Verdugo, Patricia

▪ 2009

Patricia Verdugo del Carmen Aguirre 

      Chilean writer and journalist

born Nov. 30, 1947, Santiago, Chile

died Jan. 13, 2008, Santiago

spent her entire career uncovering corruption and the political machinations and human rights abuses of the regime of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who came to power in Chile in a 1973 coup. After graduating (1968) with a degree in journalism from the Catholic University of Chile, Verdugo worked for the centrist magazine Ercilla. She and Ercilla director Emilio Filipi went on to found (1977) the magazine Hoy, which became the country's premier magazine for distilling the truth. Verdugo documented the disappearance of political prisoners in her first book, Detenidos-desaparecidos: una herida abierta (1980 [but the work was uncirculated until a 2nd edition appeared in 1983 as Una herida abierta: detenidos-desaparecidos], with Claudio Orrego). Her scrupulous investigative reporting was the basis for several other books, including André de la victoria (1985), about the assassination of a French priest, André Jarlan, by a policeman; Rodrigo y Carmen Gloria: quemados vivos (1986), an account of the murder of two youths by a military patrol during a street demonstration; and the best-selling Caso Arellano: los zarpazos del puma (1989), which linked the military's involvement to the 1973 coup. Interferencia secreta (1998), published 25 years after the coup, chronicled the events that led up to the attack on the presidential palace as well as the bloodshed that followed. Other works include Bucarest 187 (1999) and Allende: como la Casa Blanca provoco su muerte (2003).

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