He stabbed his neighbor to death because she was making noise. That simple and that raw. There are many conflicts between neighbors over noise, and even more so now when intolerance for this nuisance has risen several decibels after the tranquility due to the forced silence during the pandemic. But, fortunately, there are few episodes in which these neighborhood conflicts end up stained with blood.
One of those cases is being tried this week in the Vigo Court. It is known as the “landing crime.” The victim, María Jesús, 56, was stabbed to death by her neighbor on the landing when she returned to her apartment after leaving it to throw out the trash. The murderer, Pablo Posada, 63 years old and early retired, has had no qualms about confessing to the crime.
It happened on October 23, 2022 on Zamora Street in the Galician capital. Pablo has admitted in that trial that he left the house that day “with the idea of ??killing her” (María Jesús), although he tried to excuse her serious behavior: “it wasn’t me,” he stated.
The conflict between María Jesús and Pablo because of the noise was an open secret in that block. The man had already complained to the community that the noise coming from his neighbor’s apartment was not letting him live. He had even slipped several notes under María Jesús’s door to let her know of his discomfort.
When questioned in this trial, Pablo did not hide the motive for his violent reaction. He remembered that one day, at midnight, María Jesús made so much noise that “it seemed like the Panorama orchestra.” She went to complain and the woman, the accused added, responded: “Calm down, Pablo, I’ll shut up now.” And they did not speak again until the day he killed her.
Pablo remembers that on the night of the crime they crossed paths on the landing. “She told me to fuck off,” he said. He went to her apartment and María Jesús went down to the street to throw out the trash. The man waited for her to return, armed with a kitchen knife, and when the woman was about to open the door to her house, he stabbed her in the back.
Pablo only recognizes a stab wound in the side (María Jesús’s body had three cut wounds) and assures that everything “happened very quickly, instantly… two minutes.” And he has admitted that he locked himself in his house again with only the handle of the knife. The violence was such that the weapon broke and the blade remained stuck in María Jesús’s body.
Néledi Blanco, the only daughter of María Jesús Cruz, attends that trial this week. She testified yesterday and was outraged by the prosecutor’s benevolence in asking for her sentence. She requests a sentence of 18 years by applying only the aggravating circumstance of treachery (treasonous attack), but not that of cruelty. The public prosecution does not consider that additional suffering for the victim was sought in this attack.
Néledi knew, from her mother, that this neighbor had a hard time with her because of the noise. “But she wasn’t afraid of him,” says the young woman. So she never thought of such a cruel and violent attack.
The woman had a problem that reduced her vision (one of her eyes was made of glass) and a chronic illness that would explain the noises that bothered that neighbor so much. María Jesús could not naturally pick up or grasp objects as a result of a degenerative joint disease that she suffered from in her hands. Hence it was common for things to fall to the floor.
The lawyer representing the family requests, for his part, a sentence of 25 years in prison, arguing that there was additional suffering and therefore maintains that the aggravating circumstance of cruelty can be applied.
The defense of the accused asks for free acquittal and, in case of conviction, that the defense of temporary mental disorder be applied.
In this morning’s session the investigators declared. A police officer has destroyed Pablo’s version, who claimed to have stabbed María Jesús when she turned around. “It was an attack from behind,” said that agent.
Investigators do not believe that this attack was an “instant reaction.” Quite the opposite. They have stated that the accused waited for minutes on the landing for her neighbor’s return, prepared with the knife in his hand “to stab her.” The three wounds (one at the level of the breast, another in the abdomen and the third, in the back) were practically necessarily fatal in and of themselves.
