Love is blind groom gets 15 years for trying to kill wife he never saw before altar
The rose-colored pods are empty. Santiago Martínez, the 32-year-old groom who proposed through a wall on Netflix’s Argentinian edition of Love Is Blind, was marched to a Buenos Aires courtroom Friday and sentenced to 15 years for attempting to murder the woman he once called his “invisible soulmate.”
The apology that froze the room
Emily Ceco, 29, shook so hard her teeth rattled as Martínez rose, turned to her, and whispered, “I still love you.” The same man who wrapped a phone cord around her neck last December—after she served him divorce papers—now claimed minor injuries, “no risk of death,” and a media circus. The judges disagreed. They counted 18 prior complaints of assault, unlawful detention, and a WhatsApp voice note where he vowed to “end this story my way.”
Ceco met Martínez in the pods, married him 38 days later, and fled their shared apartment six months after that. “He tried to kill me when I gave him everything,” she told reporters outside the tribunal. “Now the state owes me 15 birthdays without looking over my shoulder.”
Netflix stays silent as clips go viral
While the streamer promotes the upcoming Love Is Blind: Buenos Aires reunion, it has issued no statement on Martínez. Internal emails leaked to TerraBloom show producers were warned during filming that he joked about “taming” Ceco off-camera. A casting psychologist flagged his “possessive language” in episode three; the footage aired untouched.
Martínez posted a grid of black squares to Instagram mid-trial, insisting experts called the injuries “minor.” The caption racked up 400,000 likes before Meta restricted the account. Ceco answered with a single story: a timer counting down 5,475 days.
Argentina’s hotline for gender-based violence received 11,000 calls the weekend after sentencing—triple the usual volume. Operators now answer with a new automated option: “Press 3 for pod-related abuse.”
The courthouse steps smelled of burnt sage Friday night. Ceco’s mother lit it the way she used to when her daughter brought home straight A’s. “I thought reality TV gave her a fairy tale,” she said. “Turns out it gave her a restraining order stamped by the nation.”
Martínez will be eligible for parole in 2037. Ceco has already booked a passport renewal for 2038—just in case.