Dec. 17, 1986
Guillermo Cano Isaza is murdered.

April 1987
The case is sent to Criminal Instruction Tribunal No. 60. he judge in the case receives death threats. The investigation moves to Judge Andrés Enrique Montañez, head of Criminal Instruction Tribunal No. 71.

April 12
Cartel thugs blow up a bust of Cano erected in a Medellín public park.

May 25
In the city of Cali, police find the body of Alvaro García Saldarriaga, the hit man who killed Cano.

June
Edison Harvey Hill Muñoz, alias Moquis, is killed as anti-narcotics police try to search his home. The police finds the motorcycle used to kill Cano. Hill Muñoz is identified as a trainer of hit men.

July 9
First indictments issued against Pablo Escobar, Gilberto Rodríguez, Evaristo Porrás and various members of the Los Priscos drug gang. Judge Montañez goes on vacation, and Alternate Judge Eduardo Triana is assigned the case temporarily.

July 27
María Ofelia Saldarriaga, mother of the hit man, is detained by police. Saldarriaga purchased the motorcycle used in the Cano assassination.

July 30
Authorities tapped Saldarriaga’s telephone and hear her call the second hit man, Pablo Enrique Zamora, alias El Rolo. They talk about the motorcycle. Later that day, police detain El Rolo as he tries to escape through the coastal city of Barranquilla.

July 31
Saldarriaga denies any connection to the crime. Police question her about money deposited in her bank account. She says her son Alvaro García Saldarriaga gave her the $15,000 (based on 1986 exchange rates).

Aug. 3
Judge Triana orders Saldarriaga and El Rolo jailed.

Aug. 5
Judge Triana flees Colombia for Europe.

Aug. 15
Judge Montañez, reassigned the Cano case, rejects it, saying it’s not in his jurisdiction. He sends it back to Superior Court.

Sept. 21
The Superior Court rules that there are no grounds for appeal on the Saldarriaga and El Rolo detention orders. Magistrate Carlos Eduardo Valencia also determines that Judge Montañez’s decision to change jurisdiction was inadmissible. The case was reassigned to Judge Montañez’s court , but the judge ignores the higher court’s decision. The case remains without a permanent tribunal .

Sept. 25
A temporary judge in Tribunal No. 85 issues arrest warrants against Castor Emilio Montoya, identified as a lookout in the Cano murder. Montoya is later absolved because witnesses who initially fingered him cannot remember him by the time of the trial, nine years later.

December
Judge Montañez issues an indictment, against Zamora, alias El Rolo, Montoya, alias Quimilio, and other members of Los Priscos. Judge Montañez throws out the case against Escobar, Porrás and Rodríguez Gacha.

Dec. 13
Judge Montañez, accepting a habeas corpus appeal by reputed drug trafficker Jorge Luis Ochoa, orders his release from a Bogotá jail, where he is serving a 36-month sentence.

Jan. 8, 1988
Judge Montañez is fired for the Ochoa decision. An arrest warrant is issued against the judge, after information surfaces linking him to payments from drug traffickers. The Office of the Prosecutor General investigates the judge, but that is interrupted without explanation.

Feb. 27
The Cano case is transferred to Judge Consuelo Sánchez Durán, head of Criminal Instruction Tribunal No. 87. She issued an arrest warrant against Luis Carlos Molina Yepes.

March 4
Molina Yepes escapes.

March 6
An arrest warrant is reissued for Molina Yepes.

March 15
Molina Yepes appeals the arrest warrant.

April 7
Judge Sánchez Durán rules that Escobar and Rodríguez Gacha, Porrás and Molina Yepes masterminded the Cano murder. The defense appeals Judge Duran’s decision.

May 26
Magistrate Valencia ratifies the order to begin the trial of Escobar, Porrás, Gacha and Yepes.

June 16
Judge Sánchez Durán decides to delay the trial and further investigate Los Priscos, a gang of killers with the Medellín Cartel.

July 19
Judge Sánchez Durán closes the Los Priscos investigation, finding more circumstantial evidence implicating Escobar, Rodríguez Gacha, Porrás, Héctor Villegas and Molina Yepes with the Cano murder.

July 24
Judge Sánchez Durán determines Los Priscos were the executing arm for the Medellín Cartel. She cites evidence linking them to a string of murders of notables that culminated with the Cano murder.

July 30
The Extraditables, as the Medellín Cartel’s military arm calls itself, issues a communique warning Judge Sánchez Durán against indicting Escobar.

Aug. 24
Judge Sánchez Durán issues the indictment.

November
President Virgilio Barco institutes a state of emergency and introduces the "justicia de orden público" or "public order justice." It ends trial by jury and would hide the identities of investigators, judges and prosecutors. But the Cano case remains in the regular justice system because it already had began.

Dec. 16
The trial should have begun on this date, the second anniversary of the Cano murder. But the defense postpones the trial because of illness.