The following article contains descriptions of a person's death that some may find disturbing, along with discussions of suicide.

True crime buffs like me can always rely on Netflix for their latest fix, and The Last Hours of Mario Biondo has quickly become my latest obsession. While the streamer has plenty of amazing feature-length true crime documentaries, being able to watch a mystery unfold over a series of episodes can be much more gratifying. In the case of this 2023 Spanish docies, I was hooked on every minute of all three 40-minute episodes.

The Last Hours of Mario Biondo takes a look at the death of an Italian cameraman in 2013, and his family’s search for answers. Biondo’s death was a high-profile case in Spain because he was married to the famous Spanish TV presenter Raquel Sánchez-Silva. The show interviews of Mario’s family, as well as several experts, to get to the bottom of this tragedy, making some fascinating revelations along the way.

Mario Biondo And His Relationship With Raquel Sánchez-Silva

They Met While Filming Survivor Spain

Mario Biondo grew up in Palermo, Sicily, Italy with his family, consisting of his mother, Santina D’Alessandro; his father, Pippo Biondo; his brother, Andrea Biondo; and his sister, Emanuela Biondo. As a cameraman, he traveled the world, and eventually met Raquel Sánchez-Silva on the set of Survivor Spain in 2011. At that time, Silva was hosting the series, and had already been established as a famous TV personality in Spain. Biondo and Silva soon began a romantic relationship, and Biondo moved to Madrid to be with Silva. The couple announced their engagement soon after, and were married in June 2012.

By all outward appearances, Biondo and Silva were very happy together. In the Netflix docies, video footage shows the two at their wedding looking very much in love. According to Santina, Mario’s mother, he also enjoyed the attention that came with being married to someone famous. “When Mario got with Raquel, the paparazzi would follow him,” she recalled in the docies. "Mario didn’t mind it. In fact, he liked it. He liked to see himself in a magazine.”

Hinting at her negative feelings of Silva, Santina also remarked:

“It was a beautiful wedding. In fact, I it won an award for most beautiful wedding of the year. The question was if the marriage was as beautiful and perfect as the wedding.”

On the night before Biondo’s body was found, he and Silva had an argument about his cocaine use. Apparently, the couple had been trying for a baby, but without any luck, and Silva suspected that the cocaine could have been a contributing factor. Following their argument, Silva left the apartment to travel to Plasencia, Spain, to attend a doctor’s appointment with her uncle, leaving Biondo alone in their apartment.

Mario Biondo’s Death

His Death Was Ruled As A Suicide

On May 30, 2013, Mario Biondo was found dead in the apartment he shared with his wife. The housekeeper was sent to check on him after he didn’t show up for his job at MasterChef, and found Biondo’s body hanging by a scarf on a bookshelf. The coroner who did the autopsy on Biondo’s body concluded that his death was caused by a heart attack due to the hanging. The autopsy report also stated that cocaine was found in Biondo’s nose and in his bloodstream.

Although Biondo’s death was initially ruled a suicide, further investigation by Silva and her agent, Guillermo Gomez, led to their suspicion that Biondo had died accidentally due to auto-erotic asphyxiation. They found ATM receipts which showed he had withdrawn money, which he may have used to buy cocaine, as well as bank records that showed Biondo had visited a brothel. Gomez alluded to his and Silva’s assumptions by saying:

“It seemed to us that maybe that night had gotten a little out of hand. He came home, and we believe he was trying to do some kind of self-asphyxiation; To wrap the night up and go to sleep afterwards, I presume. What went wrong, I think, maybe because of the state he was in at the time, so aroused and such, he didn’t do it carefully.”

In September 2013, a judge ruled that Biondo’s death was a suicide. His family, however, did not accept this conclusion. They believed that Biondo was murdered, and so began their own investigation, hiring several private investigators.

Biondo’s Family Believed That Silva Killed Mario

Mario's Family Were Suspicious of Raquel's Behavior

The Biondo family’s suspicions turned toward Silva, claiming that her actions following Biondo’s death were inappropriate for a grieving widow. Silva was criticized by the family for sharing photos of herself on vacation following Mario's funeral, and they appeared on Italian television to raise awareness of Mario’s case, pointing fingers at Silva as his killer.

According to Mario's mother, Santina, in episode 2 of the docies, she went to visit Silva’s and Mario’s apartment in Madrid, where she found Mario’s computer. Santina claimed that she had found a piece of paper under the computer with a website link written in Mario’s handwriting, but Silva took the paper before she had a chance to read it.

