On the second day of the trial, Jesús Pradales, the man accused of the murder of Juana Canal, who disappeared on February 22, 2003 in Madrid and whose remains were found in the man’s village in 2019, has shown himself in his statement as a man deeply “in love”, but a victim of alleged constant aggression from his partner. Pradales has given his version of what happened in the early hours of the morning when Canal died in the house they shared in the Ciudad Lineal district of the capital and has provided new details that he had not given in his two previous statements during the investigation.
The accused has given several versions of what may have happened in the same story, because, according to him, he was not aware of how his partner lost her life. His memory contains clear details, mixed with genuine lapses in memory. He has described perfectly the woman’s dilated pupils when he saw her lying on the floor, but he has found it impossible to describe what the knife he used to dissect her looked like.
Pradales and Canal had been a couple since mid-2002, and in February 2003, the woman disappeared. He claimed that she had left home and that he had not been able to contain her and she disappeared from the Canal family’s life. During all this time, the family searched for their loved one, until in 2019, some passers-by discovered some bones by chance in a place in Ávila, very close to the town of Pradales. DNA proved that they were Juana’s. Since Monday, he sits before the judge to answer for that crime. The prosecution and the Prosecutor’s Office are asking for 15 years for him for homicide, while his defense is asking for an acquittal, considering that the death was accidental.
According to Pradales, he was not only the victim of Juana’s aggression, whom he has described as “violent” and “alcoholic”, but also of his current wife. The man was arrested in 2006 for mistreating his partner, of which he was exonerated in a trial, among other things, because she did not file a complaint. According to Pradales, what happened that night was that she became nervous and began to berate him, so he decided to stop the van in which they were travelling and have a beer. It was at that moment that the petrol station employee called the police to alert them that he was attacking the woman. The prosecutor has reminded the jury that in this process, it is not a man who is being judged but rather the facts, and that the victim cannot be judged much less.
Much of the testimony revolved around the fact that on the night of Canal’s death, she called the police to report her boyfriend’s violent nature. A patrol car arrived at the house at 2:26 a.m., but left after the man promised he would leave the house.
He has given a lot of importance to that call, because he has assured that when he saw the lifeless body of the woman, the first thing he realized was that a patrol car had been there previously and that would make him look guilty. It is a detail that he included in the note that he left in the flat for Juana’s son to read the next day, in which he explained to the boy that he and his mother had argued and that she had even “called the police and everything.” According to his version, that night Juana had blackmailed him with making that call so that they would think that he had attacked her and the woman even went so far as to say that she was going to stab herself with a knife to incriminate him. He only spoke about this alleged knife in this session when the Canal family’s lawyer, Juan Manuel Medina, reminded him that he mentioned it in his previous statements.
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The accused’s words have been a continuous coming and going and a terrain full of gaps, which he attributes to the passing of time, as evidenced by some moments of the questioning of the prosecution lawyer:
—Did you use a bag to get it out?
-I don’t remember.
—Do you remember the material of the suitcase?
—I don’t remember. I suppose it was something waterproof, because if the police didn’t find anything…
—Do you remember what the knife looked like?
—No, I’m not going to measure it at that moment, it’s absurd.
In a rushed testimony, Pradales has stated that on the night of Juana’s death, he came home from work and she began to shout and hit him for no apparent reason. But, later, he stated that the argument began over a financial issue and that she locked herself in the bathroom. Later, he defended that Juana’s blows and cigarette burns occurred from the beginning, and then he said that she did not attack him until the police had left, after three in the morning.
Another new thing in his testimony is the reason why he decided to dismember her and hide her body: “I didn’t call the police because I had hidden my mobile phone.” He claims that he later found it under a mattress. He also said that he didn’t call the emergency services because he panicked. Finally, he said that he didn’t remember the moment of the dismemberment, in the bathtub of the flat, but he did say that he cleaned all the blood with water from the shower head and that he doesn’t remember having used cleaning products.
The defendant has always maintained that Juana fell when he was trying to repel one of his attacks and at that moment she hit her neck. Today he has provided a new element in this episode and has indicated that she hit the bedside table in the bedroom. The prosecutor was surprised by this revelation, and pointed out that he had never spoken of any bedside table. At that moment, there was a silence in the room for two seconds and he later stated: “I don’t remember, it’s been many years.” He also introduced a new scene that he had not referred to before. Pradales has recounted that when he tried to take the body out of the house he crossed paths with a neighbour and he had to pretend by supporting the victim on a railing.
“I had never spoken about that meeting with the neighbor before,” the representative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office said again.
—I’ve never been asked before.
In the courtroom, Juana Canal’s sister, niece and cousin were present. They all denied the violent nature referred to by Pradales and lamented that “the whole truth will never be known” because the time that has passed has erased much evidence. The rest of the relatives on both sides have not attended because they have to go to testify in the next few days. This Wednesday, the police and civil guards who carried out the investigation will participate.
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