Reviewable permanent prisonthat is the penalty that Beatriu FC faces, the woman accused of strangling her husband, Isaac Guillén Torrijos, in December 2019 and bury his body in a grave in Godelleta. The victim, a former local police officer from Catarroja, suffered from a degenerative disease and required an electric wheelchair to get around, hence, since it was a murder of a particularly vulnerable person given his disability, the Prosecutor’s Office request the highest penalty contemplated by the Spanish Penal Code.
The alleged black widow hid her crime by making all sorts of moves to make it appear that her husband had left voluntarily in his desire to “die with dignity”, with the aim of continuing to receive the pension due to his severe disability. In this way, she reported his disappearance to the police and from her husband’s phone she was sending messages posing as him so that they would not look for him, calls to the bank impersonating his identity and both she and her son traveled to Barcelona on several occasions, where they activated the victim’s cell phone in order to simulate that he was still alive.
The stepson of the deceased was already tried for his alleged participation in the murder by a juvenile court since he was 17 years old whentogether with her mother, took her husband, after putting him to sleep with a pill, to the plot of land in Godelleta that she had rented months before and where she had ordered a ditch to be dug about 78 centimeters deep, by 130 centimeters wide and 326 long, with the clear intention of leaving everything ready for the day of the crime.
As Levante-EMV exclusively reported, the teenager, who is now 18 years old, was sentenced to two years of internment in a semi-open regime as an accomplice to a crime of aiding suicide. The sentence, ratified last October by the Provincial Court of Valencia, clarifies that the young man acted under “the erroneous belief” that his mother was fulfilling the will of her husband. But in any case, the resolution of minors is not binding with the trial against the mother that will be held before a popular jury.
Fake messages from her husband
“I am very sorry but I am not going to go home. I am going to a center where they will do tests to prevent my daughter from going through the same thing. I will be fine. When something happens they will notify you immediately. It is my decision and mine alone and you must respect my will. I don’t have the courage to say goodbye to my children. I love them very much. Let them know.” With this message the defendant herself sent herself from her husband’s phone on December 1, 2019, the day the crime occurredthe alleged murderer launched her plan to try to make the investigators and Isaac’s family believe -with two minor children from a previous relationship- that he had left voluntarily because he wanted to end the suffering of his degenerative disease .
This message was followed by several more in the same direction addressed to herself, a friend and three relatives. “I’m fine, what have you done, take me off the search, respect me please.” As well as after the publication of Levante-EMV reporting the disappearance of Isaac and where Beatriu already admitted indignantly that they suspected her.
While is true that The former police officer, 45 years old and with cerebellar ataxia, had expressed on occasion his desire to die and had collected information on euthanasia, even registering in September 2019 with the Right to Die with Dignity Association, as stated by the prosecutor in his brief, he decided to wait for the legal reform announced by the Government —Organic Law 3/ 2021 on the regulation of euthanasia—so as not to implicate any relative in his death.
In addition, at no time did Isaac leave any record of how he wanted to die and the method used by the accused, strangling him with shoelaces after trying to suffocate him by opening the spigot of a butane gas bottle after locking him inside the car, is far from the concept. of a “dignified death”.
It’s more, the Prosecutor’s Office appreciates treachery since the victim had no chance to resist and, in the vain attempt to defend himself, Beatriu hit him when the effects of the pill with which he had drugged her husband to take him to Godelleta were wearing off. After ending her life, helped by her son, they threw the body wrapped in plastic into the grave, where they covered it with earth, stones and caustic soda to make it difficult to locate.
Likewise, the economic interests of the defendant, after Isaac had considered the possibility of getting divorced and going to a residence, leaving her with nothing, together with the tricks of the defendant to hinder the work of the investigators —such as getting rid of the phones temporarily leaving them to a friend and a relative before taking her husband to Godelleta so that they could not track his geolocation—are one more example of criminal intent.
The investigations of the Homicide group of the National Police, which closely followed the steps of the suspect, led them to Isaac’s body in June 2020, after Beatriu went again to the Godelleta plot. The victim’s wheelchair on the grave where he lay was the last piece that allowed to complete the puzzle and uncover this crime, which now the defense will try to cover up with a supposed case of euthanasia.