No one has ever returned to live in the house where the teacher from Zamora Laura Luelmo spent just three days, the last of her life. The house on Córdoba street in the small town of El Campillo (Huelva) has been empty since December 12, 2018, in which his neighbor across the street, Bernardo Montoya, allegedly kidnapped, sexually assaulted and killed the 26-year-old girl. The event that shook a good part of Spanish society will be judged from this next Monday in the Provincial Court of Huelva in a case that is not expected to be especially complex, but in which the Prosecutor’s Office and the accusations seek to dismantle the thousand different versions of the alleged murderer, for whom they request a reviewable permanent prison sentence.
The nine members of the popular jury that will constitute the first of the five sessions of the trial must determine whether Montoya is guilty of the two hours of suffering inflicted against Luelmo. According to the prosecutor’s account, Montoya – a habitual criminal with crimes of blood and violent robberies – attacked the teacher at the door of her house just as she was returning from shopping. The defendant forcibly brought her into the ramshackle family home in which she had settled after being released from prison less than two months ago, began to kick, punch, and beat her with “an elongated blunt object” similar to a stick on the head, as stated by the prosecutor Jessica Sotelo in her provisional conclusions to which EL PAÍS has had access.
With Luelmo badly wounded, the alleged murderer tied her hands behind her back, took her to her bedroom and sexually assaulted her. After subjecting the young woman “to unnecessary suffering,” according to the prosecutor, he gave her a fatal blow to the head with a blunt object that caused her death. Montoya lifted the teacher’s body onto his ramshackle Alfa Romeo and dumped it in Las Mimbreras, a difficult-to-access spot among bushes next to the national highway 345. Everything happened between 5:25 p.m. and 7:25 p.m. on that December 12, although the corpse did not appear until five days later. On the 18th of that same month, Bernardo Montoya was arrested on the outskirts of Cortegana, the town of Huelva, where, in 1994, he killed an old woman to rob her.
Since then, the alleged murderer has remade his version of what happened up to four times. He first acknowledged the facts, but with apparent lies to avoid the charge of sexual assault. Then, he introduced Josefa, an old partner of his, who, according to him, was the one who killed the young woman out of jealousy. However, the woman has not even come under suspicion of justice. One of the only tricks left to his lawyer, Miguel Rivera, is to show that Montoya did not rape the young woman. To do this, he already requested to submit his client to medical tests in September 2019 to demonstrate his alleged impotence, something that collides with the prosecutor’s own qualification, in which he mentions the violation that the young woman suffered before being murdered. . EL PAÍS has tried on two occasions to contact Rivera, although without success.
The difference between murder and this aggravated crime along with another against sexual freedom is the possibility of being sentenced to permanent reviewable prison. However, for the chief prosecutor of Huelva, Alfredo Flores, the distance between the attempt or the final consummation of the sexual assault does not exempt the accused from requesting the maximum penalty for him: “Within the crimes against sexual freedom there are many modalities . In the extreme case that a person is impotent, he does not allow the most aggravated types, everything else does. But [Tribunal] Supreme is very forceful that any behavior in relation to sexual freedom constitutes a crime ”.
Hence, Flores assures that the case “technically, is not complex.” More implications for the prosecutor are the media interest of an event that occupied rivers of ink and hours of television: “Combine good information with that is not painful with the family.” From the beginning, the parents and the two brothers of the deceased have kept a hermetic silence that they have only broken once to regret “the spectacle” generated and another with a letter to the Cortes of Castilla y León in which they criticized that the State he had “failed.” This silence has also been extended to the lawyer for the private and family prosecution of the young woman, Francisco Luelmo, who has avoided making statements throughout the entire investigation.
Key testimonials
Now, the parents appear as part of the dozens of witnesses that the prosecutor can cite, among which are key testimonies, such as Civil Guard investigators or forensic doctors. The first day is scheduled for the statement of the accused; the second has been reserved for witnesses; on Wednesday and Thursday the appearance of forensic doctors and agents is expected. From there the deliberation of the jury will begin, whose verdict is scheduled for next Friday. The development of these five sessions and the answers to the questions that the jury must answer will depend on whether Montoya ends up being sentenced to permanent prison and 32 more years of sentence for the crimes of illegal detention, sexual assault – aggravated by gender – and murder – aggravated by recidivism—, according to the charges that the prosecutor imputes to him.
Laura Luelmo landed in the mining landscapes of Huelva to cover a leave as a teacher of Plastic at the Vázquez Díaz de Nerva Secondary Education Institute (Huelva), after passing the teaching examinations, one of the dreams of this young woman, graduated in Fine Arts in 2014. The Zamorana, born in Villabuena del Puente (700 inhabitants), joined the educational center on December 4, 2018. After spending a few days in a hostel in this town and spending the days of the Constitution Bridge, she found the El Campillo house to stay. The house, recently renovated, belonged to a partner and she moved there on the 9th of that same month.
On Córdoba Street, he met the one who would end up being his murderer. Montoya spent the afternoons at the door of his dilapidated house, lighting a glass of charcoal to warm himself, as the neighbors of the town described in their day. Not three days passed for the aggressor to attack her. Luelmo disappeared for five days in which an entire region turned to look for a young woman who had barely had time to meet.
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