The Provincial Court of Madrid has imposed a sentence of eleven and a half years in prison on a captain of the Army who, on November 25, 2023, strangled his wife in the family home in the Puente de Vallecas district, in the presence of their minor children.
According to the sentence, to which Europa Press has had access, the court convicts him of a crime of murder applying an incomplete mental disorder exculpatory circumstance, and of another crime of psychological injury to his children, also with the same exculpatory circumstance.
The Public Prosecutor's Office had initially requested 27 years in prison for the accused for a crime of murder with the aggravating circumstances of kinship and gender, in addition to a crime of psychological injury to the two minors.
Along with the prison sentence, the judicial resolution establishes that the convicted person will not be able to approach or communicate with his two children for 13 years and is disqualified from exercising parental authority over both during the same period.
Furthermore, the Court sets a supervised release measure of up to ten years once the prison sentence is served. In terms of civil liability, he must pay 150,000 euros to each of his children and 100,000 euros to each of the victim's parents, totaling 500,000 euros.
The case was tried by a Jury Court, which found it proven that the accused strangled his wife during an argument that began after a family visit to Faunia Park, where one of the children suffered an injury.
In the trial, the soldier admitted that he was the one who called 112 a few minutes after the assault and that he reported having killed his wife. He claimed that he acted under a dissociative episode that prevented him from controlling his behavior and maintained that, after what happened, he attended to his children, believing that his wife was already dead.
"It was such a horrific action, it was a monstrosity. I don't know how I broke down and why I didn't leave my house as I had done in other arguments. I regret it from the moment I became aware of what I had done," he declared before the court.
Divorce Petition and Proven Facts
The account of proven facts states that the couple lived with their two minor children and were going through a deep crisis. One month before the assault, the victim had filed for divorce.
The jury determined that, after one of the children fell in Faunia and the argument that continued during the journey back home, the accused forcefully held his wife's neck with the intention of killing her, causing her mechanical asphyxiation by strangulation.
The assault occurred unexpectedly, without the woman being able to mount an effective defense. She went into cardiorespiratory arrest, was assisted first by police officers and then by emergency services. Although she regained her pulse and was transferred to the Gregorio Marañón Hospital, she died two days later from multi-organ failure resulting from the asphyxiation.
The verdict also finds it proven that one of the minor daughters witnessed the scene and suffered significant psychological damage as a result of the events.
The jury appreciated that the captain had his intellectual and volitional capacities significantly altered by a dissociative episode within the framework of an intermittent explosive disorder.
It also took into consideration that it was the accused himself who called 112 to report that he had killed his wife and that, subsequently, he collaborated with the police and judicial investigation.
The sentence points out, finally, that the defendant deposited more than 287,000 euros to respond to potential civil indemnities arising from the proceedings.