Francisco Antonio Laureana was a 22-year-old craftsman from the province of Corrientes who lived in San Isidro, a partido on the northern edge of Greater Buenos Aires. In the first months of 1975 the police of Buenos Aires province believed they were looking for one man responsible for the deaths of a number of women and girls in that district. On February 27, 1975, Laureana died during a police operation to arrest him. He was never charged, never questioned about the killings and never tried.
Everything that ties him to the deaths is therefore an attribution. Police, a forensic expert and the press of the time and later writers connected him to the cases, and each gave its own count. No court examined the evidence, and no confession exists. The line between what is attributed and what a court decided is simple here: a court decided nothing.
Laureana was born in 1952 in Corrientes province, in the north of Argentina. Reports published by Diario de Cuyo from Infobae material describe a childhood as a boarder at a Catholic school in Corrientes and a period as a seminarian in a religious order, which he left. Other reports in the later press repeat that he came from Corrientes and had been connected to a religious school there.
He moved to the Buenos Aires area in July 1974 and settled in the north of the conurbano. Infobae wrote in 2018 that he worked as a craftsman, carving wooden figures that he sold on the street. Canal 26 and Diario de Cuyo describe him as making jewelry for sale. He lived with a woman who had three children (described as his wife in several reports), and his home is given as the San Isidro area. His age at death is given as 22 by Canal 26 and Diario de Cuyo, which fits a birth in 1952. One report in the later press says he was 35, a figure that does not fit the other details.
The period usually given is 1974 to 1975. The area is the north of Greater Buenos Aires, chiefly the partido of San Isidro and its neighbors. Infobae, writing in 2018, said the crimes were committed mainly in San Isidro and nearby areas, and the Diario Huarpe repeated that description in 2025. Individual dates and towns for most of the deaths are not on record.
The number of deaths varies from report to report. Infobae said he was credited with the deaths of "about fifteen" women and girls, a number the paper linked to a 1975 headline in La Nación that spoke of fifteen in six months. Canal 26 and Diario de Cuyo give 13 deaths, alongside a further group of attacks that they count separately. The weekly TiempoAr gives 13. Aire de Santa Fe gives eleven. Minutouno writes of about ten, and adds that the exact number was never proven. Diario de Cuyo states that its figures could not be confirmed because he was killed before he could be questioned. C5N, in a 2025 report, repeats fifteen.
Investigators treated the deaths as one series. Canal 26 reports that the police and the forensic expert Osvaldo Raffo concluded that a single person was probably responsible for the deaths. Later press coverage described the series as the work of a single serial offender. That label came from the press, not from a court.
Diario de Cuyo, in its republication of Infobae material, writes that two sisters, aged 5 and 7, daughters of a young couple, died in late January 1975. Of the others, only that they were women and girls, most of them from the San Isidro area, is on record.
Little more is on record about the people who died or their families.
Police in Buenos Aires province treated the deaths as connected. In the summer of 1975, Infobae reports, composite sketches of the suspect were posted across the north zone. The sketch came from the description of a man who had seen the suspect, according to Diario de Cuyo, Canal 26 and Minutouno. The reports differ on whether he was a neighbor or a passer-by.
Infobae adds that police ran patrols and decoy operations in the district without result. Raffo is credited by Infobae and Canal 26 with the view that one person was responsible.
On February 27, 1975, according to Infobae, Canal 26, Minutouno and Diario Huarpe, Laureana died during a police operation to arrest him in San Isidro. Infobae cites the police magazine Asi, dated March 4, 1975, for the first reports of that day.
The accounts of the operation differ, and the sequence of events has never been clearly established. The points on which they agree are that police were trying to arrest him, that he died in the course of the operation, and that it took place in San Isidro. One report places his death in November 1975, and Infobae, Canal 26, Diario Huarpe and others give February 27, 1975.
Diario de Cuyo and Canal 26 report that Laureana's relatives disputed the police version. According to Canal 26, his wife said there must have been a mistake and described him as a good father and husband. Diario de Cuyo records his mother as criticizing the police for killing him rather than questioning him and asking whether he was the man they were looking for. Canal 26 adds that police themselves said they regretted not being able to question him about his motives. Minutouno reports that the family maintained his innocence.
Minutouno reports that the killings attributed to him stopped after his death.
There was none. Laureana was not charged and not tried, and he gave no statement to a court. No judge reached a finding on any of the deaths attributed to him. Infobae's account says plainly that the full number of crimes was never confirmed and that he never confessed. Because the cases were not resolved by a verdict, the deaths remain attributed to him by police and the press and nothing more. No judicial inquiry into the police operation in which he died is on record.
The count is the main open point. Reports give ten, eleven, thirteen and fifteen, and the grouping differs: some count deaths, some count deaths and other attacks together. Because the cases were not tried, which deaths belong to one series has never been settled.
The date of his death is given differently in one report, which says November 1975. Infobae, citing a police magazine of March 4, 1975, gives February 27, 1975, in San Isidro.
His age is given as 22 in some reports and 35 in another, and his birth year as 1952 in several. His earlier life, including the claim about a religious school in Corrientes, varies from one outlet to the next, and none of it was established in court.
Finally, Infobae notes that police and the press once linked him to an older case in San Isidro from 1972, but the paper did not attribute that case to him, and it is not part of the series attributed to him.
1952: Francisco Antonio Laureana is born in Corrientes province.
July 1974: he moves to the Buenos Aires area and settles in San Isidro.
1974 to 1975: killings of women and girls in San Isidro and neighboring areas are attributed to him by police and the press.
Late January 1975: two sisters, aged 5 and 7, are reported to have died; their deaths are attributed to him.
Summer 1975: composite sketches of the suspect are posted across the north zone.
February 27, 1975: Laureana dies in San Isidro during a police operation to arrest him.
March 4, 1975: the police magazine Asi reports on the case.
After his death: the killings attributed to him stop, according to Minutouno; no court examines the cases.