Crime and Justice: The Lucio Abel Dupuy's Case

The horrifying 5 years of Lucio Dupuy, the tortured and abused boy whose crime has his mother in the dock

Behind closed doors, this Thursday begins the trial against the victim's mother, Magdalena Espósito Valenti (25), and her partner, Abigail Páez (28). The details of the case that shocked the country

November 10, 2022

Lucio Abel Dupuy was 5 years old

Lucio Dupuy was assassinated on November 26 of last year, but his fate had begun to be written long before. For a long time, the 5-year-old boy was the victim of a judicial process that included visitation regimes, disputes between family members and a final agreement between the parties that gave the mother and her girlfriend the possibility of keeping him permanently. That resolution of the Justice of La Pampa was approved at the beginning of November 2020. A little more than a year later, the women who had to take care of the boy were accused of having tortured, abused and beaten him to death.

The appalling crime struck a chord in society. It silenced the entire country and, at the same time, brought out the cry for justice in mobilizations that were organized in different provinces. The commotion was magnified as the ordeal that Lucio suffered came to light until reaching the sad, painful and -probably- avoidable outcome that has the victim's mother, Magdalena Espósito Valenti, accused of the horrific murder (25). , and his partner, Abigail Páez (28)

The boy lived with them in an apartment located at 2,385 Allan Kardec street in the city of Santa Rosa. He had been living at that address for less than a year. Where and with whom had he been before? To answer it, you have to go back in time. Magdalena and Lucio's father, Christian Dupuy, separated at the beginning of 2019. As the woman was unemployed and the baby's father worked in Luján, at that time they both decided that it was best for the minor to live with his uncles Maximiliano Dupuy and Leticia Hidalgo, in General Pico. The agreement was verbal and, later, through a judicial procedure, the Justice granted the uncles custody for one year in June 2019.

However, that agreement began to collapse in the last days of January 2020. In the interim, Magdalena had started a cake-selling venture with Abigail, her partner, and together they managed to rent an apartment. Her economic situation had improved and so she decided to recover possession of her son. Thus began the conflicts.

First, a visiting regime was established. The mother could see Lucio every 15 days, she could take him on Fridays but she had to return him first thing Monday morning. She even had the possibility of transferring it to Santa Rosa and then returning it to General Pico. This modality did not prosper for more than a month due to several clashes. “Every time the mother went to look for the baby it was a scandal. She called the police and made complaints that contact was prevented. It was a very traumatic situation for everyone. For the little ones and, mainly, for Lucio”, they told from the Dupuy family environment.

In the midst of the disagreements came the movement restrictions due to the pandemic. It was July 2020 and, with Lucio in her home, Magdalena couldn't return him to her uncle's. Weeks later, at the end of August, it was finally agreed that the baby's care would pass into the hands of the now detained couple. “Leticia signs that agreement because the situation was already unsustainable. She had very young children and the permanent scandals with the mother (of Lucio) were not good for them. Same for him. They were extremely tense situations that affected everyone and, more than anything, minors. He did it for the good of all, ”the relatives explained.

Since then, no socio-environmental study has ever been carried out to find out if the baby was living in adequate conditions. The rest of Lucio Dupuy's story is marked by suffering.

That night of Friday, November 26, 2021, the boy was taken to the Evita Hospital in the Pampas capital by his mother and his girlfriend, with multiple injuries. He had received a brutal beating and had almost no vital signs. He could not be revived and his death was confirmed in a few minutes. The women lied to the doctors: they said that they had been victims of a robbery and that the attackers had assaulted Lucio. From the hospital they called the provincial police and Magdalena and Abigail were arrested.

The autopsy determined that death was caused by "internal bleeding" as a result of the attacks. In addition, he revealed that Lucio had old and recent injuries. In fact, he had been admitted several times to health centers with broken arms and fingers. His body was beaten, bitten and burned with cigarettes.

Juan Carlos Toulouse, the forensic doctor in charge of the autopsy, left his strong impression: “In my almost 30 years of profession I have never seen anything like this. This level of beating and cruelty I never saw. The injuries were evident, I think someone must have seen him walking or on the street and could have noticed. The age of these injuries could not be determined, so it is not known exactly since when the boy was subjected.

Perhaps Lucio's fate could have changed if someone notified the police and judicial authorities, but there were no complaints from the professionals who had treated him on previous occasions, nor from those in charge of the kindergarten he attended. This led to an administrative investigation at the government level to establish the responsibilities of the officials involved in the omission of complaints.

