A woman has posted a photo of her and her boyfriend cuddling just hours before he allegedly shot her dead.
Ferni Cristina Ayala Palacios accompanied the photo with the single-word comment: “Sweetheart.”
Clara, Ferni’s 28-year-old’s sister, grew concerned after she couldn’t contact her and reported her as missing to the police.
Officers found the body of Ferni Cristina Ayala Palacios in her home with two bullet wounds to her chest. Forensic experts said she had been dead for several hours.
Authority officials have identified her partner, Esteban Rojas, 44, as the main suspect.
Esteban, who had been dating the victim for around 18 months and lived with her for seven months, has since been on the run, according to the police.
The Paraguayan couple lived in the neighbourhood of Zavaleta in the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires.
Ferni was allegedly shot dead in the early hours of 19 February after spending the evening at a bowling alley with Esteban and her two sisters.
The group went to the bowling alley to see a band Ferni liked. At around 2 am, she posted a photo of her cuddling Esteban while still out on the town with the message “sweetheart”.
She was killed just a couple of hours later.
The victim’s sister claimed she saw the couple arguing at the bowling alley and that Ferni got very upset.
Clara said: “We were never suspicious of him, but she did tell us he was a jealous person.”
“I never saw her with signs of violence. She distanced herself from the family when she went to live with him about seven months ago.”
She also claimed that Esteban’s ex-wife filed “three or four complaints” against him.
She alleged: “they say he threw his eight-month pregnant ex-wife down a flight of stairs. Later, he violently cut a blonde girlfriend’s hair with a knife.”
Clara also said that Esteban is moneylender who is very well-known in the area.
The authorities have issued a national and international arrest warrant against the suspect as the investigation continues.
Argentina is a region that faces high rates of gender equality and violence which has created an environment that allows men to kill women due to their gender with little consequence.
Official data released in 2021, showed that a woman died from gender violence every 35 hours in Argentina according to government data, resulting in 251 femicide victims in Argentina that year.
