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A new thriller has been on Netflix since May 30th-and has made it directly to the top of the German streaming charts. The Spanish film “The Black Widow” replaced the blockbuster “Venom 3” to first place. What many spectators do not know: the story is based on a real criminal case that shook all of Spain in 2017.
The focus of the woman: María Jesús Moreno Cantó
At the center of the film is a murder that occurred in a quiet residential area of the Spanish city of Valencia. A man was stabbed in the underground car park of his house. The police initially assumed a robbery with a sequence of death – but it turned out: it was a planned murder. This was followed by an investigation that led deep into a network of lies, passion and calculation.
In the real case, the action took place on the morning of August 16, 2017. The victim: 36-year-old engineer Antonio Navarro Cerdán, who was killed in the underground car park of his house in the Patraix district. The investigation finally led to his then 27-year-old wife, the nurse María Jesús Moreno Cantó. Spanish media quickly christened the “Black Widow of Patraix” – based on the Spider species, in which the female kills the male after mating. As early as 1987, a US thriller named “The Black Widow” appeared about a woman who kills her rich husbands in turn-out of greed.
She planned the murder with her affair
Then the feeling of the investigating: María Jesús Moreno Cantó had a striking effect during the investigation. No trace of grief or unrest – instead, she has been controlled and showed emotionless. Soon she came to light that she had a double life: In addition to her marriage, she had several affairs, including one with Salvador Rodrigo Lapiedra, a caretaker at the hospital in which she worked.
Salvador was reportedly completely for her. María Jesús Moreno Cantó gave him hope for a future together and claimed that her husband was violent to her. However, a divorce was out of the question for her according to “watson.de” – supposedly, because otherwise it would not receive a widow’s pension.
In reality, however, she probably forged this plan: she provided her lover with her husband’s daily routine, gave him the key to the underground car park and organized an alibi. The caretaker lurked Antonio Cerdán as planned and killed him with several knife stings.
Detailing and legal process
Only months after the crime, in January 2018, the couple was arrested. Salvador Rodrigo Lapiedra confessed and led the investigators to the murder weapon, which he had hidden in a sewage ditch. First he took over the entire responsibility. But that changed when he learned that María had already started a new relationship with a fellow inmate in pre -trial detention. In court he revoked his former confession and, according to “Watson”: “I said at the time that everything was my idea. But in truth it was our common plan.”
Judgment and new life in prison
In October 2020, María Jesús Moreno Cantó was sentenced to 22 years in prison by the court – difficult by the fact that the victim was her own husband. Her accomplice received 17 years because he cooperated with the judiciary. Both were also obliged to pay a compensation of 250,000 euros to the victim’s family.
In prison, according to “Watson”, María Jesús Moreno Cantó is said to have started another relationship – this time with an inmate convicted for murder. In 2023 she gave birth to a child in a clinic in Alicante under supervision and has since lived with the baby in a mother-child unit in the FontCalent prison.