Starting next Monday, the Provincial Court of Madrid will judge the so-called “Grindr killer”, for whom the Prosecutor’s Office is asking for 25 years in prison for stabbing an acquaintance with more than 60 stabs in February 2018 through an application. gay dating.
The jury trial is scheduled to be held between the 11th and 20th to determine what happened on February 23, 2018 in an apartment in the Madrid neighborhood of Carabanchel where the accused, Julián Ovejero, went after meeting Najuzatih Zahell, of Puerto Rican origin, through the Wapo application. Both had already met before through other means such as Grindr.
Najuzatih was found dead a day later with 63 stab wounds, and Ovejero was arrested in September 2021 in Argentina, his native country, after which he acknowledged that he stabbed Najuzatih after having relationships and during a discussion in which he became “crazy”.
He was extradited to Spain for this reason in January 2022 and has been deprived of liberty since then.
The Prosecutor’s Office requests 25 years in prison for the accused for a crime of murder and a minor crime of theft, considering it proven that Ovejero, who was 24 years old, went to the apartment of the victim, who was 35, in the neighborhood of Carabanchel from Madrid, after meeting through an application.
After having sexual relations and “with the intention of ending his life,” he attacked the victim “suddenly and surprisingly” next to the entrance door of the home, stabbing him “repeatedly and consecutively” with a weapon up to 29 times. double-edged, according to the prosecutor’s brief, which details that the defendant dragged the victim to the living room and left him badly injured lying face up.
Despite the fact that the victim was still alive, and “in order to cause him as much suffering as possible”, the defendant plunged his weapon into his neck nine times and another 25 times into his abdomen “to, finally, with the intention to disfigure his face, make a linear, straight and downward cut obliquely across the nose, upper left hemilabium and left half of the chin”, details the indictment.
The private prosecution, carried out by the deceased’s sister through Julen Martínez, of Valmaseda Abogados, also requests 25 years in prison for Ovejero.
