The original 2015 account
Canserbero and Molnar died at an apartment in Maracay in January 2015. The initial official account said Canserbero had killed Molnar and then died after falling from a window. That version remained the dominant public explanation for years, although doubts persisted among relatives and supporters.
Because the initial account was later rejected by the reopened prosecution, this dossier does not present the 2015 murder-suicide theory as established fact. It is part of the case history: an explanation authorities once accepted and later abandoned.
The case is reopened
Venezuela's Public Prosecutor reopened the investigation in November 2023. El País reported that investigators exhumed Canserbero's remains, undertook new forensic work and concluded that the old suicide hypothesis was inconsistent with the renewed evidence. Prosecutors then presented recorded statements from Natalia Améstica, Canserbero's former manager and Molnar's partner, and her brother Guillermo Améstica.
Those statements were made while the defendants were in custody and were publicly released by prosecutors. The evidentiary record described by the prosecution included more than the videos alone; reporting on the February 2024 hearing said the court considered the defendants' admissions together with the evidence gathered during the reopened investigation.
The Améstica convictions
On February 1, 2024, Natalia and Guillermo Améstica admitted the facts charged by prosecutors. The following day, Venezuelan authorities announced that both had been sentenced to 25 years in prison. The charges reported by EFE included qualified homicide with treachery and a futile motive in co-perpetration, obstruction of justice, simulation of a criminal act, false statement to an official and criminal association.
The Public Prosecutor had sought 30 years, but the court applied the procedural reduction associated with admission of the facts. This page therefore records 25 years as the adjudicated sentence, not the higher term prosecutors requested.
Five additional convictions
The case continued after the Améstica sentences. In December 2024, Venezuelan prosecutors announced convictions for five additional defendants: Gilbert Cruz, Edgar Trillo, Teresa Pinto, Solangela Mendoza and Marcos Pratolongo. Established reporting placed their prison terms between 15 and 20 years, with different offenses and levels of participation attributed to different defendants.
The archive does not describe all seven convicted people as having performed the same acts. The Améstica siblings' convictions and the later accomplice convictions represent distinct legal roles within the same criminal case.
Current status and unresolved questions
The central legal question—whether the two deaths were simply the murder-suicide first reported in 2015—has been adjudicated very differently in the reopened case. Multiple convictions now establish a criminal prosecution outcome for the killings and the alleged staging of the scene.
That does not mean every public controversy surrounding the investigation is resolved. The extraordinary reversal of the original narrative, the role of officials in the early investigation and the circumstances surrounding publicly released custodial admissions remain matters that should be discussed with precise attribution rather than speculation.
Sources
- El País English — reopened investigation and prosecution accountDecember 28, 2023
- EFE / Infobae — 25-year sentences for Natalia and Guillermo AmésticaFebruary 2, 2024
- El País América — five additional convictionsDecember 18, 2024