Susana Freydoz is the sole suspect being investigated in connection with the death of her husband, Rio Negro Gov. Carlos Soria, who was shot in the face after a New Year’s Eve party, an Argentine prosecutor said Monday.
Freydoz “was the only person” with Soria when he was shot “in the middle of a family argument,” prosecutor Miguel Fernandez Jahde, who is handling the investigation, said.
The 61-year-old Soria died early Sunday “from a single shot” to the left side of his face in the bedroom of his ranch in a rural area outside General Roca, a city located about 1,350 kilometers (838 miles) from Buenos Aires, Fernandez said.
The governor was spending the New Year’s holiday at the property near General Roca, one of the largest cities in Rio Negro, which is in southern Argentina.
Police found the governor’s .38-caliber revolver, which was used to fire the fatal shot, the prosecutor said.
There is not yet enough evidence to charge Freydoz with her husband’s killing, Fernandez said.
The Rio Negro government said in a statement released Sunday that Soria’s death occurred in “a household accident with a firearm.”
Freydoz “was quite affected and did not speak” when police tried to question her on Sunday, the prosecutor said.
Investigators checked Freydoz to see if she handled the weapon and a doctor examined her, Fernandez said.
One of the couple’s daughters and her boyfriend, the only other people in the house when the shooting occurred, were also examined.
The governor was buried Sunday at a private cemetery in General Roca in a service attended only by relatives and a few Peronist Party officials.
Soria, a leader of President Cristina Fernandez’s governing Peronist Party, took office on Dec. 10 after winning 50 percent of the vote in the September elections.
He became the first Peronist to win Rio Negro’s governorship since the restoration of democracy in 1983 by beating the Radical Civic Union candidate.
President Fernandez, who is scheduled to return to Buenos Aires on Monday after spending the holiday weekend at her vacation house in El Calafate, called Soria’s family to express her condolences, officials said.
Rio Negro, which is in Patagonia and borders Chile, will now be led by Alberto Weretilneck, who until now served as lieutenant governor and belongs to the center-left Broad Front, an ally of the Peronist Party.
