A 27-year-old Argentinian woman allegedly placed the body of her 5-year-old girl inside a wooden box, filled it with cement and used it as a bedside table for several months.
Police found the entombed body of Milagros Nazareth Martin in the home of Vanesa Mansilla after her husband reported that he had not seen their daughter in a long time, Sky News reported.
Mansilla reportedly told him initially that she had placed Milagros in the care of social services due to unsanitary conditions in their home.
But when cops arrived, she admitted she didn’t know what to do when the girl died and was afraid that her other children, boys ages 3 and 7, would be taken away from her.
So she placed Milagros’ body in a bag and dumped it in a box that she filled with cement that she got from a construction site, according to the news outlet.
“She used the box with the body inside as a bedside table in her bedroom,” an investigator told local news outlet Telam.
An autopsy determined the girl died of a respiratory infection stemming from pre-existing illnesses that required her to have a tracheostomy and a nasogastric tube.
The investigator said Mansilla had admitted to her relatives earlier that her daughter had died.
“She said that everything happened one afternoon after bathing her children,” the official told Telam. “She went to take a nap and when she woke up, she went to see the girl, and she had already died. She said that she had a runny nose and drool in her mouth.”
Mansilla has been charged with “culpable homicide” and her other kids have been placed in the care of their grandmother.