Yesterday, Monday October 27th, the young man accused of killing his adopted mother, Ángela Mérida, to steal from her and then tossing her body into a manhole in Málaga admitted to doing it, but he said he didn’t mean to kill her; things just went out of hand. The defendant said, “I regret it.”
A jury has been trying the young man Monday for murder, robbery with violence, and destruction of bodies. Another youngster was already found guilty of these offences. The victim’s family has also accused the minor’s mother and her partner of hiding the crime. These two people are also defendants in the case. The defendant merely answered questions from his lawyer and, while crying, admitted to the crimes the prosecutor says he did.
What happened during the murder
He says in his first statement that he and the youngster went to the woman’s house one day in May 2022 and waited for her there. As soon as she got there, they started fighting, and throughout the fight, they hit her to get her to give them the card PIN.
“They punched her several times in the head” to “obtain an illicit financial benefit,” and once she gave them the PIN and told them where the money was, they allegedly tied her up and gagged her. She was able to get the rope out of her mouth, which was still around her neck, “at which point both of them proceeded to pull hard with the intention of ending her life.”
The prosecution said that the woman had no opportunity of defending herself. She also said that after what happened, the accused and the child cleaned the house, transported the body to a storage room “and put it in a boot,” and then days later tossed it into a manhole, where it was located by the National Police in July 2022.
The defendant says he drank and used drugs on the day of the murder, which his defence says impaired his mental state. They also say that the “complicated” things that the young man, who was adopted by the victim as a baby, had to deal with throughout his life also affected his mental condition.
Possible punishment
The expert testimony, which will take place next Thursday, is very crucial to the prosecutor in deciding whether the defendant should be regarded to have a mental disease in order to lessen the sentence they are asking for, which was originally set at 21 and a half years in jail. The defendant’s impairment is very important because it makes him eight years old, according to an expert evaluation. But a different forensic assessment says this person’s mental age is 18.
The private prosecution, which stood for the victim’s other son and her siblings, didn’t think about this situation at first and asked for harsher punishments for the offender. They also accused the mother of the guilty youngster and her partner of hiding the crime and asked for a three-year prison sentence at first.
They have admitted that they knew the minor had killed someone and that he was “very violent” and had “threatened” them. This means they have admitted part of the accusation. However, they have also said that they did not know who the victim was and that they did not tell the defendant and the other person to hide the body.
The juvenile, who was 17 years old at the time of the incidents and not related to the family, admitted what happened at the trial. The sentencing called for him to be kept in a closed regime for eight years and then released under supervision for the same amount of time.
Author: Derek Appleton
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