Argentine police announced Monday the arrest of a seventh suspect in the gruesome murders of two young women and a teenage girl last week, in a case that has shocked Argentina.
The bodies of Morena Verdi and Brenda del Castillo, cousins aged 20, and 15-year-old Lara Gutierrez were found buried Wednesday in the yard of a house in a southern suburb of Buenos Aires, five days after they went missing.
The crime, which investigators tied to drug gangs, was allegedly perpetrated live on Instagram and watched by 45 members of a private account, officials said.
Police announced Monday the arrest of a young woman following an interview she gave to a local television station.
The suspect was reportedly seen in a car belonging to her uncle, who was arrested Friday in Bolivia, near the Argentine border, on suspicion of providing logistical support for transporting the young victims.
On Wednesday, two men and two women were arrested, followed by a sixth suspect on Saturday.
According to authorities, the man suspected of ordering the massacre is a 20-year-old Peruvian drug trafficker nicknamed “Little J,” who was active an in impoverished southern suburb of Buenos Aires. An international arrest warrant has been issued for him. His alleged lieutenant, aged 23, is also being sought.
Antonio del Castillo, grandfather of the slain 20-year-old cousins, called the killers “bloodthirsty.”
Antonio del Castillo, grandfather of Brenda del Castillo and Morena Verdi, holds a shirt with their image demanding justice for their murder in La Tablada, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, on September 26, 2025. / Credit: LUIS ROBAYO/AFP via Getty Images
“You wouldn’t do what they did to them to an animal,” he said.
“I have hope that the truth will be revealed,” he added during a protest in Buenos Aires. “I ask people to stand with us.”
Femicide in Argentina
The European Institute for Gender Equality says femicide “is broadly defined as the killing of a woman or girl because of her gender and can take different forms, such as the murder of women as a result of intimate partner violence; the torture and misogynist slaying of women; killing of women and girls in the name of ‘honor,’ etc.”
One woman is killed by a man every 36 hours in Argentina, according to a femicide monitoring group in the country, BBC News reported.
Femicide was added to Argentina’s penal code as an aggravating factor of homicides in 2012, and is punishable with life imprisonment, according to the Guardian.
However, earlier this year, Argentine President Javier Milei said he wanted to remove the concept of “femicide” from the country’s penal code, the Council on Foreign Relations reported. Milei had argued that femicide promotes the idea that “the life of a woman is worth more than that of a man.
Paula Fabero, Brenda del Castillo’s mother, reacts as relatives and friends of Brenda del Castillo, Morena Verdi and Lara Gutierrez march with abortion rights activists to mark the International Safe Abortion Day and call for justice after the three young women were tortured and murdered earlier this week in a suspected drug gang revenge attack, according to local media, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, September 27, 2025. / Credit: Cristina Sille / REUTERS
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