Matías Pablo Bagnato
is 45 years old today and is tanned by pain.
At the age of 16, he went through a tragedy: he lost his entire family to a ruthless and brutal murderer,
Fructuoso Álvarez González
, who set fire to the house with everyone inside and killed Matías' parents and two brothers, as well as a little friend. 11-year-old who had slept over that night.
That night is remembered as the
Flores Massacre
.
In the chalet of Baldomero Fernández Moreno 1906, that February 17, 1994, José Bagnato (42) died;
his wife, Alicia Plaza (40);
his children Alejandro (9), Fernando (14));
and Nicolás Borda (11), a friend of the youngest child.
Now, with the death in prison of the multiple murderer, Matías cries again, but this time with relief, since the pain will never end, but he will no longer have to endure the ups and downs of that Justice that, from time to time, threatened with reviewing some benefit requested by the murderer.
Fructuoso Alvarez González, when he was arrested in 2011. He was hiding in a shelter in a farm in Tortuguitas.
fire and death
That morning, Matías woke up with a fire in the house.
He was able to save himself by jumping from the first floor window.
Thus he reconstructed that moment in an interview with
Clarín
.
"
It was quarter past three in the morning, I was completely asleep. The first thing I feel is the lack of air. It was as if a piece of wood had been put in my throat and I couldn't breathe.
"I think that having the bed under the window saved me. When I get up, already with the beginning of suffocation, I grab the window and stick out half my body to breathe. There I see a neighbor who yells at me: 'Matías, I came out because they set fire the house.' I didn't understand anything.
"I remember looking at my bedroom door, which was closed, I saw a light underneath, and then I yelled at the neighbor: 'No, my old folks are awake.' I take oxygen, take off my shirt, cover my mouth because there was a lot of smoke and when I unlock the door it makes a flash.
"It was not light, it was the fire that was already up, it took the ceiling of the room and the closet. And it burned my hair. That's when I remember that I went out of my bedroom window and stood in a flowerpot.
"I stood there as if to throw myself, I felt the fire coming out of the dining room window on my feet, also on my back, which was burning me. I looked down to jump but it was on fire up to the middle of the street because the murderer sprayed all the sidewalk with liquid phosphorus: I knew that the window of my brother's room had no bars and neither did mine, he did it to prevent us from jumping in. I close my eyes and I don't remember anything else.
The house, totally burned.
Matías was rescued by a police officer and a neighbor.
Hours later, at the police station, he saw Nicolás's mother, the little friend who died in the fire: “she hugged me and said: '
My house is your house
'”.
The fire was intentionally started by Álvarez González, a former partner of José Bagnato in a shoe store, who threw two drums of fuel and lit the fire, because
Matías's father did not return the money he had lent him
.
The murderer was captured four days later and sentenced to life in November 1995. But thanks to a treaty, in 2004 he was extradited to Spain (he was born in Asturias) to complete his sentence there.
The front of the property, today.
Photo Juano Tesone.
In 2008 they released him, but later it was learned that he had falsified data to achieve it and they ordered his capture again.
Matías found out about the release from Álvarez González himself, who began to call him on the phone to threaten him.
“The calls were always very short.
He would ask about me,
tell me '
you're dead
' and cut me off
."
He was recaptured in Argentina in 2011, after making Bagnato death threats.
The damage was total.
After the severe blow caused by the death of his grandmother, Norma Calzaretta, at the age of 91, on June 1, 2020, the survivor lost the strength to fight, although he did not completely give up before the insistent requests of the murderer to recover his freedom.
Matías is now part of the Crime Victims Observatory along with relatives of other victims of violence, including Ángeles Rawson, the Once tragedy and the Cromañón nightclub fire.
Thanks to the impulse of the observatory, Law 27,372 on the Rights and Guarantees of Crime Victims was sanctioned, through which the National Center for Assistance to Crime Victims was created to assist and advise both relatives and victims of acts of crime. violence.
Matías, with his grandmother, who died on June 1, 2020.
EMJ
look too
Fructuoso Álvarez González, the murderer of the Bagnato family in the "Flores Massacre", died
The images of horror: this was the Flores Massacre
