Tragedy in the small Granada municipality of Huétor Tájar. Yesterday, a 72-year-old man ended the life of his two grandchildren, aged 10 and 12, and then took his own life at his home on Alfonso Nobel Street, where he had remained barricaded since Sunday afternoon. According to him, it has emerged that the aggressor was going through a difficult time after the death of his wife and daughter, the mother of the minors, in a car accident in which he was driving when he fainted and caused him to run off the road. Both children were also traveling in the vehicle, who survived the accident.
Around 9 p.m. on Sunday, the aggressor’s son-in-law, after an argument with his father-in-law, alerted the local police that loud noises had been heard in the house and that his children were inside. The agents of this body and also of the Civil Guard went there, and were greeted with several shots in the air from a window, so that they knew that the man was armed.
The grandfather also allegedly threatened to kill several relatives who tried to intercede. It was then that help was requested from the special intervention unit of the Benemérita, a team from Madrid that went to the municipality with a negotiator in order to get the man to put down his weapon and leave the house.
The communications, as explained by the Government delegate in Andalusia, Pedro Fernández, lasted until five in the morning yesterday, when the man cut off all conversation and reported that he was going to focus on preparing the children so that they could attend school. . However, there was no movement in the house, so at 8:25 a.m., the members of the special unit entered the home, at which time the children’s grandfather shot himself to death with his 12-gauge shotgun, to the one who had a license.
The agents found the Dantesque scene inside the house. The minors, who were in different rooms, had been killed, one with a gunshot and another, predictably, by asphyxiation, although the autopsy will determine the causes of death of both. Now, the Civil Guard, which is keeping the investigation open to clarify the facts, is considering the possibility that the crime was committed during the night of Sunday and that the aggressor had lied to them throughout the early hours of the morning.
The news of the murder of the minors shocked the entire municipality. The City Council decreed three days of mourning and suspended the events of the last day of the San Isidro Labrador Fair. “We are dismayed,” said the mayor, Fernando Delgado, who conveyed his affection and support to the family, especially the father of the victims, well known for working in an educational center in the municipality. He added that, after the accident in which the grandfather lost his wife and daughter, many in the town knew that “he was not very well,” although no one could imagine “that he was going to do what he has done,” that It has been a “disaster” and a “tragedy” for the people.
The accident in which the man’s wife and daughter died took place on March 19, the date on which Father’s Day is commemorated. According to local media, her daughter died in the hospital after the accident, although her wife died days later after failing to overcome the injuries she suffered. This Sunday marked two months since the tragedy, a traumatic situation that could have caused the aggressor, whom one of his relatives described as a “normal” person, to lose his balance and end up acting in this cruel way.
The president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juanma Moreno, regretted the events on the social network X: “It is terrible. All our love goes to the families of the two children and the hug from all of Andalusia to the residents of the municipality,” she expressed. For his part, the leader of the PSOE-A, Juan Espadas, sent his “most sincere condolences and a big hug to the family and relatives of the children, victims of this horror.”
