Between January and July 2025, five violent tragedies unfolded in Nicaragua. In the midst of a broader pattern of similar incidents, these cases underscore the justice and health systems’ inability to prevent crimes that could have been avoided with proper intervention and oversight. Experts warn that these stories follow a clear pattern: domestic violence, untreated mental health issues, and the absence of effective protection mechanisms, ending in painful, preventable deaths.
One of the most recent cases occurred in Managua on June 22, 2025, when Bayardo Jesús Morales Osorio murdered his wife and 13-year-old daughter before taking his own life. Before committing suicide, he recorded a video explaining how he committed the crimes—motivated, he said, by his ex-partner’s refusal to resume their relationship.
According to reports from pro-government media, Morales Osorio’s ex-partner had filed a death threat complaint against him four months earlier. Although he was placed under supervised release, the judicial system freed him without effective follow-up or any measures to protect his family.
Unassessed Aggressors
Ana Quirós, a public health expert, explained that in this case, neither the judicial system nor the Ministry of Health conducted an adequate evaluation of the aggressor’s mental state or the risk he posed to his victims before releasing him.
“This man had a history. The victim had filed a complaint for threats. He was under supervision. Why wasn’t there a psychological evaluation? Why didn’t they review his behavior before lifting restrictions? It’s clear that the Nicaraguan state played no preventive role,” said Quirós.
She added that the video Morales Osorio recorded before his suicide shows clear signs of psychological deterioration, driven by a possessive and misogynistic mindset that, if properly assessed, could have prevented two deaths.
What alarms her most is the lack of coordination between the justice system, the prison system, and the health sector. “No preventive measures were taken. No interagency alerts were triggered. Meanwhile, the state maintains a network of community surveillance dedicated to monitoring opposition members, yet it plays no role in protecting at-risk families,” she said.
Another similar case highlighting this lack of follow-up occurred on January 12, 2025, when Erick Ramón Hurtado Urbina, 67, stabbed his 30-year-old wife, Sara Fernanda Áreas Padilla, to death in their home in the La Fuente neighborhood of Managua.
According to the pro-government outlet Tu Nueva Radio Ya, the victim had previously filed an attempted femicide complaint against Hurtado, but he fled and evaded justice until the day of the crime. After the murder, he took his own life with the same knife. Again, the lack of preventive measures and failure to track his record of domestic violence left the victim completely unprotected.
Negligence and Political Control
A Nicaraguan mental health specialist who spoke on condition of anonymity warned that the main barrier to preventing these kinds of tragedies is the lack of institutional autonomy. He explained that technical decisions are often subject to political criteria, limiting the professional response to high-risk cases.
“In the health sector, workers face pressure to avoid reporting cases deemed ‘sensitive’ or that might damage the regime’s image of stability,” he says. That pressure leads to underreporting of critical cases and minimal intervention due to fear of retaliation or stigmatization within the system.
“There’s a massive gap between the actual demand for care and the institutional capacity to respond. The mental health budget is negligible, there’s no coordinated network to follow up on complex cases, and in many municipalities there isn’t even a single clinical psychologist or psychiatrist available,” he added.
A criminal lawyer consulted for this report, who also requested anonymity due to fear of reprisals, noted that Nicaragua’s judicial system makes serious errors by releasing or failing to monitor individuals accused of domestic violence—who then go on to kill their victims.
“Risk assessment for repeat offenders is inadequate, and more weight is given to the absence of a criminal record than to recent complaints and clear evidence of violence,” he explained.
He also noted that after these aggressors are released, no effective monitoring is put in place—such as restraining orders or consistent oversight—leaving victims exposed and vulnerable.
“The system seems more concerned with reducing the prison population and formally checking procedural boxes than with the real safety of victims,” he adds.
This expert believes that institutional negligence makes the justice system a silent accomplice to preventable tragedies, by failing to apply preventive mechanisms that could safeguard the lives and well-being of women at risk.
Between 2015 and May 2025, the Ortega-Murillo regime released 50,664 common prisoners under a “family coexistence” program. Among those released were aggressors previously reported for domestic violence who, after regaining their freedom, killed the women who had denounced them.
“My Children Are Dead”
On the morning of Friday, July 4, 2025, the community of El Tuma-La Dalia in Matagalpa was shaken by a heartbreaking tragedy. In a modest home in the Linda Vista neighborhood, two children, ages 5 and 3, were found dead. Their bodies were inside the house, along with their 25-year-old mother, Guadalupe Vílchez, who was in the middle of an emotional breakdown.
Scrawled on a wall in trembling handwriting, the young mother had left a message: “I’m sorry, forgive me, I couldn’t go on. I’m sorry for this, but if I’m not here anymore… who would take care of them?” The message, heavy with anguish and despair, revealed her deteriorated mental state and a possible intent to take her own life.
According to local media, neighbors and relatives confirmed that Guadalupe had taken three days off work and remained out of contact during that time, until a relative arrived at the house and discovered the scene. She opened the door, face distorted by crying, and could only say, “My children are dead.”
