The attack unfolded with a methodical cruelty that shocked a nation already numbed by violence against women. Around seven in the evening, Carlos Hualpa Vacas boarded the bus wearing a green hood and dark glasses, carrying a black backpack. He sat in the rear, then moved forward three seats to reach Agreda. He poured gasoline over her and ignited it. The flames spread instantly, engulfing nearby passengers. At least ten other people suffered burns. Hualpa Vacas escaped the burning bus with his left arm on fire. Agreda, the intended target, sustained catastrophic burns. She was rushed to the hospital, where she would remain for over a month. She died in late May 2018, her injuries too severe to overcome.

Hualpa Vacas did not last long as a fugitive. The evidence converged quickly: security cameras in Miraflores captured a figure matching witness descriptions -- hooded, dark glasses, black backpack. Agreda's sister provided a crucial lead; before the attack, Eyvi had sent her a warning message asking her to meet her at the bus station because she was afraid of a man who had been stalking her. When police arrived at Hualpa Vacas's workplace the next morning, they learned he had called in with an injury sustained the previous night. When he appeared at his front door, officers confirmed burn marks on his left hand and forearm, exactly as the bus driver had described. In custody, Hualpa Vacas described his plan in detail, showing no remorse. He claimed he had not intended to kill Agreda -- only to disfigure her. He admitted purchasing the gasoline a month before the attack but said he had lacked the resolve to act until that evening.

The attack on Eyvi Agreda became a lightning rod in Peru's ongoing crisis of violence against women. The case was covered extensively by national and international media, not only because of the number of victims but because of the brazenness of the attack -- a public bus, rush hour, a man stalking a woman he claimed to have feelings for. Prime Minister Cesar Villanueva pledged the most drastic measures to address what he called an unacceptable act of violence against women. The Ombudsman's Office called for new criminal statutes to sanction harassment more effectively. Fiorella Molinelli, president of Essalud, visited Agreda in the hospital and demanded the full weight of the law against the attacker. Ana Maria Mendieta, Minister of Women and Vulnerable Populations, stressed that only sustained prevention could reduce Peru's femicide rates. The case became inseparable from the broader Ni Una Menos movement, which had been demanding action against gender-based violence across Latin America.

Eyvi Agreda's name endures in Peru as shorthand for everything wrong with how the country addresses violence against women -- the missed warning signs, the inadequate protections for stalking victims, the gap between public outrage and institutional change. She had told her sister she was afraid. She had identified her stalker. The systems that might have intervened did not. The case prompted renewed legislative attention to harassment and femicide, though advocates note that Peru continues to record alarming rates of violence against women. What happened on that bus in Miraflores was not random. It was planned, deliberate, and carried out against a young woman who had already sounded the alarm. The ten other passengers burned that evening were collateral damage in an attack that exemplified the lethal end of a spectrum that begins with obsession and ends in gasoline and fire.