The case, on the other hand, gave rise to the Law for the Prevention and Early Detection of Violence against Children and Adolescents, which bears the name of Lucio and which was unanimously approved this Wednesday in the Chamber of Deputies. Promoted by legislator Martín Maquieyra, the norm establishes mandatory training for doctors, teachers and State officials who have contact with children; an early warning system; and dissemination campaigns for the protection of the rights of minors, together with other measures against cases of abuse, mistreatment and abandonment.

After the initial arrest for the death of Lucio, Magdalena Espósito Valenti and Abigail Páez were housed in the 6th section of Santa Rosa. After three days, they were transferred to Penitentiary Complex No. 1 in the province of San Luis due to the latent danger of a populated event. Inside the prison they live in a place that was specially conditioned for them. It is an old pavilion, somewhat more spacious than the rest, intended for women who should take care of their children in prison. The initial excuse for housing them there was that they were not yet ready to mix with the rest of the prison population. The reality is that the prison authorities did not want to add them to the rest of the prisoners for fear that they would be hurt or directly killed. In fact, to this day they are only accompanied by several inmates accused of the same crime: killing their children.

According to what was known, as soon as they arrived at the San Luis prison, the women decided to confess. They did it before the chaplain. If they said something about Lucio's murder, those words wouldn't hold up in a file. They also signed up to finish high school. To pass the time, they chat among themselves, read some books that their families bring them and, at most, go out for an hour in the inner courtyard to walk. The only one who received visitors in all these months was Abigail.

The defendants share a pavilion, but are housed in different cells. This also bothers Lucio's paternal family.

  “We ask for life imprisonment without benefits and that they remain separated. They are together in the penitentiary. It seems that they are on vacation because they have a pavilion to themselves, they watch television and have board games," complained Ramón, the victim's grandfather. The plaintiff lawyer José Mario Aguerrido made a proposal to modify this situation: the Justice rejected it. The investigation and the trial

The two women adopted the same position from the beginning: not recognizing the murder and blaming the baby's father for what happened. At least, that's how they expressed it in private. Only Magdalena broke the silence once. It was during one of the judicial hearings after she had been detained for almost a month. She agreed to say a few words to criticize her ex-partner. “I wanted to clarify that the term victim to the parent does not suit the parent at all,” she said. Abigail, on the other hand, continued in silence.

According to the prosecutors' accusation, the women would have subjected the child to different types of punishment, beatings, threats and abuse. Both the version of the alleged aggression in the context of a robbery and the possible participation of third parties in the crime were discarded. On the other hand, the psychological and psychiatric examination carried out on both concluded that they are imputable persons and understand the criminality of their actions and acts. The report also determined that the two possessed certain perverse personality traits.

A month before Lucio was beaten to death, Abigail reflected on her Twitter account about motherhood: "Don't have children if you really don't want it or don't plan it as a big goal or the most important thing in your life!" lives! Do not bring kids into the world to suffer, the shell of their fucking mother. The message was not isolated. Her profile on that social network is full of others referring to daily life with her stepson and the conflict between her girlfriend and the baby's father.

The investigation was terminated after six months and the case was brought to trial in mid-June. The debate will begin this Thursday and will take place behind closed doors. This is because the victim was a minor and because it is also a crime against sexual integrity. The statements of more than 100 witnesses are expected: the first will be Christian, the father of the minor. "I don't know how I'm going to react when I see their faces (the defendants) and hear the atrocities that Lucio suffered," the man wrote on his Facebook profile.

The pleadings date is scheduled for December 22 and the ruling is expected to be read in February 2023.

Magdalena's accusation is particularly long: she arrives at this instance accused of “homicide triple qualified by the link (because she is ascendant) and with cruelty and treachery; in real contest with seriously outrageous sexual abuse due to its duration and specific forms of realization, triple aggravated for being the guardian at the time of the facts, for being committed by two people and for living with the victim under 18 years of age, as a continuous crime ”. The complaint also asked to add the aggravating circumstance of "hatred of the male gender."

While the other woman was accused of the same crime, but with one less aggravating circumstance, since she was not related to Lucio. In both cases, equally, the pending sentence is life imprisonment.

We believe that the evidence that we have gathered is sufficient to prove these crimes”, agreed the prosecutors Máximo Paulucci, Verónica Ferrero and Marcos Sacco, who also announced that they will request the maximum penalty. The Santa Rosa Court of Hearings that will have the final word will be made up of judges Aníbal Olié, Alejandra Ongaro and Daniel Sáez Zamora.

Lucio Abel Dupuy

July 5, 2016 - November 26, 2021