A jury in the Court of Appeals will hear the case against two people accused of killing a 56-year-old man from Alicante whose body was found dismembered and burnt in the Fontcalent area in 2024. The Prosecutor’s Office will present its case, and the defence will present its written conclusions on the facts. The pair who are suspected of murder might each get 15 years in prison, plus two more years for fraud, for a total of 34 years. Lawyers Miguel Ángel Cánovas and Miguel Ángel Garijo are leading the defence and asking for both of them to be acquitted. They say that Fernando, the victim, died of natural causes and gave them permission to take money out of his bank account.
The prosecution’s story says the opposite. The pair killed him because they wanted to take his home and money. The Prosecutor’s Office’s indictment says that the two defendants, who both had criminal records that couldn’t be counted, had been a couple since 2018 and had “somewhat of a friendship” with Fernando, who lived alone on Senador Alberto Pérez Ferré Street in the Virgen del Carmen neighbourhood of Alicante.
The pair went to the residence a lot, so much so that they had a room just for them. They painted a heart on the door with the names “Raquel and Ezequiel,” the defendants, within.
The Prosecutor’s Office talks about a date before and around June 12th, 2024, when they bought the angle grinder that was used to carve up Fernando’s body. They don’t know the actual date of his death. The defendants “argued with Fernando in the house and ended his life, killing him, although the manner in which they did so is unknown.” They did this because they wanted to take the victim’s house and money.
Buying a radial
The public prosecution says that the defendants went to the Leroy Merlin store in the Vistahermosa shopping centre in Alicante on the afternoon of June 12th after they realised the body was starting to rot. They bought a radial arm grinder, a grinder, and 10 metal cutting discs. These tools, together with a knife that police later recovered in the house, were used to cut off the victim’s head and limbs. The goal was to get him out of the house without the people of the Virgen del Carmen neighbourhood noticing.
They put the victim’s torso, which was missing its arms, legs, and head, in a car and drove it to the outskirts of Alicante just before 5:00 a.m. on June 17th. They parked the car on a rural road off the Portell de La Serreta highway. Then they took the body out of the car, poured petrol on it and set it on fire to get rid of all fingerprints and anything else that could help identify it.
The Prosecutor’s Office said that the defendants left the site and did the same thing to the two arms, both legs, and the head again. This time, they looked for another place in Fontcalent, which was a kilometre and a half away from the last one, and set the limbs and head on fire with gasoline before running away.
The National Police checked over the victim’s house on June 28th and found that it was “extremely dirty, but there were a lot of bleach bottles in the hallway.” The pair who are now facing charges were inside the residence, and in one room was the angle grinder they had bought.
They also uncovered the dead man’s bank account in another room, where he got his monthly pension of €1,035. It shows a lot of financial transactions that happened after Fernando died. They took out six times between June 24th and 27th, for a total of €820, leaving only €183.79 in the account.
The defence says that Fernando died of natural causes, and when it comes to the money, they say that Fernando gave them permission to access the account and gave them the credentials to do so.
Author: Derek Appleton
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