Story By: Juan Mayes, Sub-Editor: Joana Mihajlovska, Agency:  Newsflash

This woman and her two sons have been sentenced to life imprisonment for hiring a hitman to kill her husband in his sleep after he cut them out of his will.

The decision was made by a judge in the city of Rio Gallegos in southern Patagonia in the Argentine province of Santa Cruz yesterday (25 March).

They were found guilty for the murder of a successful local businessman named Vicente Maillo, 60, who was stabbed four times and killed while he slept in his bed on 16th November 2017.

The fatal blow was reportedly a stab in the heart.

Local media said Susana Reina, 57, who was the victim’s wife, and her mum Maria del Carmen Espiritoso, 83, called the police claiming their home had been broken into.

Reina said she and her mum were tied up and kept in a room for some time before finally freeing themselves and calling the police who found Vicente stabbed and killed in his bed.

However, four days after intense investigation several contradictions were found in the statements, and investigators then found Vicente had planned to remove Reina and her kids from his will after becoming frustrated with the way they squandered money.

A judge decided to issue a warrant for the arrest of Reina, her sons, Jose Maximiliano, 37 and Luis Gabriel, 26, and Espiritoso for the murder. The family has been locally dubbed the Maillo Clan.

Both Jose and Luis had reportedly taken Vicente’s last name.

The authorities believed Espiritoso had placed sleeping pills in Vicente’s dinner leading him to enter a deep sleep before the hitman, identified as Javier Etchebarne, murdered him in his sleep.

A turning point in the case came last year when Reina’s lawyers made the case she killed Vicente herself in a moment of passion tired of his infidelities and physical or emotional abuse.

They said Reina kneeled down and stabbed him while he slept, however, forensic evidence showed the killer was standing due to the angles of the punctures and the weapon she claimed to have used was not consistent with the wounds on the victim’s body.

The evidence was decisive in landing the life sentences for her entire family for hiring the hitman who was also sent behind bars for life. Espiritoso died aged 83 in 2019.

One of the victim’s sisters told local sources: “This does not console us in any way. The verdict is what we expected. Justice was done.”

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