Pedophile killed in attack by parents inside cathedral

FILE PHOTO

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — A trumpeter has died after being badly  beaten during a concert he was giving in a cathedral near Buenos Aires, attacked by parents from a preschool where he had molested children, a priest said Monday.

Marcelo Fabian Pecollo, a music teacher and trumpeter with the Moron city orchestra, was sentenced in 2010 to 30 years in prison for molesting five preschool children. He was freed in 2014 after a sentence reduction.

The attack took place on October 30 at the cathedral in Moron, a Buenos Aires suburb.

The group of parents barged into the cathedral yelling: “There is a pedophile and a rapist in the church and he is playing in this orchestra.”

Pecollo, 42, tried to get away but the group caught up with him and beat him, including one parent who hit the man with his own trumpet, according to witnesses.

“When I arrived, those people were leaving,” priest Jorge Oesterheld told local media. “He was in a very, very bad way, until the police and ambulance arrived. He was in a coma and died on Friday.”

The priest criticized the attackers.

“They say they took justice into their own hands, but it was revenge, it was murder.”

Pecollo was arrested in 2007 after a mother complained that her four-year-old child had been abused. Six other cases later came to light.

The court recognized five of the seven cases for trial. CBB/rga