Man Who Raped Daughter For 22 Years, Fathered 8 Children, Finally Jailed

An Argentinian father who repeatedly raped his daughter for 22 years and fathered eight children with her was sent to jail for 12 years after a trial at a court in the northern city of Santiago del Estero, Wednesday.

Domingo Bulacio, 57, did not seem remorseful and showed no sign of emotions when he was charged for the multiple sex crimes. Bulacio, known by the nickname Vernacho, was on the run for 45 days and was arrested in January 2016. He was in custody since then. After his victim, locally named as Antonia, approached the police for help, Vernacho fled his home in Villa Balnearia, which is an hour’s drive from Santiago del Estero. Antonia told the police that her father treated her like a slave. She claimed that he started sexually abusing her when she was barely 11 years old.

According to a report in the Sun U.K., Antonia said, “From the moment my mum left home I became my father’s wife. He would hit me and used to chase me round the house with a lump of wood when he saw me chatting to a neighbour or simply wanted to abuse me. He threatened me constantly and I always feared for my life. He told me he would kill me if I said anything.”

According to reports, the DNA tests confirmed that the children were Vernacho's. Six of the eight children were living at a charity boarding school. However, now they are back and are living with their mother. Antonia claimed that she was receiving death threats from some relatives since the time she filed a complaint against her father.

She said, “I’m scared for my life and the life of my children because I’m receiving threats from my father’s relatives to withdraw my complaint against him.” She added, “They’re not at all concerned about what’s happened. I want him to rot in jail. I want justice to be done.”

Nearly 50 witnesses, including relatives, gave evidence during the hearing and the state prosecutor demanded 15 years of sentence for the rapist father.

However, Antonia’s case is not an isolated one. The incident has chilling similarities to that of Elisabeth Fritzl, who also suffered similar abuse from her father Josef Fritzl. Fritzl was held captive for 24 years in the basement of her family house in Amstetten, Austria. She gave birth to seven children and also had a miscarriage. Her father is currently serving life imprisonment.

In another case, in November 2017, an Italian man was charged with mistreatment, slavery, and multiple sexual violence as he held captive a 29-year-old Romanian woman for a decade in a dungeon and raped her. He fathered two of her children – a boy now aged nine and a girl aged three in Gizzeria, southern Italy.