Even Rosario Murillo, spokesperson for the regime, confirmed that the young mother had been seen several times by the Ministry of Health for mental health problems. However, there was no follow-up or intervention to assess the risk level for her or the children in her care.
“This case painfully exposes the cracks in Nicaragua’s public system, where mental health lacks preventive plans and effective protocols to protect children. That woman should have been under medical supervision—and more importantly, her children should have received protection and support from the Ministry of the Family,” said the mental health expert.
Mental Health Budget: A Mystery
In 2025, Nicaragua’s Ministry of Health was allocated 26.18 billion córdobas, representing 17% of total public spending. However, the national budget does not specify how much of that amount is dedicated to mental health care.
Since 2015, during the 39th Central American and Caribbean Congress of Psychiatry, the Ortega-Murillo regime has not disclosed any concrete information about public investment in mental health.
At that event, it was revealed that just 0.8% of the total health budget went to mental health—equivalent to 15 córdobas per person per year. Since then, there has been no official update on the actual percentage of funds allocated to this area.
A DIVERGENTES review of 2024 budget execution reports from the Ministry of Finance confirms that there is no specific line item or breakdown of mental health spending.
Quarterly and semiannual reports contain no record of funds allocated to mental health programs or services, such as Psychosocial Care Centers (CAPS) or the National Psychiatric Hospital.
The mental health specialist interviewed pointed out that one of the most critical factors limiting an effective response to femicides, parricides, and suicides is the lack of public investment in addressing these issues.
“You can’t talk about prevention or comprehensive care without resources or functioning institutions. Mental health remains the neglected stepchild of Nicaragua’s healthcare system,” he says.
Mental Health Issues Without Official Data
Although the Ministry of Health receives a large share of the national budget, the expert noted, there is no clear breakdown of resources going to mental health.
“We don’t know how much is spent on CAPS, how many psychologists work in each regional health office, or whether the National Psychiatric Hospital can take new patients. That lack of information shows the state’s lack of interest in treating this as a priority,” he said.
Beyond the lack of funding, the specialist warned about the institutional failure to publish reliable data. “There hasn’t been updated information on mental disorders, suicide rates, common diagnoses, or service coverage in years. It’s impossible to plan public policies without data—and that void fuels negligence,” he explains.
He added that the absence of statistics not only hinders technical planning, but also prevents understanding the scale of the crisis. “Without reliable figures, institutions don’t develop protocols, don’t train personnel properly, and don’t allocate resources where they’re most needed. So when a tragedy like the mother who killed her children happens, it’s treated as an isolated case—when in fact, it’s a symptom of a system that doesn’t work,” he says.
Authorities “Let Their Guard Down”
In his analysis, the expert concluded that mental health has been relegated to a secondary role, approached with minimal assistance rather than from a preventive or community-based perspective.
“As long as there’s no sufficient budget, no public data, we’ll keep reacting too late and poorly. Mental health requires political will, transparency, and inter-institutional coordination. Right now, we have none of those,” he said.
Ana Quirós, public health expert and human rights advocate, agrees with the mental health specialist and also believes that the lack of institutional transparency in Nicaragua makes the situation worse.
“The absence of up-to-date and verifiable statistics has led the authorities to let their guard down. Frankly, we don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to mental health or gender-based violence,” she says.
The human rights advocate warns that this authoritarian pattern has direct consequences in the family sphere. “When the state validates violence as a tool to silence dissent, it sends the message that it’s also acceptable to resolve personal conflicts,” she argues.
Mental Health and Fractured Families
In that same context, another case that shocked the country was a parricide committed by a teenage girl in Tipitapa on May 22, 2025—just one week before Mother’s Day in Nicaragua. The young girl stabbed her mother 64 times.
The mental health expert said the brutality of the crime and the complex family dynamics highlight the lack of effective policies to detect and respond to violence and mental health issues in vulnerable homes.
“When a teenager kills her mother with that level of violence, it exposes a deep failure in Nicaragua’s mental health and family protection systems. There are no effective protocols for identifying red flags in dysfunctional households,” the expert says.
Another case that shocked the country occurred on June 29, 2025, in Siuna, in the North Caribbean Autonomous Region. A 16-year-old girl, identified by her initials J.M.B., and her 20-year-old boyfriend, Jhordaly Migdonio López Pineda, were accused of brutally murdering the young man’s cousin, Holvin Pineda Lazo.
The killing, which took place in the community of El Amanecer No. 2, underscores not only the severity of youth violence but also the deeper backdrop of institutional abandonment and the lack of psychosocial protection networks in vulnerable areas.
According to the three experts consulted by DIVERGENTES, these five stories are not only shocking in their brutality but also revealing of a broader chain of institutional negligence: the absence of effective assessment protocols, the lack of follow-up for aggressors and victims, minimal investment in mental health, and poor coordination among the responsible institutions—all of which make Nicaragua a country where prevention fails and tragedy becomes inevitable.