Buenos Aires, February 4 (NA) – The father of Natalia Melmann, the teenager brutally murdered by Buenos Aires provincial police in the coastal city of Miramar, stated that his daughter “is an example for her family and the community” on the 25th anniversary of the femicide. Gustavo Melmann spoke with the Argentine News Agency and lamented “not having been able to prevent her death” perpetrated by the officers Ricardo Anselmini, Oscar Echenique, Ricardo Suárez, Ricardo Panadero, and a fifth officer who remains at large, while the results of the DNA found on the victim's body are awaited. “I remember her with much love and sadness. She was an example for our entire family and the community of Miramar. A lady told me in a square that thanks to Nati, a lot of rapes of girls in the city were prevented,” affirmed the father of the 15-year-old girl. In this regard, Melmann recounted various moments spent with his daughter: “She danced 'Mayonnaise' and Chocolate's songs, she would get up at 4 in the morning to study, she had honored us by being the flag bearer in the last years of her school, and she took very good care of her mother”. A march was held on the 21st and 28th, where loved ones, friends, and feminist organizations demanded justice for Natalia and demanded the arrest of the last killer. The Fifth DNA. Officers Ángel Sánchez Custodio, Osvaldo Alfredo Sissi, and José Luis Morillo went on August 28, 2025, to the Mar del Plata Forensic Advisory, located at Almirante Brown 1762, to have blood drawn, whose analysis will be key to determining the name of the fifth killer. Sergeant Borra, Sergeant Enrique Diez, the former commissioner Merillo, and the chief commissioner Oroz Mierro are the other police officers who underwent the study, while the officers Oviedo and Torrente were exempted by the Court of Cassation. The Femicide. Natalia Melmann was found on February 4, 2001, under a pile of leaves in the “Florentino Ameghino” nursery in the coastal city of Miramar, and the autopsy revealed that she was strangled with the cord of her sneakers, although at first glance the body showed bruises, burns, fractures, and a blow to the skull. Given what happened, it was determined that she was sexually abused with carnal access by five men, including Ricardo Anselmini, Ricardo Suárez, and Oscar Echenique, sentenced to life imprisonment for the crimes of “kidnapping, aggravated sexual abuse with carnal access by plurality of persons and homicide for the cause of the crime.” The former convict Gustavo “Gallo” Fernández received 25 years for his participation in the kidnapping, although the sentence was reduced to ten years. Ricardo Panadero had been acquitted twice “for lack of evidence,” although the Provincial Court of Cassation decided in 2019 to annul the ruling and announced that the fourth police officer of the Bonaerense must be tried for his participation in the crime. Finally, on November 13, 2019, the III Chamber of the Buenos Aires Court of Cassation annulled that dismissal and ordered that a new process be carried out, which took place in 2023 where Panadero was declared guilty of the crimes of “aggravated illegal deprivation of freedom, aggravated sexual abuse and doubly aggravated homicide, by the premeditated agreement of two or more people and for being committed to ensure impunity” and received life imprisonment.
