The discovery before dawn
Police reached a house on De las Naciones street at around 1500, at its junction with San Martín, in Esperanza, the administrative center of Las Colonias department in east-central Santa Fe province. The call came at roughly 3:40 a.m. on Sunday. Inside, officers found the bodies of the couple who owned the property, both bearing gunshot wounds, with a shotgun lying nearby.[S1][S2][S3]
The dead were identified as Marcelo Ricardo Cantoni, 73, and Nora Beatriz Nadalutti. Reports differ on her age: one outlet gives 68, another 70. Cantoni was a well-known local businessman who owned a company specializing in the assembly of industrial tanks for storing liquids such as petroleum, gasoline, oil and petrochemical derivatives, with operations in various parts of Argentina and also abroad.[S1][S2][S3]
What investigators are examining
The case is in the hands of prosecutor Alejandro Benítez of the Las Colonias fiscal unit, who ordered the Forensic Scientific Division to carry out examinations at the house and on both bodies. Experts must establish how the shots were fired, in what order the events unfolded and what circumstances surrounded the deaths. A shotgun was seized from the property and will be analyzed along with other items collected at the scene.[S1][S2][S3]
Understand this article deeper
One line of inquiry is that Cantoni shot his wife and then took his own life with the same weapon. Another is that the couple had reached some prior agreement about the deaths. Neither possibility has been confirmed, and both must be tested against the evidence gathered. No definitive conclusion has been reached so far, and the investigation remains open pending the forensic results.[S1][S2][S3]
Illness at the center of the inquiry
A key element in the inquiry is that Nadalutti had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a neurodegenerative disease that progressively damages the neurons controlling voluntary muscle movement. That detail has been added to the case file. According to some accounts, Cantoni was also ill. The couple's firm, Cantoni Montajes, describes itself as a leader in industrial tank assembly under API 650 standards, and Nadalutti took an active part in the family business.[S1][S2]
