María Soledad Sánchez, 59 years old and already with two older sons (36 and 35 years old), had decided to change scenery. She was overwhelmed by Madrid and at her age she believed it was time for a change of scenery, after her husband had died for a while. She saw the ad and didn't think twice. She wanted to dedicate herself to what she liked the most: animals and the countryside. So he did not think about it any more and left the capital of Spain to go to Zafra (Badajoz), where in exchange for a precarious contract (to use the house), and with his only livelihood from the widow's pension, he was going to become a in charge of the maintenance of the Las Peralas farm, a property owned by the man who would be his executioner, Manuel Martín de las Mulas (known as Manolo and 71 years old at the time of the crime).
The future murderer gave up its use in exchange for the woman taking care of her animals and the ones she brought herself. They were her passion. Horses, donkeys, cats, dogs... The landlord agreed on his part to cover current expenses... and the food for the animals. It was August 2019 and he arrived with all the enthusiasm after having promoted the rural house La Casa del Valle Encantado years ago in La Rioja, in addition to belonging to animal associations.
However, it took a short time for the signed agreement to deteriorate. Despite the daily effort of a life in the countryside, María faced it from the first day with the illusion of someone who does things for pleasure; but that idyllic life that he thought ended up collapsing almost from the first day and, what is worse, would end up being his own grave in the cruelest way: bleeding to death at the hands of his landlord, who used all the anger and cold blood possible to kill her with premeditation, cruelty and treachery, as the sentence underlines.
To do this, he used an iron bar that is used to unlock the metal, "a blunt object with an elongated body with thorns at its ends and constant edges", with which he hit her over and over again on the head without possible mercy. "A brutal evil unnecessarily increasing the suffering and pain of the victim until she drowned in her own blood," according to the forensic doctors at the trial, with a popular jury.
He received no less than 40 blows (half to the skull) without any possible defense. Several members of that court - made up of nine citizens - did not stop crying at the trial session where the horrifying story of the crime was revealed. Even a young girl from the jury got dizzy and had to be treated when she heard the audio. Because the victim, with her own mobile phone, recorded her death. And it was fundamental evidence when the trial was held.
The working relationship between the two did not start off on the right foot. After various sexual innuendos (to say the least) -as the prosecution's lawyer, Ana Espinola points out-, she tried not to coincide when the owner came to the farm without warning. Manolo had always previously searched for needy women without financial resources for his farm. She would sometimes stay inside the farmhouse when she trespassed on the property. María complained that she did not provide the necessary food for the animals, in addition to leaving her without hot water. In November, Manolo placed several padlocks in various areas of the farm to prevent the woman from moving freely through the land of her murderer and the following month he demanded through a notary to terminate the contract and to abandon her property. . He gave her three months.
Instead, she decided to delay her departure so as not to leave the abandoned animals to their fate. For example, the owner had refused to notify a vet when a foal became ill. So, one after another. Until the fateful day came.
On the morning of January 31, 2020, Manolo, very large and with unusual strength for his age, went to the farm and María reproached him, once again, for his attitude towards animals. She even believed that she was poisoning them. After receiving some threats, she began to record the conversation with her mobile phone, warning her about it. She gave him the same. The man had hidden an iron bar inside a sack while he moved around the farm behind her with the sole purpose, according to the sentence, of "finding the right moment to end the life of the woman." At first, he entered the uralite shed that was on the farm, inviting her to come in, but she rejected the proposal.
Then, next to a fence, and in the midst of the discussion between the two, and "after verifying that he was not observed by the neighbors," he extracted the iron bar from the bag and hit it numerous times, the victim falling, stunned, to the ground. floor. The mobile phone would also fall, face up, which would continue recording the murder until the end. "The images of the aggressor from that moment on are no longer visible, since she falls to the ground, because she is already focused in the other direction, but the sound, which was heard with complete clarity," highlights the lawyer. Seconds before, it is verified how surprisingly the man began to hit her without a chance to defend herself. She tried how she could cover herself from her blows. Unsuccessfully. That audio where the agony and the victim's plea to her executioner are perfectly heard was what brought tears to many of the jurors, dismayed by what they were hearing, an atrocious, horrifying story.
Maria begged her executioner several times for her life, while "she was getting tired and suffocating with her own blood." At that moment, a neighbor of the plot, L.V.E., heard a disturbance on the adjoining farm, although at first he thought it was a rape. At the moment, he yelled: "Manolo, what are you doing?" Despite which, he continued to hit her while the neighbor, some distance away and with various barbed wire fences between the two areas, began to run until he arrived at the crime scene. It was too late. Meanwhile, Manolo, once executed his victim in cold blood, moved the body a few meters in the direction of the door of the shed.
«What have you done? Right now I'm going to the Civil Guard barracks," the witness told Manolo. So the murderer also ended up going to the Benemérita post: "I had a problem with my tenant and I killed her," he said, with a lot of cold blood before the agents. He had destroyed the right cerebral hemisphere and the cerebellum of the head. He hadn't suffered a single scratch.
However, the presentation by magistrate Eduardo de Porres highlights that it was not appropriate to apply the mitigation of the confession in the sentence because "it was not complete or truthful" and it was marked by the witness's threat to go to the Civil Guard to denounce it. In addition, according to the lawyer, the murderer took the mobile home with him and tried to manipulate it to delete the images, something that he was unable to do in the end. He ended up leaving him in the farmhouse, believing that he had achieved his objective and that there would be no record of the facts. At trial, the defendant justified the murder by claiming that his tenant "mistreated me psychologically," insulted him, and even "made fun of me." The defense of Manuel Martín de las Mulas unsuccessfully requested acquittal for temporary mental disorder: "I told him that if he recorded me I would break his cell phone and I hit him in the arm the first time," he insisted.
The Supreme Court has just ratified the sentence (20 years in prison) imposed by the Provincial Court of Badajoz but neither the popular jury nor the Prosecutor's Office determined that the case should also be tried for Gender Violence, which would have increased the sentence by five more years prison for man.
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