“But did the girl witness it?” asked a neighbor. “How could I not witness it, if they lived in a locked room and their mother’s screams echoed throughout the staircase?”, replied another. At number 23 Carrer Cornellà Modern, in the Gavarra neighborhood of Cornellà de Llobregat, everyone was used to hearing the screams and beatings that a man was inflicting on his partner. Both lived with other villagers.
In the morning from Saturday to Sunday, however, the screams were so shrill, and the requests for help, so anguished that several neighbors went to the second first and did not stop knocking on the door until they opened it. It was around two in the morning. By then, the screaming had stopped. The defendant let them through the entrance and the neighbors confirmed their worst omens. They found the woman in a pool of blood.
The murder weapon was a knife. The neighbors subdued the aggressor and tried to revive his partner. Neither they nor the Mossos d’Esquadra patrol and the EMS paramedics could save her. The wounds were mortal of necessity. With this sexist crime there are already 22 that have been registered since the beginning of the year in Spain (and 23 children who have been orphaned). But this case, in particular, requires reflection.
Several subletting families, all of South American origin, lived in the house. They and the other tenants of the property have assured the investigators that the fights were common. Surprisingly, the detainee had no criminal record for allegations of gender-based violence. Bloodstains were still visible in the lobby of the second floor yesterday, next to a carpet that says “Welcome” in English.
The victim and the involuntary witnesses of the abuse he suffered never reported the facts, according to the first proceedings. The experts have insisted to the point of exhaustion that the abusers have a special ability to make the victims feel responsible, that they blame themselves for the events and exonerate the executioners again and again. It is too early to tell if this has happened again now.
A third A quarter… And so until the final one arrives. Those who suffer gender violence have at their disposal the number 900-900-120, 016 or the emergency number, 112, among other resources. Whether such a call could have prevented this new misfortune will never be known. Yesterday, inside the apartment, you could clearly hear crying.
The rest of the families continue to live in the second first. The journalists who went to the property were petrified by the crying and the certainty that everything could have happened in the presence of a two-year-old girl. The Generalitat investigates the situation of the minor and tries to find out if she has more relatives before deciding on her future. The 34-year-old detainee will appear in court soon.
The victim had cuts on his hands, arms and forearms, which the forensic doctors called defense wounds. The cuts that the attacker inflicted on the rest of the body, especially on the chest, caused his death. The paramedics performed resuscitation maneuvers for half an hour, but it was an attempt doomed to failure, given the loss of blood and the severity of the injuries. Cornellà de Llobregat, which was celebrating Corpus Christi, has suspended its activities. Three days of mourning, flags at half-mast and two unanswered questions. Because? Until when?
