Rapper’s former manager admits to killing him and staging suicide
Venezuelan star Canserbero was drugged, stabbed and thrown from a window by his former manager Natalia Améstica, authorities say
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The ex-manager of a popular Venezuelan rapper whose 2015 death was ruled a suicide has sensationally confessed to his murder eight years later, according to authorities.
Canserbero, real name Tirone Gonzalez, was named the best Spanish language rapper by Rolling Stone and drew comparisons with Tupac Shakur.
His death at the age of 26 stunned fans when it was ruled he had killed his producer Carlos Molnar in a knife fight before throwing himself from a 10th floor window.
On Tuesday, Venezuelan Attorney-General Tarek William Saab released video statements from Canserbero’s former manager Natalia Améstica in which she admitted carrying out both murders and staging the suicide with the help of her brother Guillermo Améstica.
She told authorities she was angered after learning Canserbero planned to cheat her out of payment for a tour to Chile she had organised, and intended to fire her.
“This hurt me a lot and left me with a lot of internal pain,” she said in the confessional video.
Ms Améstica said a “chance arose” when the artists visited her home in the city of Maracay on 19 January 2015.
She said she laced their tea with a powerful tranquilizer before stabbing both Canserbero, and Molnar, who she had been in a longterm relationship with, repeatedly.
Ms Améstica said she then contacted her brother to help her clean up the murder scene.
She said he showed up at her home with three officers from the Venezuelan intelligence agency Sebin, and they stabbed both men several more times and beat Canserbero’s face to make it appear as thought they had been in a fight.
“Then we were told how to throw him out of the window to complete the murder-suicide scene,” she said in the video.
Mr Améstica also appeared in a video released by the Venezuelan Prosecutor’s Office in which he confirmed his sister’s account.
#VEA aquí las #escalofriantes#confesiones sobre el doble asesinato de#Canserbero y Carlos Molnar que Natalia
— Tarek William Saab (@TarekWiliamSaab) December 26, 2023
Amestica y Guillermo
Amestica, nos #revelaran a través de un largo interrogatorio que les hice a ambos -en presencia de #Directores y de #Fiscales del @MinpublicoVEN en… pic.twitter.com/7lewWWCSYA
Mr Améstica said that forensic investigators who arrived at the home told him it appeared as though the crime scene had been staged, and asked for US$10,000 to go along with the ruse.
Attorney-General Saab told a press conference that arrest warrants had been issued for the intelligence officers who helped manipulate the crime scene, along with a forensic pathologist and several investigators.
Six people have been arrested, and more individuals are being sought, he said.
Family and fans had long had doubts about the circumstances of his death, and the case was reopened in November and the rapper’s body was exhumed, Mr Saab said.
“Canserbero is a martyr of the Venezuelan youth and a hero of the national culture,” Mr Saab wrote on X.
“Canserbero can rest in peace.”
Claudia Améstica, the daughter of Guillermo Améstico, released a statement through Impacto Venezuela to say that their confessions were false and had been coerced.
She said in a video statement that the Attorney-General was deliberately lying about the case.