A military officer has been jailed for life for murdering his army wife, chopping up her corpse, and hiding the body parts in bags – before sitting down to dinner with his in-laws just feet away from her remains.
The convicted murderer, a former non-commissioned officer in the Argentine Army, has been named as Fernando Irineo Gonzalez, 38, and he has been jailed for life for murdering his wife of nearly 10 years, named as Corporal Jesica Hoffman, 34, who is the mother of their child.
The pair married in 2010 before the brutal murder, in which he beat her to death, took place in the city of Trujui, in the Moreno Partido, in Buenos Aires Province, in eastern Argentina, on 20th November 2018.
Corporal Hoffman fought for her life before being badly injured and agonising for some 15 minutes. She then died, and Gonzalez quartered and beheaded her before placing her remains in bags.
The following day, he sat down to dinner with his in-laws just feet away from her dismembered corpse, in a crime that has been described as “sadistic” in Argentine media.
The pair had dated for several months before getting married in 2010, the same year that their only child was born.
On the day of the murder, both Rolando Hoffman, the victim’s father, and Delia Hoffman, her mother, had tried unsuccessfully to communicate with Jesica.
Since she did not respond, they thought that she must have been on duty at the barracks and did not want to insist.
The next day, Gonzalez went to visit them next door, as the two homes were adjoined, as if nothing had happened, and he even shared dinner with the parents of his dead wife.
Several days passed until, overcome by worry because their daughter was not only failing to answer her phone but had also failed to show up for work, the victim’s family broke a window and entered her home.
That is when the foul smell of decomposing human flesh coming from a bag hit them hard.
This is how the femicide was discovered, and the police went looking for Gonzalez at the military base where he worked with an arrest warrant.
A cousin named only as Jennifer said at the time of Gonzalez’s arrest: “For me, she had made the decision to leave and that’s why he killed her.”
Gonzalez was at a loss as to how to get rid of the body, because his car was not working, so he put the remains of his wife in a green army bag, put on latex gloves, and cleaned the whole house before changing the locks.
A criminal court in the Mercedes Judicial Department, made up of judges Jorge Pablo Vieiro, Eduardo Losada and Daniel Machain, found Gonzalez guilty of “doubly aggravated homicide by the bond and by being executed by a man against a woman.”
It is unclear if Gonzalez can or plans to appeal the sentence.
