Francisco José Moyano: Convicted for murdering his wife: "My wife had some good things. He cooked very well "| Society

"My wife had some good things. It was a mess in the kitchen. He cooked very well. " These words of Francisco José Moyano, pronounced before the popular jury that judged him at the end of last month at the Audiencia of Alicante for the murder of his wife, left patent his evident macho character. After the guilty verdict, a magistrate has now sentenced her to 24 years in prison.

The sentence, which has just been notified, declares proven that he dealt 11 stab wounds to María del Carmen Lauria, of 48 years, all of them in vital areas such as the thorax or the neck, in his home on Las Flores street in Benidorm. Perpetrated the crime in the early morning of April 12, 2016. "Surprising and unforeseen", according to the ruling, after locking the victim in the conjugal bedroom and thus prevent any possibility of defense. Then, with the same knife, he hurt himself, inflicting a cut in the neck that keeps him currently in a wheelchair.

It was Serena, the deceased's youngest daughter, who was then 16 years old, who discovered her corpse in the couple's room when they returned from high school. The killer, who lay motionless on the bed next to his wife's lifeless body, shouted for her to enter the room and notify an ambulance.

During the trial, the accused, a 51-year-old bus driver, said he did not remember how the events occurred, although he alleged that he had struggled with his wife during an argument in which she threatened and insulted him. "I told her that I was going to divorce and leave home, but she answered: 'here I send you and you do not leave here,' he said in the courtroom.

In his defense, Moyano described as "false" the denunciations that María del Carmen had filed against him for ill treatment and claimed that he had psychological problems and was under the influence of alcohol. None of these excuses has been taken into account now in the ruling drafted by Judge Montserrat Navarro.

The victim had denounced him twice, but ended up recanting or refusing to testify against him in court. One of the complaints was filed in 2010 and the other ended with an acquittal in 2016. "We depended on him and my mother always ended up giving him a chance because he said he could change," he explained tearfully to the popular jury his daughter.

The girl also told that her stepfather insulted María del Carmen frequently and for any reason. "He was aggressive and evil and we were both very afraid of him. We had been sleeping together for 10 days and we no longer spoke to him. At night, as soon as we saw that he was arriving with the car, we ran to lock ourselves in the room. "

The victim had resolved to put an end once and for all to that hell. In fact, on the morning of his murder, he was preparing to take the title of a catering course in which he had placed many illusions. He thought about finding a job and starting a new life, free from the yoke of macho violence, something that his murderer did not consent to.

The sentence, which can be appealed before the Valencia Superior Court of Justice, applies to the murderer the specific aggravation of "gender reason", by establishing that he killed María del Carmen "for the fact of being a woman". In addition to the 24 years in prison, the magistrate has imposed a restraining order on her stepdaughter for 29 years. She and a brother who resides in Argentina, must compensate them with 150,000 and 50,000 euros, respectively.