Overview
- Doctors detected cocaine in one-year-old Nahiara Jazmín Da Silva during tests while she was treated in intensive care, and she died on May 4 after a prolonged critical stay.
- The child was first admitted with a severe respiratory condition on April 14 and was transferred from Hospital Enrique Erill in Escobar to the Petrona Villegas de Cordero hospital in San Fernando for higher-level care.
- After the death the judiciary opened a criminal investigation and the parents, Micaela Jaqueline Benítez and Diego Emanuel Da Silva, went missing for almost three weeks before being arrested this past weekend.
- Investigators have formally imputed the parents for ‘homicidio agravado por el vínculo en comisión por omisión con dolo eventual’ and arrested the paternal grandmother, Elena Rosa Da Silva, on an abandonment leading to death charge; all three face imminent judicial interrogations.
- Relatives say the family had prior drug problems and that the mother previously lost custody of another child, and the case is likely to prompt further probes into home conditions and any missed social‑service interventions.