The woman accused of murdering her daughter in the province of Santiago del Estero will remain interned in a mental health center, as determined by the judiciary. Following this decision, it became known that after the crime, she allegedly justified her actions by claiming that the minor was being bullied.
The murder of 9-year-old Diana occurred at the end of October in the Palermo neighborhood of La Banda, when the mother administered clonazepam pills to the child and then suffocated her to death.
Since then, the accused, who has a psychiatric history, has been interned in a Mental Health Center.
In recent hours, according to information accessed by the Noticias Argentinas agency, it was revealed that María de los Ángeles Russo, 28, stated after her arrest that she killed the girl "because she was being bullied at school" and that the minor had told her that "she no longer wanted to live".
"I saved my daughter, I killed my daughter to protect her from harm, everyone wanted to harm her and I saved her," she repeated to the authorities.
She also stated that she gave the child four clonazepam pills, then suffocated her and attempted suicide, something she did not achieve as her parents arrived at the home and found Diana dead.
In recent hours, prosecutor Mariano Gomez requested that the accused be detained with preventive imprisonment, although he ratified that she continue to be interned at the El Polear Mental Health Center.
The defense of Russo, on the other hand, opposed the preventive detention and requested her to be declared non-imputable.
The judge of Control and Guarantees of Banda and Robles, Roxana Menini, determined that she continue to be interned, but opposed the prosecutor's request for preventive detention and the lawyer's request for her to be declared non-imputable. The latter can only be evaluated, it was explained, when the psychiatric expert reports are known.
So far, the case is being investigated under the heading "qualified homicide by kinship".