Amid the controversy over Ángel Nicolás López, the 4-year-old boy who died on Easter Sunday, it was discovered that his biological mother, Mariela Altamirano, had a history of abuse and had already been removed from her possession of another child. Even so, the Justice of Comodoro Rivadavia had ordered that López live
with her.
The boy died around midnight in the intensive care unit of the Regional Hospital, after being admitted that same morning after being decompensated in Altamirano's house.
Initially, doctors identified cardiorespiratory arrest with no visible signs of external violence. However, the preliminary autopsy report revealed the presence of internal injuries to the head. For his father, Luis López, there is no doubt about what happened: "My son was killed.”
The controversy in the midst of the Ángel tragedy responds to the resemblance to the case of Lucio Dupuy, the 5-year-old boy who was murdered in November 2021 in Santa Rosa, La Pampa, after suffering months of torture and abuse by his mother and girlfriend, after an ultra-feminist judge forced the boy to live with them.
Angel Lopez.
Regarding the recent case, it is being carried out by prosecutor Facundo Oribones, who charged Altamirano and his partner, although both remain at large. In addition, information was requested from Misiones and Corrientes, where the child's mother would have lived, to reconstruct possible previous complaints
.
The repugnable decision of the Justice
The case exposes a previous judicial dispute over the possession of the child. Ángel had lived happily for years with his father and with Lorena Andrade, who raised him from an early age.
However, on November 4, the Justice decided to initiate a process of reconnection and granted custody to the biological mother.
The decision was made by Judge Juan Pablo Pérez, even though there was a history of abuse and removal from the possession of another child. According to the family environment, that ruling marked a turning point in the child's life
.
According to Andrade's testimony, the biological mother had been absent shortly after birth and returned only in 2025. Despite this, the judicial process that led to the change of custody progressed. From that moment on, the father's relatives say that situations of distress began for the child
. Angel Lopez.
Videos released by Andrade show Ángel resisting going to his mother. In one of them, recorded on March 9, he is heard to say “I'm staying here”, while expressing his desire to remain in the home where he lived
.
That same day, a perimeter restriction came into effect, preventing the father and his environment from approaching the child. For the family, that episode anticipated the outcome. “We went to the Ombudsman's Office, Child Protection didn't listen to us, who should have protected him but decided to abuse his power,” Andrade wrote on social networks, along with images of the minor with marks on his skin
.
The father also questioned the judicial process: “A reconnection was never made” and maintained that “the boy didn't know his supposed mother”. In addition, he recalled that he had warned the authorities about the risks: “I told them that something was going to happen to my son with that woman. And it happened. I warned Protection, my lawyer, everyone
.”
In the same vein, he said: “I took care of my son and broke my spine. Four years and nothing ever happened to him. The people who are here know what father I was and what I suffered. They gave it to him for three months and he killed me.”
Finally, he demanded justice: “I asked for my son while he was alive and they handed him over to me dead. I wanted my son alive. He wanted to be with people who loved him and they gave him to a person he didn't know
