A mother and stepdad who beat their four-year-old lad to death and tried to pass it off as a slip in the bathtub killed him because he had eaten some chocolates, it has emerged.
The chilling crime was discovered when cruel Victoria Belen Godoy took her son Renzo Gabriel Godoy to a health facility in Berazategui District, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina.
She claimed that Renzo had suffered injuries to his face and head because he “fell out of the bathtub”.
Medics declared him dead on arrival, but an autopsy showed that his mother’s version of events was a lie and that he had been beaten to death.
Now police have been told that Luis Alberto Gallo had beaten his stepson mercilessly before he died for eating sweets he had brought home for his stepdaughters.
The truth came out as Renzo’s 10-year-old stepbrother was undergoing counselling with therapists.
The lad told his counsellor that Gallo had arrived home and said: “The Bon O Bons are for the girls.”
When Gallo realised the sweets had gone, he grabbed the 10-year-old by the throat and forced him to tell on his little stepbrother.
Under duress, the lad had told Gallo that Renzo had eaten the truffles.
Renzo’s aunt told local media: “When they ate the Bon O Bons, the stepfather grabbed the oldest son by the neck.
“He got scared and said it was Renzo. That’s when he [Renzo] began to be beaten. The [half] brother saw everything.”
She added: “He was killed for eating a chocolate.”
Godoy and Gallo are both in custody, accused of aggravated murder.
Local media reported earlier that both were exercising their right to remain silent.
The couple had been together for 14 months and lived with five children – a two-month-old boy; Renzo and two girls, who are Godoy’s from a previous relationship; and the 10-year-old boy, who is Godoy’s from another previous relationship.
Investigators believe Godoy and Gallo regularly beat Renzo, as the autopsy report said the bruises on his body were from different dates.
The victim’s paternal aunt, Daniela, had taken to social media in the wake of Renzo’s death to write: “Victoria Godoy and Luis Gallo are murderers.
“That piece of trash didn’t let my brother see his children for more than a year after she got together with that son of a b*tch.
“Before, she would come and bring the four boys (including one who’s not my brother’s, but we still love him just the same) and she would leave them with my mum, saying, ‘I can’t stand them, you take care of them.’
“When she got together with that son of a b*tch, she didn’t let them come anymore, she didn’t let us come and get them, she didn’t let them celebrate their birthdays with us, with their cousins, nothing.”
The victim’s grandmother, Gladys, had collected Renzo’s body on 23rd December so he could be buried.
Daniela had said of Gallo: “When we went to see them, and if he allowed us, he always had to be there, the children seated, he wouldn’t let them hug us, they looked like soldiers.
“My mum filed a complaint, my brother filed a complaint, the nursery school called her in because the boy went in beaten (we were never told because he doesn’t have my brother’s surname), my brother hired a lawyer, sh*tty laws, nothing can ever be done, you always have to wait for the worst to happen.”
The Public Prosecutor’s Office is now also investigating whether the couple forced their other children, who are now under the care of Godoy’s family, into labour.
