“He was like a psychopath, wandering around.” This is how Fernando Peña, the material perpetrator of the triple murder of Chiloeches, defined his movements in the Villar chalet in the early hours of April 13, 2024, when, as he acknowledged, he put an end to the lives of Ángel and Elvira, a married couple aged 52 and 53, and their daughter Laura, 22 years old, when their plan to steal the luxury watches and money that the family kept at home went awry. Peña admitted responsibility for the crimes in his statement this Thursday before the jury that will decide his responsibility and that of two other defendants in the trial to be held at the Provincial Court of Guadalajara. The self-confessed perpetrator of one of the most heinous crimes of recent years has attributed everything to his “addiction” to drugs since he was 14 years old.
“I was hysterical, very crazy,” he stated several times, using the mitigating circumstance of drug consumption defended by his lawyer. “He hit everything that moved and screamed”, he justified, explaining the 29 stab wounds that, armed with a bayonet and knife, he inflicted on his father when he woke up alerted by noises in his bedroom. The main accused, who only answered questions from the defense and the jury, said he did not remember how Elvira and Laura died, who according to the investigators he killed with 14 and seven stab wounds respectively. Peña stated that his intention had never been to kill, but to rob, and that he thought the house was empty. He said he always carried the bayonet with him to commit other robberies, but denied the knife was his. “I didn’t have that,” he said.
Peña cited his “despair” for drugs as the cause of death, despite the fact that the forensic doctors who treated him after the arrest did not note any particular alterations as a result. “With cocaine you think you are the king of the world”, summed up the defendant, explaining the “despair” that his drug addiction caused him and the urgency he had to get the money to continue using it and pay off the debts he had with “shady people”. His goal, he said, was to “get the money, leave quickly and get out.” The accused, who appeared calm during his testimony, showed himself to be “deeply sorry” for the crimes and asked Yeray, the son of the couple who ran away from home, for forgiveness through a window after Peña had set him on fire to erase all evidence.
Peña donated 20,000 euros to the Villars’ sole survivor that night to try to repair, he said, the damage caused. At the request of the defense, experts from the National Institute of Toxicology also appeared and evaluated the report of a psychiatrist expert in the main accused’s addictions three days after the events and who confirmed the presence in the urine of substances such as cannabis and cocaine, as well as methamphetamines, ketamine and alcohol. The alteration due to drug intake was also underlined by the head of the Addiction Unit of the Ramón y Cajal Hospital, also proposed by the defense, and who, while recognizing that his report is one-sided, underlined the alteration of the main accused’s volitional abilities on the night of the proceedings.
The other two defendants, Christian and David, who the prosecution and the Prosecutor’s Office indicate as “necessary collaborators” for carrying out the robbery and who Peña tried to exonerate, also testified at the trial. Christian, who the prosecution indicates as the person who could have provided information on the whereabouts of the loot after having been Laura’s companion, denied having been aware of the theft. That night, he assured, he was also at home. Even David, the young man who accompanied Fernando to the Villar chalet and then left, distanced himself from the plan put in place: “We always talked about it, about taking drugs and then never doing anything.” The trial will resume on Monday with the defendants’ conclusions and final argument, if necessary.
