Canserbero did not kill himself: The Venezuelan rapper was stabbed to death by his manager

Eight years after the apparent suicide of the Venezuelan rapper Canserbero and a few days after Rolling Stone magazine named him one of the 50 greatest artists in the history of rap, the Venezuelan Prosecutor’s Office reopened the investigation into his death. A few weeks later, in the middle of Christmas, investigators had made new findings. The Prosecutor’s Office revealed that the suicide hypothesis — which had been plagued by doubts — had been disproven. According to the authorities, the rapper — whose real name is Tyrone José González Orama — was stabbed to death by his manager, María Natalia Amesquita, who was the partner of the musician Carlos Molnar, who also died by her hand.

On Thursday, the Attorney General of Venezuela, Tarek William Saab — who in recent weeks has given several press conferences about the case — asked for one of the rapper’s most iconic songs to be played before he shared the latest information about the investigation. To explain the findings, the official played a series of videos in which Canserbero’s manager and her brother, Guillermo Amestica — who was also implicated — are heard confessing to the crime. Both appear handcuffed. According to Saab, the confession was made during police interrogations that took place last week.

During the press conference, Saab called Canserbero a martyr and admitted that the two had crossed paths in a tattoo studio. “We have achieved our goal, and Canserbero can rest in peace wherever he is, because those who killed him are now in prison,” Saab said during the televised press conference, which he ended by cheering “Canserbero lives!” — a play on the slogan used to honor former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez.

In the video, María Natalia Amestica explains that she and her partner, Carlos Molnar — a musician and friend of Canserbero — had disagreed over money, specifically the organizational expenses generated by the rapper’s tour in Chile that year. She had also argued with Canserbero, who allegedly said that he didn’t want her to represent him anymore. This was what motivated her decision to commit the crime on January 20, 2015.

In her confession, she said that when Canserbero and Molnar came to her house to record a video for their next show, she made them a tea laced with an anxiolytic, and when Molnar became drowsy, she stabbed him in the neck. According to her story, Canserbero saw her do it, and so when he also fell asleep, she stabbed him in the side. Amestica then called her brother, Guillermo Amestica, who in turn asked officials from the state intelligence service, Sebin, to help stage the crime scene. The plan was to make it appear that the rapper had murdered his friend in the middle of a psychotic break due to his schizophrenia, and then killed himself by jumping through a window of Amestica’s apartment, located on the 10th floor of a building in the city of Maracay, 62 miles (100 kilometers) from Caracas.

But that’s not where the complicity ended. According to Guillermo Amestica’s testimony, the judicial police investigating the deaths asked for $10,000 to back the homicide-suicide hypothesis. According to the investigation, after the crime, the Amesticas went to Chile but returned to Venezuela after the case was shelved.

“These brutal revelations express how the Amesticas, of Chilean origin, conspired out of hatred, envy, thirst for revenge and financial ambitions, to kill Tyrone González, Canserbero, and Carlos Molnar,” declared Saab.

María Natalia and Guillermo Amestica were arrested last week, according to statements made on social media by Claudia Amestica, the daughter of the accused manager, who has denied the prosecutor’s accusations. She said that her relatives were held incommunicado for nine days after they went to the police station to testify. According to the daughter, the two were also denied access to their lawyers.

Venezuelan authorities on Tuesday also arrested pathologist Solangel Mendoza, who performed the first autopsy on Canserbero in 2015. Saab has also advanced what could be a new case: the alleged improper collection of royalties for the slain rapper’s three albums.

A lot has happened in Venezuela in the last two months. The government had to deal with the high turnout for the opposition primaries, which were overwhelmingly won by María Corina Machado. It clashed with Guyana by holding a referendum on the annexation of Essequibo, a move that raised questions about its power of mobilization. It agreed to a prisoner swap with the United States, in which Alex Saab — who is linked to government business and accused of money laundering — was released back to Venezuela. And it also found time to reopen the Canserbero case and exhume the rapper’s body, which was given a virtual autopsy with 3D reconstruction of the skeletal remains. According to Saab, this was a “first in the country.” This then led to the arrest and confession of the murderers and the officials who staged the crime scene.

The review into the death of Canserbero — recently chosen by Rolling Stone magazine as the best rapper ever in the Spanish language — was also discussed in Maduro Podcast, a new program launched by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. At the beginning of December, in one of the podcast’s first episodes, the two talk to Saab about the case. In the relaxed conversation, the official elaborated on his suspicions about whether a person with schizophrenia would think to remove the glass from the window before killing themselves, as proposed by the initial hypothesis. He also discussed what the body of a person who jumped from a 10th floor apartment should have looked like. In the podcast, Saab said he believed the crime scene had been staged. Maduro agreed that it appeared that the rapper had been murdered, while Flores thanked Saab for his “commitment to good causes.” Earlier this year, before reopening the Canserbero case, the public prosecutor began a campaign to crack down on reggaeton music.

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