The Argentine Justice sentenced this Friday to the maximum sentence of life imprisonment of the two lesbians accused of killing Lucio Dupuy, five years old. Magdalena Espósito Valenti, the minor’s mother, was found guilty of the qualified triple homicide of her 5-year-old son. At the same time, Abigail Páez, the woman’s partner, was accused of the qualified double homicide of the minor and also of sexual abuse with a phallic object.
His defense attorneys appealed the sentence.
Lucio Dupuy has lived since July 2020 with her mother and her partner. Since then, for Justice, the child has been the victim of “a chronic abusive modality.” As established in the verdict, Lucio suffered repeated injuries. Some of them, with a “special form of cruelty,” narrates the sentence.
The two women hid the terrible wounds on Lucio’s body until the day he died.
During the trial, some messages were exposed between the two. “Anything Lucio fell from the tree and hit his face, okay? He already knows that he has to say that. It happens that he does not have to see anyone,” said a message on February 12, 2021.
On October 6 of that year, Páez wrote to Valenti: “Look at how Lucio’s legs are, put cream on him and talk to him and ask him if he wants to go to sleep tomorrow at (some friends to have a sleepover)… The next day I’m going to look for it obviously or you, nothing and don’t fantasize about the injury it has, that if they ask you something that fell, ready… no… I scratched myself with the tree that I don’t know, invent something yes he is more of an inventor… “.
Lucio died a month after that message: on November 26, 2021. Forensic doctors determined that he died of “locking cerebral edema, associated with multiple violent blows.”
The autopsy revealed that on his death, the 5-year-old boy suffered seven bruises, two abrasions, and multiple external and internal injuries to the face, head, thorax, abdomen, genitals, arms, heart, lungs, intestines, liver, and skull.
These signs of extreme violence were not new to Lucio. His body also presented other bruises caused seven days before his murder.
His medical history even records injuries in 2020, when he began living with those who killed him. “On December 15, 2020, he was treated at the Evita Hospital, in the pediatric sector, where he was diagnosed with ‘exposed FX on the finger’ and then, on December 18, 2020, in traumatology, he was diagnosed with ‘fracture to the level of the wrist of the hand,’ according to the general code used. According to the mother’s account in the medical record, “she says that he fell off the bicycle, injuring his ring finger,” the sentence states.
The injuries were repeated. In January 2021, there is evidence of trauma to the right hand. In turn, the carelessness was notorious. In March, there is evidence that he did not use the necessary splint to recover from the trauma in his hand, according to his medical history analyzed during the trial.
In addition, a police investigation found the print of Páez’s shoe on Lucio’s body compatible with a stomp.
Despite this, Espósito Valenti’s defense argues that there are doubts about his mother’s participation in Lucio’s murder, which is why she had requested his acquittal.
For its part, Páez’s defense maintained that there was no intention to kill the child because, according to the trial, “he begins to attack him, when he sees the state the child was entering, he voluntarily ceases the aggression.” The Court responded to this argument: “The use of punches, kicks and stomping, carried out by two adults on a 5-year-old child on the head and chest, in no way represents the use of means” that cannot cause death.
The facts
According to the record, Espósito Valenti went to look for Lucio at the kindergarten. After 5 p.m. They arrived back at the house where they lived with Páez. The Court stated in its judgment that the injuries that killed the child occurred between 6 and 7 p.m. After that time, the two women left home and continued their social activities. Espósito Valenti went to work and Páez to buy some tickets to attend a musical show. The latter returned to the house at 8:49 p.m., as shown by the security cameras collected by the Justice.
A witness on the street outside the house recounted that he saw Páez leave “with desperation and urgency.” The witness asked him if he needed help, to which Páez replied that “they had broken in and beaten the child.” Then, the witness performed cardiorespiratory resuscitation, but they quickly went to the hospital where 9:45 p.m., the doctors signed off the death.
