A man was sentenced to 27 years in prison for killing his adoptive mother in the spring of 2022 after binding her hands and feet, strangling her, hiding her body in a freezer and finally throwing it into a sewer in Malaga a few meters from the woman’s home. The young man, who is 26 years old, was found guilty unanimously by a jury in a trial that concluded last week. Now the Provincial Court of Malaga condemns him for the crimes of murder, robbery with violence in an inhabited house and desecration of a corpse with aggravating circumstances of kinship.
The sentence shows that the accused, 22 years old at the time, forcibly entered his adoptive mother’s home together with a minor with the aim of committing a robbery. It was May 25, 2022 and after violently gaining access, they both asked the woman for her credit card PIN. When she didn’t do it, they tied her hands and feet and then gagged her. Subsequently, the adopted son pulled “hard” on the rope around his neck “knowing that his action could cause his death,” according to the court document. Ultimately, this is how he ended his life.
They then placed the body in the freezer, cleaned the house and fled the scene with 900 euros which they found in the victim’s bag. Two days later, they took the body in a trunk to the warehouse of the family property. And between 24 and 48 hours later they transported him in a Carrefour car and inside a black bag to a crate located in the Teatinos neighborhood, north of the city of Malaga.
The family reported the woman missing on May 23rd. It was the victim’s brother who, together with his nephew – the now convicted man – had gone to the police station to do so, without the perpetrator of the murder confessing or providing the whereabouts of his mother, as stated in the sentence. In fact, she assured that she went to Barcelona to visit some friends who were “obstructing the investigations”. Subsequently, the National Center for the Disappeared and the SOS Desaparecidos association launched calls asking for the collaboration of anyone with information on their possible whereabouts. At the same time, officers from the Homicide Group of the National Police of the Malaga Police Station investigated the case. And two months later, on July 13, the victim’s adopted son was arrested after finding the body inside an eight-meter-deep box.
During the trial the accused apologized for the facts, although the jury established that he had collaborated in clarifying the facts and that the “statements or confessions presented” by the accused were “late or simply irrelevant” since they served to expose the facts only once the entire investigation had been concluded. He was found guilty unanimously and now the judge of the investigative court number 8 of Malaga has sentenced him to 27 years and one month for the crimes of murder, robbery with violence in an inhabited house and desecration of a corpse. Furthermore, he will have to compensate the deceased’s mother with 50,000 euros and 15,000 euros to each of the victim’s four brothers and her son.
In the sentence, the Provincial Court acquitted two women who had also been tried for the crime of concealment. It was the mother of the minor – already sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment for the facts – and her partner, who had known about the murder when it had taken place and, therefore, had advised the perpetrators of the crime not to say anything about what had happened and to hide the body. The court found that “the mere knowledge of the commission of the murder and the mere advice to dispose of the body does not satisfy the content of the crime” and therefore acquitted them.
