María Soledad Sánchez, 59 years old and already with two older sons (36 and 35 years old), had decided to change scenery. Madrid overwhelmed her and at her age she believed that it was time for a change of scenery, after her husband had died for a while. Saw the ad and didn't think about it. He wanted to dedicate himself to what he liked the most: animals and the countryside. So he did not think about it any more and left the capital of Spain to go to Zafra (Badajoz), where in exchange for a precarious contract (to use the house), and with his only livelihood from the widow's pension, he was going to become a in charge of the maintenance of the Las Peralas farm, a property owned by the man who would be his executioner, Manuel Martín de las Mulas (known as Manolo and 71 years old at the time of the crime).
The future murderer gave up its use in exchange for the woman taking care of her animals and the ones she brought herself.. were his passion. Horses, donkeys, cats, dogs…. The landlord agreed for his part to pay the current expenses.. and animal feed. It was August 2019 and he arrived with all the enthusiasm after having promoted the rural house La Casa del Valle Encantado years ago in La Rioja, in addition to belonging to animal associations.
However, it took a short time for the agreement signed to deteriorate. Despite the daily effort of a life in the countryside, María faced it from the first day with the illusion of someone who does things for pleasure; but that idyllic life that he thought ended up collapsing almost from the first day and, what is worse, would end up being his own grave in the cruelest way: bleeding to death at the hands of his landlord, who used all the anger and cold blood possible to kill her with premeditation, cruelty and treachery, as the sentence underlines.
The deceased doing farm chores. THE WORLD
To do this, he used an iron bar that is used to break down the metal, “a blunt object with an elongated body with thorns at its ends and constant edges”, with which he hit her over and over again on the head without possible mercy.. “A brutal evil unnecessarily increasing the suffering and pain of the victim until he drowned in his own blood,” according to the forensic doctors at the trial, with a popular jury.
creepy crime
He received no less than 40 blows (half to the skull) without any possible defense. Several members of that court – made up of nine citizens – did not stop crying at the trial session where the horrifying story of the crime was revealed.. Even a young girl from the jury got dizzy and had to be treated when she heard the audio. Because the victim, with his own mobile phone, recorded his death. And it was fundamental evidence when the trial was held.
The employment relationship between the two did not start off on the right foot.. After various sexual innuendos (to say the least) -as the prosecution lawyer, Ana Espinola points out-, she tried not to coincide when the owner came to the farm without warning. Manolo had always previously looked for needy women without economic resources for his farm. She sometimes stayed inside the farmhouse when she entered the property unannounced.. María complained that he did not provide her with the necessary food for the animals, in addition to leaving her without hot water. In November, Manolo placed several padlocks in various areas of the farm to prevent the woman from moving freely through the land of her murderer and the following month he demanded through a notary to terminate the contract and to abandon his property.. He gave him three months.
Instead, she decided to delay her departure so as not to leave the abandoned animals to their fate.. For example, the owner had refused to notify a veterinarian when a foal became ill.. So one after another. Until the fateful day came.
On the morning of January 31, 2020, Manolo, very corpulent and with unusual strength for his age, went to the farm and María reproached him, once again, for his attitude towards animals.. He even believed that he was poisoning them. After receiving some threats, she began to record the conversation with her mobile phone, warning him about it.. he didn't care. The man had hidden an iron bar inside a sack while moving around the farm behind her with the sole purpose, according to the sentence, of “finding the right moment to end the life of the woman.”. At first, he entered the uralite shed that was on the farm, inviting her to come in, but she rejected the proposal.
no defense opportunity
Then, next to a fence, and in the midst of the discussion between the two, and “after verifying that he was not observed by the neighbors,” he extracted the iron bar from the bag and hit it numerous times, the victim falling, stunned, to the ground. floor. The mobile phone would also fall, face up, which would continue recording the murder until the end.. “From that moment on, the images of the attacker can no longer be seen, since she falls to the ground, because she is already focused the other way, but the sound, which was heard with complete clarity,” highlights the lawyer.. Seconds before, it is verified how surprisingly the man began to hit her without a chance to defend herself. She tried how she could cover herself from the blows. Unsuccessfully. That audio where the agony and the victim's plea to his executioner are heard perfectly was what brought tears to a large part of the jurors, dismayed by what they were hearing, an atrocious, horrifying story.
Maria begged her executioner several times for her life, while “she was getting tired and suffocating with her own blood.”. At that moment, a neighbor of the plot, LVE, heard a disturbance on the adjoining farm, although at first he thought it was a rape.. At the moment, he yelled: “Manolo, what are you doing?”. Despite which, he continued to hit her while the neighbor, at a certain distance and with various barbed wire fences between the two areas, began to run until he arrived at the crime scene.. It was too late. Meanwhile, Manolo, once executed his victim in cold blood, moved the body a few meters in the direction of the door of the shed.
«What have you done? Right now I'm going to the Civil Guard barracks,” the witness told Manolo. So the murderer also ended up going to the Benemérita post: “I had a problem with my tenant and I killed her,” he said, with a lot of cold blood before the agents. It had destroyed the right cerebral hemisphere and the cerebellum of the head. He hadn't suffered a single scratch.
However, the presentation of the magistrate Eduardo de Porres highlights that it was not appropriate in the sentence to apply the mitigation of the confession because “it was not complete or truthful” and it was marked by the threat of the witness to go to the Civil Guard to denounce it.. In addition, according to the lawyer, the murderer took the mobile home with him and tried to manipulate it to delete the images, which in the end was unsuccessful.. He ended up leaving it in the farmhouse, believing that he had achieved his objective and that there would be no record of the facts.. At trial, the defendant justified the murder by claiming that his tenant “mistreated me psychologically”, insulted him and even “made fun of me”.. The defense of Manuel Martín de las Mulas unsuccessfully requested acquittal for temporary mental disorder: “I told him that if he recorded me I would break his cell phone and I hit him in the arm the first time,” he insisted.
The Supreme Court has just ratified the sentence (20 years in prison) imposed by the Badajoz Provincial Court, but neither the popular jury nor the Prosecutor's Office determined that the case should also be tried for Gender Violence, which would have increased the sentence by five more years. prison for man.