Arantxa's husband, four months pregnant, suffocated her out of jealousy: "Tonight I'm going to sleep in jail"

Arantxa was 31 years old and had recently lived with her partner, IH, on Gaudí street in Manresa. She was four months pregnant when she died at dawn on May 6 at her home. His partner and a friend were returning from a party when they found the body of the woman who allegedly had a fatal blow to the head when she fell down the three steps that separate the dining room from the kitchen.. The initial examination of the Mossos d'Esquadra pointed to a fatal accident although they continued with the investigation as it was a violent death. Ten days later, everything changed and the Court for Violence against Women in Manresa ordered the arrest and imprisonment of the couple of the deceased accused of murder.

In his order for admission to prison, the court recalls that the body was found “in an unnatural position and did not seem compatible with a fall down the stairs”, with injuries to the face and abdomen, while the coroner ruled that the The victim's death was suffocation since “he had marks around his neck and had traces of foam in his mouth. Despite the fall, hardly any traces of blood were found on the floor near the corpse, although there was in a faucet, in a bucket and on the mop and on the bathroom switch. The police noted in their report that “someone had mopped the kitchen floor and footprints appeared in the area that had been cleaned.”. That is why it is suspected that “someone moved the deceased's body from the kitchen area to the stairs to simulate an accidental fall.”

Investigators reconstructed the last hours of the victim's life. This is how she was at her ex-partner's house with her current husband and two friends. They were taking alcohol and cocaine and the suspect didn't think it was right that she was present so he decided to take her home.. According to witnesses, there was a lot of tension and the suspect told a friend in Arabic “I'm going to sleep in jail tonight.”. In the end, the couple started arguing.. The court considers that when she got home the screams continued and at one point he killed her “out of jealousy” since she wanted to go back to her ex.

Thus, there are “very substantiated indications to believe that the person investigated was checking the phone” of the woman and believes that he saw a conversation between her and her ex-partner in which the woman told him that she would have liked to stay longer and told him that I wanted him. The same night, the woman spoke on the phone with her cousin, told her that her partner was not feeling well and they talked about the possibility of her going to sleep at her house, and during this conversation, the man “took the phone from her hands”. Presumably, after this conversation, the man “attacked her by hitting her several times (there is evidence of trauma to the head and abdomen) and finally suffocated her, ending her life.”

Later he returned to the party and said that she had been “drunk and sleeping”, which surprised the witnesses since the victim had barely consumed. They also noticed him very nervous. Hours later, he escorted a friend to his house and while he was waiting outside he heard how the suspect “talked to his mother in Arabic with his hands-free phone and told her that 'he had done something very serious', and the mother replied that she had already told him not to 'get nervous with her'.

In addition, he told him that “he did not know what he was going to do”. Once they entered the house, he told the friend that he had found the woman on the floor at the bottom of the stairs and asked him to check if she had a pulse.. However, the friend told him to look at him, so the suspect became aggressive, hit him and “under threats, ordered him to call 112”, while dictating what he had to say.

The court also remarked that the statements from the victim's environment indicate that “the detainee is an aggressive person, who regularly assaulted the victim, who had even come to hold her on occasions to prevent people from seeing the marks of violence that he had provoked her, and that he also had a jealous, controlling and possessive attitude”. Despite this, there were no reports of partner abuse.. The judge believes that “the motive for the homicide was jealousy motivated by Whatsapp messages” that the victim sent to her ex after leaving the party. The suspect, who the day after the crime left the apartment he shared with the victim, is in pre-trial detention charged with homicide