The two alleged material authors of the crime of the supervisor of the dialysis service at the Girona Clinic during an assault in her home on September 25, 2020 face 31 years in prison each.
The prosecutor accuses them of aggravated murder, robbery with violence and illegal detention. After two months of investigation, the Mossos launched an operation on November 30 that resulted in the arrest of four suspects.
There was also a co-worker of the victim and her husband who, according to the investigation, had been the “intellectual authors” of the robbery.
The couple faces 10 years and 10 months in prison each for robbery and illegal detention. The Court concluded that they could not be accused of murder.
The indictment from prosecutor Víctor Pillado states that, throughout August 2020, the couple and one of the alleged perpetrators “decided to perpetrate a violent assault” at the nurse’s home, who also had a professional podiatry office in number 23 of the city’s Barcelona highway.
According to the prosecution, they had “relevant information” indicating that the victim had “a significant financial wealth” in safes at home. The investigation indicated that it was the woman, who was a co-worker of the victim, who provided that information.
The three drew up the plan and contacted a fourth person, a man who had a record of violent robbery. The prosecutor states that all the defendants agreed to commit the robbery, “assuming” that they should use “physical force” to get the money from the safes.
Following this plan, the prosecutor maintains that they obtained a telephone card and used it to make a medical appointment with the victim using a false identity.
The gateway was that this false patient “came recommended” by his co-worker and now accused: “Therefore, the victim would open the door to him without fear and without any suspicion.” The meeting was scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on September 25, 2020.
In the previous days, the indictment states, the couple and one of the defendants carried out “surveillance tasks” around the victim’s house. Furthermore, the prosecutor indicates that they knew “perfectly” the schedules and habits of the victim and had “personal and intimate” information that the accused had achieved “with the relationship of trust that they had maintained for years and by working with her at the center.” of dialysis at the Girona Clinic”.
The suspects agreed that two of the accused would “materially carry out” the robbery, while the co-worker’s husband would be in charge of taking them by car to the scene of the crime, waiting, and then taking them away from Girona. “The accused would be informed at all times of the execution of the assault without intervening personally,” adds the prosecutor.
Thus, around six in the afternoon on September 25, the co-worker’s partner picked up the two alleged perpetrators by car and took them to the victim’s house. “Once there, and executing the plan previously conceived among the four, two of the accused were in charge of accessing the property,” describes the prosecutor, who points out that they were wearing duct tape and plastic ties. The driver waited outside, ready to “execute the escape” and “informing” his wife of what was happening.
Both men entered the building around 6:25 p.m. The victim opened the door thinking it was the patient who had arranged a visit: “Once the door was open, one of the two accused punched her in the face, knocking her to the ground. Immediately afterwards, between the two, and using duct tape and other objects and clothing that were inside the house, they immobilized her by tying her hands and feet, and they dragged her across the floor to the office room where there was one of the two safes.”
According to the provisional conclusions, the nurse did not agree to open the safes. “The accused, to avoid being caught, and given that they acted with their faces uncovered,” “exerted pressure” on the neck area of ??the victim, who died from mechanical asphyxiation due to strangulation.
The prosecutor indicates that both men acted with the intention of ending the victim’s life or being “fully aware” that the woman could not defend herself: “She was immobilized on the ground and there was an attack by two people against a of slim build.” The woman was 67 years old.
The thieves took three rings from the victim and left the building around 7:03 p.m. Pillado maintains that they fled aboard the car where the other defendant was waiting for them.
After two months of investigation, the Criminal Investigation Division (DIC) of the Mossos d’Esquadra in Girona deployed an operation on November 30, 2020 that resulted in the arrest of the four suspects for their alleged connection with the crime of the nurse. Both alleged perpetrators are in preventive detention.
The Court of Girona, considering an appeal by defense lawyer Sergio Noguero, resolved that they cannot be tried for murder because neither of the two “was present” in the apartment. The court concluded that there is insufficient evidence to support that the nurse’s death “was preordained in a joint plan.”
The document states that the victim had three brothers and a woman “whom he treated like a daughter” because he had lived in foster care. The prosecutor wants the four defendants to compensate them with 110,000 euros for the moral damage inflicted.
The case, which has been processed through the popular jury, will go to trial in the Girona Court.
