This story first appeared on Telemundo 51. See the interview in Spanish here.
Melba Calderón is inconsolable.
“There is no greater pain on this earth than losing a son, because if you lose a mother, well, you’re an orphan... If you lose a husband, you’re a widow. But if you lose a son, what are you? Nothing,” she weeps.
And if the pain of losing her son, 46-year-old Alexander Sandino, wasn’t enough, she must also grapple with questions surrounding his death, after his body was found in a Hialeah garbage dump on Sept. 6.
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“What do you mean they say he was found in a garbage dump? What do you mean? I just can’t understand, because his circle of friends were hardworking, good people,” Calderón says.
Sandino was a bartender who lived with his husband in Brickell. It was his partner who told the family on Sept. 5 that Sandino had disappeared.
“For the love of God, help me. Someone had to have seen, someone has to know about my boy,” Calderón begs.
Local
Hialeah police confirmed that they were investigating the discovery of a deceased person at 4070 Northwest 37th Court. The address corresponds to a waste services transfer station.
Authorities also said they were waiting on the results of an autopsy to determine Sandino’s cause of death.
His sister and brother say the pain is indescribable, and they find themselves longing for answers. Sandino’s family remembers him as a happy, kind man.
“I don’t want anyone to go through this pain. Help me, have compassion. If anyone knows something, has a tip, if they saw him, that he went out, that he spoke to someone, please [come forward],” his mother says.