This led Santina and Pippo Biondo to suspect that Silva was hiding her involvement in a pornographic video that Mario had found online. “We think she took the only evidence we had of finding those videos,” Pippo said in the episode, “High-Profile Trial.” However, no evidence of any sort of video was found. The insinuation was that Mario had found something that Silva wanted to keep hidden, and she killed him for it.

The Biondos continued to make several talk show appearances over the years, both on Spanish and Italian TV, in which they often accused Silva of having something to do with Mario’s death. Silva’s choice not to speak publicly about her late husband’s death only continued to make the Biondos and the media suspect that she was hiding something. The family also began a smear campaign online against Silva, encouraging from internet s on social media.

There Was No Evidence That Mario Biondo Was Murdered

Multiple Autopsies And Court Rulings Confirmed There Was No Foul Play

One of the epilogue titles in the final episode of The Last Hours Of Mario Biondo reads that Mario Biondo’s case accumulated 16 Spanish judges, 5 Italian prosecutors, 2 exhumations, 3 autopsies, and zero convictions over the course of 10 years. It seems that, despite what Biondo’s family may believe, there is nothing that suggests Mario was murdered.

In 2022, an Italian judge named Nicola Aiello officially closed the case, although not without giving her personal opinion that Biondo’s death could have been a murder, and she believed that Spanish investigators failed to find the evidence needed

“The elements that are drawn from the file of the public prosecutor in the opinion of the judge deny the suicidal thesis and suggest that Mario Biondo was killed by unknown hands and subsequently placed in a position capable of simulating a suicide,” reads an official document by Aiello (via Unionesarda, translated by Google Translator from Italian to English).

This sliver of doubt was enough to keep the Biondo family determined to continue the search for their son’s killer. Unfortunately, even with all the evidence that states otherwise, the docies suggests that Mario’s family may be too overcome with grief to accept any alternative. The show features interviews with Dr. Jose Carlos Fuertes, a psychiatric expert who breaks down the possible mental state of those who are grieving a loss:

“There are two paths usually taken when there is great affection, and we’ll rarely find greater affection than that of parents, to explain that new reality. One is denial. ‘How could I accept that my son committed suicide?’ We deny reality, change it. ‘Something must have happened.’ That’s no longer denial. We change reality. We create an alternative story and use a series of facts that aren’t that consistent.”

Raquel Sánchez-Silva Hasn’t Told Her Side Of The Story

Silva Declined To Be In The Netflix True Crime Series

The Last Hours of Mario Biondo features interviews with several people, including of Mario’s family, law experts, journalists, investigators, and prosecutors. Unfortunately, one person missing from the roster of interviewees is Raquel Sánchez-Silva, Mario’s widow. One of the end titles of the series states that Silva was asked to participate, but she declined. While her manager appears in the docies on her behalf, it might seem strange to some viewers that Silva would not wish to defend herself against the Biondo family’s accusations.

From the start, the docies made it clear that Silva did not wish to discuss the details of Mario’s death with the press, or to share her personal feelings on the matter. On the rare occasions that she was interviewed on the subject, Silva expressed her regret for any grief her actions may have caused. On the subject of posting her vacation photos on social media, Silva said:

“Anyone who has gone through something similar, or has gone through a traumatic experience, knows that at that moment you don’t even know who you are. I might have made a hasty decision and gone back to work too soon when my head wasn’t clear enough to handle it with serenity. Maybe it was a gesture of affection and gratitude towards my friends. Maybe I posted a photo of me smiling, which might have irritated someone. Or it could have been misinterpreted because I didn’t post the one where I was crying.”

While I would have liked to have heard Silva’s point of view, I can’t hold her silence against her. Her choice not to appear in the Netflix series, and not to speak out against the Biondo family, does not immediately implicate her, or confirm her guilt. If anything, it proves that she is handling a truly difficult situation with grace and dignity.

Where Raquel Sánchez-Silva Is Now

She Hosts A Competition Series And Is In A New Relationship

Following the death of her husband Mario in 2013, Raquel Sánchez-Silva has continued to have a steady career in television. In 2017, she became the presenter of the Spanish TV series, Maestros de la Costura, which is based on the UK competition show, The Great British Sewing Bee. Silva hosted the talk show Lo siguiente in 2018, and in 2023, she became the host of the Spanish reality TV series Deep Fake Love.

In 2014, Silva began dating Matías Dumont, an Argentine audiovisual producer and business . The two of them have twin boys, Bruno and Matthew, who were born in 2015 (via Vanitatis). Silva is currently very active on Instagram, where she shares her TV appearances, designer fashion, and travel photos. For the most part, it seems that Silva continues to keep her private life under wraps, as proven by her choice not to participate in The Last Hours of Mario Biondo docies.