La de accused que nunca hizo justice

La prosecution and the court file describe the origin of the case: during the early morning of February 17, 1994, Fructuoso Álvarez González poured fuel on the front of a two-story house in the Flores neighborhood and set it ablaze. Five people died, while the only survivor, Matías Bagnato, was 16 years old. The investigation established that Álvarez, the husband of Alicia Plaza's cousin, acted over a debt he claimed was owed by the couple. The court sentenced him to life imprisonment, but he continued threatening Matías and died in 2023 without having served the full sentence.

According to the material reviewed, a neighbor saw a man leave a sports car, carry two fuel containers and approach the property on Baldomero Fernández Moreno street at 1900. The witness said the man poured fuel on the front, tried to pour some of the liquid through a ground-floor window and then started the fire. The statements reconstructed a deliberate attack that spread through the house within minutes.

The victims were José Bagnato, a 42-year-old shoe manufacturer; his wife, Alicia Plaza, 40; their sons Fernando, 14, and Alejandro, 9; and Nicolás Borda, 11, a friend of Alejandro who was sleeping at the house for the first time. Bagnato survived because the window of his room did not have bars and he had closed the door connecting it to the upstairs hallway, where the other bedrooms were located. The door delayed the advance of the flames and allowed him to escape.

What the investigation proved

The case established the identity of the attacker, the method used to start the fire and the existence of a debt-related motive. The evidence presented in the material also includes the impact of the physical layout of the house and the position of the rooms at the time of the attack. Those facts explain how the fire spread and why Bagnato could get out, but they do not by themselves establish the precise sequence of every movement inside the property.

The threats attributed to Álvarez are a separate and later part of the case. According to the information available, he called Matías repeatedly and told him that he would die burned like the rest of his family. Bagnato was held under permanent police protection and, during the first years after the crime, lived with an escort. His grandmother, Norma, who was in Mar del Plata on the night of the fire, became his main support during the following decades.

A documentary without all the voices

The case returned to public attention with a three-chapter documentary series directed by Augusto Tejada and produced by Juan José Campanella. The production includes Bagnato's testimony, the account of the neighbor whose statement was key to the case and interviews with people who accompanied him during the reconstruction of the events. The family of Nicolás Borda, the fifth victim, does not appear in the documentary, according to the material provided.

That absence is relevant because the series presents the crime through survivors, witnesses and people involved in the reconstruction, without including the family of one of the victims. The distinction matters when evaluating the scope of the documentary: it can illuminate the investigation and the consequences of the fire, but it does not offer a complete account of every affected family. Any interpretation about the reasons for that omission would remain a hypothesis unless supported by additional information.

• Five people died in the February 17, 1994 fire in Flores.
• Matías Bagnato, then 16, was the only survivor.
• Fructuoso Álvarez González was convicted of life imprisonment.
• The investigation linked the attack to a debt claimed by Álvarez.
• Bagnato spent years under protection after receiving death threats.
• The documentary series has three chapters and was directed by Augusto Tejada and produced by Juan José Campanella.

In procedural terms, the criminal conviction against Álvarez was life imprisonment, and the record indicates that he died in 2023 without having completed the sentence. The threats generated a subsequent police intervention, including Bagnato's later arrest of the convicted attacker in 2011. With the death of the defendant, the next available instance is the legal treatment of those facts under the applicable procedure as of the information reviewed; the material does not specify a new hearing date or a current judicial resolution beyond those recorded facts.