“It’s done. The dog is dead, the rabies is over.” That was the first thing Blanca Susana Argatt’s son heard when he arrived at his parents’ home in Villa Alem, San Miguel de Tucumán, minutes after 2 a.m. on Monday.
Inside, Manuel Hipólito Rodríguez, 76, lay dead with two gunshot wounds: one to the head and another to the chest. The weapon, a revolver that his own children claim not to know where it came from, was left lying on the floor. Argatt, 79, did not resist or try to conceal what she had done.
The motive behind that phrase began to emerge afterward. The couple’s three children agreed in describing years of physical and psychological violence, isolation, and control exerted by Rodríguez. A neighbor identified as María Emilia said that the woman “had been living through hell” for years. It also emerged that he may have prevented her from saying goodbye to a daughter who was dying of a terminal illness. Prosecutor Carlos Sale is investigating the case while Argatt remains at liberty, staying at one of her daughters’ homes.
