A man accused of murdering a woman on August 29th, 2023 and hiding her body for nearly a month in his Alicante home testified to the crime yesterday, Monday September 8th, during a jury trial in the Provincial Court.
The man, who at the time of the incident suffered from a personality disorder and undifferentiated schizophrenia, said that the renter made his “life miserable” and “abused him more and more every day.” He also claimed that he “had no treatment” for his disease and was “abandoned.”
The events occurred on August 29th, 2023, when the accused “attacked” the renter in a “sudden, surprising, and unexpected manner, without her having time to realise or react,” stabbing her 16 times.
After that, the defendant kept the woman’s body in the house until September 24th 2023, when he called 091 “admitting to having killed the victim.” Moments later, National Police officers came at the defendant’s house, and he answered the door. Officers discovered the deceased on the floor of one of the rooms, wrapped in bags and a duvet.
In its interim ruling, the prosecution demands a 12-year prison sentence for the accused, as well as five years of probation. It also wants €20,000 in compensation for the deceased’s son’s losses resulting from his mother’s death.
The private prosecution, for its part, seeks 21 years in prison, five years of probation after serving the sentence, and €90,000 in compensation for the victim’s son for moral damages.
This party contends that the defendant’s conduct were characterised by “treachery and cruelty,” and claims that the victim submitted a complaint ten days before the events, revealing the “poor cohabitation relationship.”
According to the prosecution, the accused was “conscious and knew what he was doing.” They believe he is seeking “the benefit of confusion,” because in one of the psychiatric reports prepared, “he says that a voice told him to kill her and he doesn’t remember anything else, but in the call to 091 he describes the events perfectly.”
However, the defence attorney contends that his client was “abandoned by the public administration” because he needed “ongoing medical care and medication,” and that “despite his serious psychiatric disorder, he cooperated with the National Police officers.”
Similarly, he stated that the administration in charge of the guardianship “only took action on the matter once the events occurred.”
As a result, the defence has asked the defendant’s acquittal and maintains that the Valencian Institute of Social Services (IVASS), the organisation in charge of the man’s guardianship, bears supplementary civil obligation in this case for “derelict their duties.”
However, the Valencian Government’s legal services maintain that the guardianship was “assistance-based” and argue that in order for the administration to be held accountable for the crimes, “it would not be enough for it to exercise representative guardianship, but there would also have to be a breach of duty and negligence as a guardian,” a claim it rejects.
Author: Derek Appleton
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