Who are the 62 men who murdered their partners or exes between 25N and the next. When a murder occurs due to gender violence, the victim is usually talked about, as a tribute or memory, but this time the focus is on the person who commits the crime. A man whose name does not officially transcend or is collected as a footnote.
Those arrested for killing women with whom they had a romantic relationship, all recognized by the Government as sexist murderers, have an average age between 40 and 50.
At the extremes is the twenty-something German, who used a homemade pistol in February…
…and a nonagenarian who beat his 91-year-old wife. Most of the murderers have children, jobs, property and only two suffered from mental illness to any degree, not enough to exonerate them.
A high-risk moment occurs when the woman approaches her ex, forced by a visitation or shared custody regime. At the time of the delivery of the children, several of this year’s fatal attacks occurred, such as her ambushing of her partner Ángel in Pontevedra or Miguel in Zaragoza.
Reading these cases certifies that another of the most dangerous moments for women occurs when they confirm their desire to separate or divorce, without the possibility of repentance, as happened in one in four cases and with another tenth when they had just separated.
In a fifth of the cases they had a longer break in the relationship with the person who would be their executioner. They pay for that brave decision with their lives. When men like Bartolomé in Valencia, Christopher in Seville or Marco in Malaga find that there is no turning back and they have to leave home, sooner rather than later, the fateful outcome usually occurs.
The murderers used knives, such as kitchen knives, in half of the cases, and objects to forcefully hit (18%), firearms (18%) and hands or ropes to strangle (14%). Alberto’s cutout in Guipúzcoa, Ángel’s kitchen knife in Madrid or the car with which Marcos murdered Sandra in Toledo are some of the instruments of the murderers.
It is also proven that the place where death most awaits women at the hands of their partners or exes is the one that should provide them with the most security: their home. In 80% of the cases, according to the available data collected by this newspaper, the murders occurred where she lived. Sometimes they still share the house with the ex-partner or they have not separated yet, but the relationship is already sour. The others died in places such as a hotel, a storage room or public spaces such as the street, a park or the beach. In a couple of cases, the men were tourists who chose vacation days for the crime.
real nightmare
No imagination is capable of constructing what a child can feel when he sees his father murder his mother. Sometimes they also have to watch him commit suicide. Or how he runs away. One even used him as a shield against the police. It is possible to think of liters of blood in a room and mutilate a body.
Terrifying scenarios that, however, do not match the feeling and what will survive in the consciousness of the witness. Maialen’s daughter, who spent twelve hours next to her mother’s corpse, after seeing how her father killed her, will have to live with this pain; Ilham’s son, who witnessed her father Vincent stab her and then cut his own throat, or Zhour’s three children, who were in the kitchen one afternoon when their father cut her mother’s throat.
In most cases it is found that the crime had been planned with more or less details, and not the product of irrational anger in a moment of outburst. Quite a few tried to mislead the investigation with an alibi (20%) or had an escape route (14%). Others confess (15%) to the authorities, like Antonio in Zaragoza and Leonel in Marbella. Or friends, like Suzan’s murderer in Alicante.
Minors who lose their mother and father, whatever the outcome: death or prison. One of them died along with her mother, Paloma. She murdered Daniel with a knife in Valladolid. Two of the killers didn’t care that their ex-partners were pregnant.
This year, in all cases classified as sexist murder, they were arrested and charged. A dozen (17%) later committed suicide, like Paco in Málaga and Víctor in Pontevedra, both with a shot; Alexander in Fuerteventura, who suffocated with a bag, or Sandra’s murderer in Granada, who jumped into the void.
Among all the notifications this year, only in one case did the woman commit suicide as the accused said. It was Alina, who died in Jerez de la Frontera on April 27. She hanged herself with her shoelaces. Although Equality had confirmed that it was a gender murder, her partner was released. With case 62, which occurred in Madrid, there have already been 1,237 women murdered by gender violence since 2003, according to the official count.
This work collects official data, communicated by the Government, although the data on the men, dead or detained, has been collected by the local press and the list has been compared with others prepared by NGOs. When the man’s name is not recorded, he is identified with a reference to the murdered woman. When there is no information about him or her, only “unidentified” is placed. All cases are recognized as sexist murders by official organizations and have been reported by the Ministry of Equality. However, until there is a final ruling, the accusation is “supposed”, although the judges have decided to keep the accused, often confessed and in preventive detention, which happens in the vast majority of cases. Sara I. Belled collaborated on this report.
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