Ricardo Barreda: "It was sort of like Dr. Jekill and Mr. Hyde"

 

It seems that Ricardo Barreda, the dentist sentenced for killing his wife, both daughters and his mother-in-law, is sorry for what he did. "I feel very bad," he was quoted as saying at Gorina prison, still awaiting a legal decision to sit out the rest of his life sentence in the comfort of his Belgrano neighborhood home in Buenos Aires. When he was granted "home imprisonment" his girlfriend awaited him anxiously (we suppose) and neighbors expressed their viewpoints by scribbling opinions on the walls, one of which read: "Aguante Riki Escopeta, Bang-Bang."

 "I believe there was a split in my personality at one or another moment in which it wasn’t me," Página 12 quoted him as saying. "It was sort of like Dr. Jekill and Mr. Hyde." Wasn’t similar to the argument Hamlet used to explain why he killed Polonius? Another literary assination that involved a bit of procrastination was that in Edgar A. Poe’s "The Tell-tale Heart" in which the protagonist kills his room mate and cuts his body up to bits because he can’t stand the look in his eye...

  Some of his neighbors apparently are very anxious to welcome him home. A colourful banner was recently stretched across Vidal street, reading: "Welcome Ricardo Barreda." One person on that block who would really like to see Barreda come home is his girlfriend, Berta André. The question remains: does the sign represent a refined sense of irony or something else?

  Getting back to Berreda. The crime was committed on Nov. 15, 1992. Three years later he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Now, because he is over 70 years of age, he can enjoy the comfort of his posh Belgrano flat for four years in company with his girlfriend, although he won't be able to leave nor drill anyone's teeth...

   (If he were a poor fellow living in a slum, would he have received such soft gloved treatment?)

   In any event, you never know. Not all criminals are dark and sinister looking--as in Hollywood movies. Some even wear uniforms, ties, drive expensive cars, sit in chairs of power and talk about the virtues of democracy, liberty and God. Some are even baby faced, like this drawing we recently captured on another Buenos Aires street. Some invade lands belonging to others--for example the lands belonging to the Mapuches in Argentina--and some invent pretexts to justify invasions of other countries in the name of civilization or "Western values..."