José María Ferreyra Vásquez died that day at 17:30 hours, at the Hospital de San Bernardo, due to abdominal trauma as recorded in the Medical Death Certificate from the Legal Medical Institute. The Autopsy Report specified that this abdominal trauma, "given its characteristics, could hardly have been the result of a fall, and was instead due to visceral congestion."

According to witness statements, on August 21, 1976, José Ferreyra, a militant of the Partido Comunista, was detained by Carabineros and remained held at the Cárcel de San Bernardo until the 23rd, when he was released. A few hours later, he was detained again, but this time by officials from the Investigaciones police in San Bernardo, who transported him to their police station.

Four days later, members of this police force informed his spouse that José Ferreyra had died of cardiac arrest. She went immediately to the Hospital de San Bernardo, where his body was located, and was able to verify that he had hematomas in the abdominal area.

In the judicial investigation initiated regarding his death, his captors denied having beaten him and claimed that he had struck his abdomen after suffering a fall while in detention. This version was contradicted by the statement of another detainee at the police facility, who asserted having heard him being beaten and subjected to interrogations under torture.

The doctor who provided him with first aid declared that José Ferreyra presented a hematoma of about ten centimeters in the epigastric region.

The aforementioned case was temporarily dismissed due to a lack of sufficient evidence to charge a specific person as the perpetrator, accomplice, or accessory to the crime committed.

Considering the evidence gathered and the investigation conducted by this Corporation, the Superior Council reached the conviction that the death of José María Ferreyra Vásquez was a direct consequence of the torture to which he was subjected by State agents while they held him in detention. Therefore, it declared him a victim of human rights violations.