Peruvian police officer killed his wife in Ate with multiple prior complaints
Subofficer Luis Felipe Sandoval Díaz was detained for shooting his wife in the head. The family demands that the case be investigated as a femicide.
Police officer with history since 2018 shoots and kills his wife in Ate
Luis Felipe Sandoval Díaz, a subofficer of the Peruvian National Police (PNP), was detained after killing his wife, Mariela Peralta Muñoz, with a gunshot to the head inside the bedroom they both rented in the La Florida Housing Association, in the Ate district, infobae.com reported. A neighbour first heard an argument and then the shot.
The victim's family members demand that the case be investigated as a femicide. According to her sister, Mariela had been seeking a separation and had warned of episodes of violence. Before the crime, the young woman asked a neighbour for help and told her that if anything happened to her, she should hold her husband responsible.
"I will never leave your sister, I will leave her with death," the police officer allegedly said, according to what Mariela's sister reported to América Noticias. "And he kept his word. He killed my sister," she added.
Mariela's sister also stated that her family member had told her about psychological abuse and infidelities, and that she has kept messages in which the victim expressed her wish to distance herself from Sandoval. "I want him to leave, I don't want to know anything. I am going to live a horrible life with that man," Mariela wrote in one of those messages, according to her family member.
History ignored since 2018
Sandoval has investigations on record since 2018, including one for assault and another for homicide in 2022. In 2023 he appeared in an investigation for alleged aggression against an ex-partner, and in 2024 he is under investigation for extortion. The victim's family questioned why the police institution had not sanctioned him in light of these prior accusations.
"We demand justice for my sister, that this case does not go unpunished," declared Mariela's sister.
Victim worked at the Santa Margarita Youth Centre
Mariela Peralta Muñoz worked as a social educator at the Santa Margarita Youth Centre and as an agent of the National Penitentiary Institute (INPE). The Ministry of Justice and Human Rights expressed sorrow at her death and highlighted her work with the detained teenage girls and her colleagues. Through the National Programme of Youth Centres, the sector indicated that it provides support to the victim's family.
The Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations is also providing legal assistance to the family. Mariela leaves behind a fourteen-year-old daughter.
Recent couple and marriage in conflict from the start
Mariela Peralta Muñoz and Luis Felipe Sandoval Díaz met in 2024 and had been married just weeks before the crime. On social media they shared photographs together, although family members assert that the relationship had been in conflict from the beginning of the marriage.
Sandoval remains in detention. A hearing will determine in the coming hours whether preventive detention is ordered during the time the investigations last. The Public Ministry has already opened a new investigation against the officer, who is the principal suspect.
Source: Google News PE — Crime