Horror in Villa Crespo: four dead found in a family apartment

On the afternoon of Wednesday, May 21, the discovery of four bodies inside an apartment on the sixth floor at Aguirre 295, in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Villa Crespo, shocked the City. The victims, members of the same family, had multiple stab wounds. The crime scene was discovered around 1:30 PM by the household domestic worker, who, upon entering to start her workday, encountered a horrific scene.

She first found one of the sons, Ian (15), dead in the living room; then his brother Ivo (12) in one of the bedrooms; a few meters away, the body of the mother, Laura Fernanda Leguizamón (50), and finally the father, Bernardo Adrián Seltzer (53), in the master bed.

The initial police reports suggested a possible case of parricide followed by suicide. However, that hypothesis was quickly dismissed. According to official sources, the father's body was found with signs of having been attacked while sleeping, and he was not carrying any weapon. Instead, all attention began to focus on the mother as the possible perpetrator of the crime. "She is believed to have taken her own life with a stab to the heart after killing her husband and children," investigation sources indicated.

The scene was handled by officers from the City Police, the Homicide Division, and the Mobile Forensic Unit (UCM). An ambulance from SAME also arrived, confirming the deaths. The apartment door was not forced, leading investigators to initially rule out the hypothesis of a robbery or external intrusion.

A letter was found at the scene, whose authorship still needs to be determined. Prosecutor César Troncoso, in charge of the National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor's Office No. 5, is awaiting the preliminary report to reconstruct the sequence of events.

The case, besides its brutality, exposed a series of failures in the mental health and prevention system in the City. "Laura's sister stated that she was under psychological treatment," judicial sources informed the media. This was compounded by the testimony of the domestic worker, who warned that the woman "had changed a lot in recent weeks" and, according to police reports, had stopped taking her medication. All of this happened without any city agency intervening, nor were preventive alerts activated.

According to the building's neighbors, there were signs that could have anticipated the tragedy. "I heard some shouting and movement early this morning, but since it didn't last long, I didn't call anyone," a resident of the place recounted. In a WhatsApp group, it was also noted that the last connection of one of the family members was on Tuesday at 6:30 PM. Since the domestic worker only worked on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, it is not ruled out that the murders occurred more than 18 hours before the discovery.

The Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA), however, did issue a message. "With great shock, we received the news that the four members of Bernardo Seltzer's family were found today, lifeless, in their apartment on Aguirre 295. The authorities are investigating what happened to clarify the facts. We accompany the family's loved ones in this moment of deep sorrow," expressed Rabbi Eliahu Hamra.