical college, then took a computer science course, after which, in 1994, he got a job as a programmer analyst at the Population Register in Gheorgheni. In 1999, he took the exam for a position in Miercurea-Ciuc and moved here. On January 1, 2006, i.e. two weeks after Andrea's disappearance, Burcuta transferred, upon request, to the Bureau of Weapons, Explosives and Toxic Substances within IPJ Harghita. Where he works even now, having the rank of sub-commissioner. In December 2005, he rented an apartment on the ground floor of a building located near the block where Andreea lived. The investigators suspect that the girl was brought here the evening she disappeared. At the beginning of last year, resuming the investigations, the investigators discovered that another policeman could be related to the case: C. Constantin, a good friend of the accused. During the period when Andreea disappeared, C. Constantin was employed at the Passport Directorate. Subject to the Polygraph test, he proves simulated behavior to the questions related to the cause. "He is not directly involved in the girl's disappearance, but he knows something," the investigators conclude. And I stay with her. Contacted by telephone by Jurnalul National reporters, Constantin C. accepts, unlike Burcuta, the dialogue. However, he denies that he knows anything about Andrea's disappearance and declares about Burcuta that "he must pay if he is guilty". The investigators suspected that on the night of December 15/16, 2005, the accused could have called on the help of Constantin C., without revealing to him what he had done. Burcuta was doing driving school at that time, but he didn't have a car, so he could have borrowed his friend's if needed. However, the researches carried out so far have not led to the confirmation of this hypothesis.
Tiberiu Burcuta has no clear memories of the evening when Andreea disappeared. The film of the journey he made from the Napsugar store (where he admits he was, because he had work at the shoe shop at the entrance to the store) has several scenarios. He saw the girl, she recognized him and said "kiss his hand", they walked together part of the way, to her block, then they didn't walk at all, because, in fact, says Burcuta now, he didn't even knew what Andreea looked like...
That evening, worrying and going in search of the girl, the mother met, on both roads to the store, several witnesses: a neighbor who had taken his dog for a walk, the manager of the stairs, an employee from the nearby kindergarten , who was waiting for her husband on a bench near the garages where, Burcuta says in a version of his statements, that he broke up with Andreea. None of the witnesses had seen the girl, had not heard screams, crying or other suspicious noises. The conclusion is that Andreea and her abductor went on a different road, and from here the option that the victim was not taken to the abductor's house implicitly follows.
At the end of last month, Andrea's mother found out that a third policeman could be involved in this case: Sorin T. On October 28 of this year, he was arrested for committing the crime of favoring the criminal. "The agent thwarted the discovery of the truth and the conduct of the criminal investigation in a case that is being handled by the prosecutors of the Prosecutor's Office near the Miercurea Ciuc Court, by notifying the defendants investigated for the crime of pimping that the search is about to be carried out and the flagrant crime will be discovered", states the DNA in a statement.
Ioana knew Sorin T. A few days after Andrea's disappearance, when he was still walking after her on the streets, he met him, and he would have said to her: "You are looking for her in vain, because if she was taken for organ trafficking and it was put through the shredder, no one can find it anymore". Shocked by the statement of the man in uniform, the next day the woman went to IJP Harghita to report him. There he had another surprise, discovering that he worked for the Judicial Police. That is, he was part of the team that was trying to find her little girl... Later, from the kindergarten employee who was waiting for her husband on a bench on the evening of the disappearance, Andrea's mother found out that the person she was waiting for was actually Sorin T. And that he was late then at the meeting for about half an hour, because "he was with a colleague". And the colleague, Andrea's mother would discover, was Tiberiu Burcuta. The one to whom, she claims, Sorin T. left the apartment in which he lived in 2008, through a sale/purchase contract or through the assignment of debts. "I found out that Sorin T. left that house with only the television in his arms", declares Ioana.
Immediately after making the connection between this information, the woman notified the investigative bodies. He hopes that the hearing of Sorin T. will bring new information to the file. At the beginning of last month, when Andrea's mother made the complaint, he was in custody. Then, the nine-day mandate expired, and Sorin T. was released. Then came St. Andrew, then Romanian Day, Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve are approaching, St. Ion is also coming, and in the Simon Andreea case no one is in a hurry to push things further, for the discovery of the truth. Six years have passed, for God's sake! What can you do after such a bitter time in a murder case? And who cares, in fact, what happened, in December 2005, to a 9-year-old girl
The way to the store
December 15, 2005. At 18:55, Andreea Simon left, with a bill of one million lei, to the Napsugar store, located near her block. He bought exactly what his mother had asked him: four bottles of mineral water, a dozen matches, a box of cream and a notebook. At 19:01, the store's surveillance cameras capture the girl inside. On the receipt, the time is 19:05. Then, Andreea left the store and played outside for a few minutes with two of her colleagues. After that he left for home. Where he never reached. Around 8:00 p.m., the disappearance was reported by phone to the Police. The police from the Harghita municipality came then, and searched the area, without even finding the bag with the bottles of mineral water. The next day, the case was taken over by IPJ Harghita.
After Andrea
On the day she disappeared, Andreea had gotten a "very good" in math. The day before, another one, in Romanian. She was a hard student. A good and obedient child. All that was left behind were the school diplomas, the note book, full of "FB", wrapped in a green cover, on which she had drawn hearts and stars with a pen. Some math sheets on which he practiced the multiplication table. "3 x 8 = 8 + 8 + 8 = 24". He had passed the third grade. In her small, old bag, with short straps, are crowded the white karate belt and a handful of pictures.
Appraisals of the accused
In August 2011, Jurnalul National published a series of articles in which this case was presented in detail. Five episodes, each with a "to come" at the end. After the first two articles, I also received a point of view from Deputy Police Commissioner Tiberiu Burcuta on the editor's fax. "I am not the author of any criminal act and even less of the one described in the two articles, I have absolutely nothing to do with the disappearance of this child and I know absolutely nothing about what happened to her on the evening of 12/15. 2005. I was never protected by my colleagues, nor by anyone else, as is constantly asserted and insisted. If I had been guilty, the fact that I am a policeman does not matter. All those who worked and are working on this case did everything efforts to discover the truth and in no case can it be about negligence or an attempt to hide the truth."
How does Tiberiu Burcuta know what efforts the police made in this case? And how does he positively appreciate the "efforts to discover the truth", considering his capacity to be accused?
