The popular jury that during the last two weeks tried Santiago Cepeda Quintela has concluded that he is guilty of the murder of his nephew, a three-year-old boy whom he killed by suffocating him in the bathroom of the family home in Santiago de Compostela in September 2020. The case was tried behind closed doors in the sixth section of the Provincial Court of A Coruña between January 17 and 27 and, after almost two days of deliberation, the court has finally issued a guilty verdict.
The members of the jury - five men and four women - reached their verdict unanimously and concluded that the man killed his nephew without the minor having a "possibility of reaction" given his young age. They consider that he killed him "intentionally" and being aware of his actions.
On the day of the crime, the minor had stayed at the house of his maternal grandparents in the center of Santiago with his grandmother, his two sisters -also minors-, and his uncle, a teacher for years at an institute in Roquetas de Mar (Almería) who he had returned to his hometown shortly before due to depressive problems.
The jury concluded that he was playing with his nephew in the family home, he accompanied him to the bathroom and, after locking the main access door to that floor and locking the bathroom door, he ended his life by suffocation by covering his nose. and mouth. They consider that he exerted "forceful pressure".
After reading the verdict, both the Prosecutor's Office and the popular prosecution, exercised by the Friends of Galicia Foundation without the support of the family, have reiterated the request for permanent reviewable prison for the defendant, while his defense attorney requested an alternative sentence and advanced and his intention to appeal.
From the beginning, the family has found itself in a compromising situation in the face of the terrible murder, without accusing the alleged perpetrator. The mother of the deceased and sister of the defendant maintained that her brother suffered a mental problem and expressly requested that the trial sessions not have publicity.
The reading of the verdict was the only part of the trial that was public to the media, a decision adapted by the Court at the request of the Prosecutor's Office and the defendant's defense, and with the approval of the jury, to thus guarantee the protection of the privacy of the victim's family.
The case came to trial two years and four months after the crime that shocked Santiago on September 21, 2020 and one of its central issues was to determine whether the defendant was, at the time of the events, in possession of all his mental capacities. or had them altered. From the first moment, his murderous act caused great surprise because of his good relationship with his niece and with his entire family.
His defense insisted that they should apply the circumstance completely exempting him from criminal responsibility because that September 21 he suffered an epileptic or seizure that prevented him from knowing what he was doing. He claimed an abrupt neurological collapse, the result of the sequelae left by the brain tumor he suffered as a child, for which he underwent surgery several times between the ages of 12 and 18.
However, the jury has not accepted the version of the defense as good and has concluded in its verdict that his abilities were not affected at the time of committing the crime and that previous psychiatric conditions had no role in the fatal event, so so that there is no modifying circumstance of criminal responsibility and the defendant is doomed to the maximum sentence. In any case, now the presiding magistrate of the sixth section of the Hearing, Ana Belén Sánchez González, will now still have to issue her resolution.
After the crime, the accused was admitted to the Psychiatric area of the Clinical Hospital of Santiago de Compostela, but shortly after forensic reports ruled out psychiatric disorder and he entered the Teixeiro prison in A Coruña, where he remains to this day.
Santiago Cepeda was diagnosed with depression, but his lawyer maintained that what he actually has is a neurological condition that prevented him from knowing what he was doing when he committed the acts with which he was charged. The psychiatrists from the Institute of Legal Medicine of Galicia (Imelga) who studied Cepeda after the crime ruled out "psychotic evidence" and pointed to "a depressive episode with mild characteristics."
Based on these reports, and now on the jury's verdict, both the Prosecutor's Office and the private prosecution, which the Amigos de Galicia Foundation exercises without the support of the victim's family, consider that he is guilty of murder and that he should be sentenced to prison. revisable permanent.
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