A stab in the heart, four steps and Gaspar collapsed in the middle of the Mamy Blue bar in Santa Cruz. Fifteen seconds passed between one moment and another, and five people who were there witnessed what happened: a man who was alone at the end of the bar, the one closest to the entrance door; another man, who was sitting on a stool with his daughter in the central area of the bar; a third customer leaving the bathroom once he had started the fight; the bar waitress and Antonio (not his real name), Pedro's friend who started the argument with Gaspar.
All of them have given statements. Their testimonies and the video from the local camera are key to knowing exactly what happened in this crime.
The security camera that recorded the stabbing was pointed toward the front door. To the right, as you enter, there is a bar, which occupies the entire width of the establishment and is accessed through a space at the far end of the entrance door. In that background, which is outside the camera shot, is where Gaspar, the victim, and Pedro, the accused, met. Gaspar arrived with a friend at the store after 11 p.m. They had gone to dinner at a restaurant in the district of El Esparragal and were planning to go for a drink at a bar in the Cruce de El Raal area, but it was closed, so they decided to go to Mamy Blue. Around 12:05 a.m. the friend left, and Gaspar stayed at the premises.
The recordings show how they push each other. It's 12:13 a.m. They struggle. Pedro takes something out of his pocket and hits Gaspar.
The waitress stated that she saw Gaspar enter accompanied by another young man, whom she did not know, and they stood at the back of the bar, where Antonio was. The worker indicated that she saw them interact with each other, they talked and for a while there was no discussion.
Antonio declared that he did not know Gaspar either, but while there he introduced himself to him and saw him “as a good person.” After chatting with him for a while, “he got rude with the waitress.” He stated that he told him not to mess with her, because she was her friend and that Gaspar got angry with her. She pushed him and they began to struggle, until she grabbed him by the neck. For her part, the waitress explained that she heard Antonio say “let me go, let me go.” She turned around and saw that Gaspar had him. She walked towards them and shouted to let him go, as did Pedro, who was there.
Gaspar and Pedro then got into a fight, “because Pedro pushed him to let go of his friend and they began to push each other, heading towards the central part of the establishment,” said the waitress. In the images recorded by the camera you can see how Pedro and Gaspar are pushing each other. It's 12:13 a.m. They struggle. Pedro hits Gaspar. He responds with a slap of the hand. At a certain moment, Pedro takes something out of his pocket and strikes.
Gaspar stands still, lifts his shirt, looks at his chest and sees the bleeding wound. He takes four steps towards the bar to support himself, but he can't hold on and collapses to the floor. The waitress stated that she did not notice any weapon, but the person who did see the knife was the witness who was in the central area of the bar with her daughter. According to her statement, she clearly observed how one of them, “the one who had received a slap,” was carrying a knife in one hand.
Seeing that he was holding it, he quickly left there with his daughter. With Gaspar on the floor bleeding, Pedro began to walk around the bar until he came out the door. The witness who was leaving the bathroom stated that he heard him shout “Let's go, let's go!” A camera outside the establishment recorded at 12:14 a.m. leaving the premises while Gaspar was still breathing. Antonio went after him.
“I think I killed him”
Pedro took his car and his friend left after him. He caught up with him stopped at a traffic light. He got out of the car and asked him what had happened, if he was crazy. “I think he killed him,” he replied. He started up and left. Meanwhile, inside the establishment, the customer who was closest to the entrance was the one who called the Emergency Service. A Local Police patrol was the first to arrive at the notice, and after identifying the alleged aggressor, they detained him at his house in La Arboleja. The next morning the Civil Guard found a knife with a blade of about 15 centimeters in the vicinity of the bar, among some lemon trees. The knife is being analyzed to check if it was the weapon that Pedro used to kill Gaspar.
The trial for the so-called Halloween crime will be by popular jury, once the head of the Investigative Court number 3 of Murcia has transformed the previous proceedings into a jury court procedure. The judge has summoned the parties, the Public Prosecutor's Office, the private prosecution and the defense of the accused, to an appearance within ten days to specify the imputation of the type of crime, means of evidence requested by the parties and offer of actions to the victim's family.
Manuel Martínez: «The images leave no doubts; “It's murder.”
The private prosecution, undertaken by criminal lawyers Manuel Martínez and Sergio Robles, representing Gaspar's mother and two sisters, will request the penalty corresponding to the crime of murder. For the lawyer, who conveys his “deepest condolences to the family”, the images are clear. «In an argument between two people, one of them takes out a knife with a blade of more than 15 centimeters and delivers a single stab wound to the heart that causes death in seconds. “Those are the facts, there is nothing more.” Martínez defends that there is no discussion, “the only discussion is legal, if we are facing an aggravated homicide or if we are facing a murder. And we defend that it is a murder. For the lawyer, the arguments of the accused's defense “in no way refute the clear images that appear in the records. Gaspar could not defend himself and there is no doubt that the weapon used in the murder is the knife that the Civil Guard found and that appears in the report.
Pablo Martínez: “The facts are very sad, but we have to wait for the trial”
Criminal lawyer Pablo Martínez, who defends Pedro, assures that the images reflect facts that are beyond doubt, but we must wait until the trial is held to resolve some issues surrounding Gaspar's death. «We are in the initial phase of determining not only what happened, but why it happened. Find out, for example, if the weapon found by the Civil Guard is really the one wielded by the accused. It must be appreciated that my client, until that day, had never been arrested. According to witnesses, not only did he not start the fight, but he entered into it to help a friend with a severe handicap. In addition, we must analyze what could have happened in his head when he was in that fight, received a blow, and previous medical issues that we will explain shortly—at the next court appearance. In any case we would never be facing a murder, it is a face-to-face fight, it would be a homicide. Obviously, the above does not justify what happened, the facts are very sad and we all regret the human loss, for him and for his family, especially for his children.
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