María Fernanda Benítez Killer Receives Eight-Year Maximum Sentence in Paraguay
PARAGUAY · JUSTICE
Key Facts
- —The verdict A Coronel Oviedo sentencing tribunal imposed eight years — the maximum under juvenile law — on the young man convicted of the femicide and abortion of María Fernanda Benítez, his 17-year-old ex-girlfriend.
- —Why not more He was 17 at the time of the crime. Paraguay has since raised the maximum adolescent sentence from eight to ten years, in a reform born of this case — but it does not apply retroactively.
- —The crime María Fernanda, four months pregnant, was killed on 27 May 2025; her burned body was found in a vacant lot four days later.
- —Five more convicted A friend accused of instigating the killing received ten years; the teenager’s parents four and a half years each; a pharmacist five years; a fifth defendant three.
- —The mother “It seems insufficient to me. My daughter is gone and he will walk free,” said Nilda Martínez.
- —The legacy The case gave Paraguay the MAFE missing-persons alert system, named after her.
A Paraguayan court has sentenced the teenage killer of María Fernanda Benítez to eight years in prison — the most the law allowed. The verdict closes a case that horrified the country and changed its legislation, but not her family’s anger.
María Fernanda Benítez was 17 years old and four months pregnant when she was killed in Coronel Oviedo, in Paraguay’s Caaguazú department, in May 2025. On Thursday night, the young man convicted of her femicide — her former boyfriend, himself 17 at the time — received the maximum sentence the country’s juvenile justice system allows: eight years.
The Sentence
The Tribunal de Sentencia of Coronel Oviedo, presided over by Judge Raúl Marecos with judges Vidal Santacruz Páez and Derlis Benítez, announced its decision at 10:15 p.m. on Thursday in a closed hearing, according to Última Hora’s correspondent in the city. The panel found the young man responsible for the femicide and abortion of María Fernanda after what it considered conclusive prosecution evidence.
Prosecutor Fermín Segovia had requested the maximum of eight years, arguing the evidence of authorship was overwhelming. The convicted man’s name is withheld because he was a minor at the time of the crime. Now 18, he has been held at the El Sembrador educational center for adolescents in Villarrica since May 2025; under the juvenile regime he will remain there until age 20, when he will be transferred to an adult penitentiary to serve the rest of the term.
The Crime That Shook Paraguay
María Fernanda — known to the country as “Mafe” — left her home on the afternoon of 27 May 2025 and never returned. According to the investigation, supported by the geolocation of the suspect’s phone, she was killed that same day during the siesta hours. Her body was found four days later, on 31 May, burned in a vacant lot in Coronel Oviedo. Forensic doctor Pablo Lemir established that she died from a strong blow to the head.
The prosecution’s case was that her ex-boyfriend killed her after learning she was pregnant. The brutality of the crime — a pregnant teenager murdered and her body set alight — dominated Paraguayan news for months and drew an unusual public statement of condolence from UNICEF, in a country that otherwise registers some of the region’s lower violent-crime rates.
Five More Sentenced
The teenager was tried separately under the adolescent criminal responsibility regime. In the parallel trial of five adults, the court sentenced Mikhaela Chiara Rolón Melgarejo, a friend of the convicted youth whom prosecutors described as the instigator who psychologically pushed him to act, to ten years in prison — the heaviest sentence of the case.
The young man’s parents received four and a half years each, as prosecutors had requested, for exposing the investigation to danger, filing a false missing-person report for their own son, and obstructing justice. Franco Antonio Acosta Céspedes, the owner of the pharmacy that supplied information on abortion medication to the accused teenager, was given five years — one more than prosecutors sought — for complicity in attempted abortion and frustrating criminal prosecution; he serves the sentence under house arrest. A fifth defendant, Ricardo Andrés León Villamayor, was sentenced to three years.
“Insufficient”
For the victim’s family, the maximum was not enough. “It seems insufficient to me. My daughter is gone and he will walk free,” Nilda Martínez, María Fernanda’s mother, told Channel 13 after the verdict. Her husband had told the court during final arguments: “I lost everything because of them. I want these monsters to go to prison.”
The legal saga may not be over. Prosecutor Noelia Montania confirmed that a separate case against the same young man, opened last year, remains active and could lead to another trial — he is also accused of instigating the abortion of another girl.
The Case That Changed the Law
Few crimes have left such a legislative mark. Outrage over the killing produced the MAFE Alert — a missing-persons alarm system named after María Fernanda — together with a National Registry of Missing Persons, fast-tracked through Congress from June 2025. This July, President Santiago Peña and Interior Minister Enrique Riera launched an alliance with Meta under the MAFE law to locate missing children and adolescents through notifications on social networks.
The case also moved Congress to raise the maximum prison term for adolescents convicted of extremely grave crimes from eight to ten years. The Chamber of Deputies sanctioned the reform in June and Peña promulgated it in July — weeks too late to apply to the man it was written for.
And it produced a corruption scandal inside the prosecution itself: Gloria Rojas, one of the prosecutors originally investigating the killing, was suspended by the Supreme Court and charged after an alleged agreement to accept 30 million guaraníes (about US$4,300) in exchange for a procedural exit for one of the defendants — a bribe documented in a watched delivery coordinated by anticorruption prosecutor Marlene González.
On Thursday night, after the verdict, the family said only that they will keep fighting. “Until the end of the world,” her father had promised during the trial, “I will go to know what they did to my daughter.”
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