The prosecutor maintains the 25

The prosecutor in the case of the ‘Castro Urdiales skull’ has raised his conclusions to final on the penultimate day of the trial against Carmen Merino, accused of beheading his partnerJesús María Baranda, and for those who request 25 years in jail for malicious murder (impossibility of defense) and with the aggravating circumstance of kinship, understanding that there are “numerous data” that are “powerful evidence” that has committed the crime, why and how.

Meanwhile, the defense has insisted on the free acquittal of Merino -who would have delivered a package with her boyfriend’s head to a friend so that she could keep it, alleging that it contained sex toys-, since “did not cause” death or cooperate “in any wayHowever, this part, which understands that there are “sufficient doubts” for the jury to issue a guilty verdict, has modified some facts of its provisional brief and has introduced as a subsidiary conclusion that it committed a concealment crime.

“This investigation falsely closedyou have to declare not guilty to Carmen and you have to reset the counter to zero and start to really investigate”, Eduardo García Peña, lawyer for Merino, has claimed before an investigation “disaster”.

For its part, the private prosecution – exercised by the children of the deceased, a 67-year-old retired Basque banker when he disappeared – He has insisted on the permanent reviewable prison for murder that he attributes to the defendanta 64-year-old native of Seville, admitted to the El Dueso prison (Santoña) since the macabre discovery, in September 2019.

The family lawyer, Ana Quintana, sees a “total and absolute premeditation” and a “very clear” purpose, and subsidiarily requests the same prison sentence as the Prosecutor’s Office and 35,000 euros for Baranda’s children for the damage dwellshe.

She is not a psychopath and used alcohol to commit the macabre task

In his final argument, the prosecutor has made a chronological account of the facts that he imputes to the defendant, who denied her participation in the same and he pointed to the friend to whom he gave the box and also to Baranda’s brother; from searches on Merino’s computer made from October 2018 -related to the collection of the pension if the husband or How long does it take for a corpse to decompose?– until the head appeared, in September 2019.

Consider the suspect “anticipated the future” before committing the crime -the accusations place him in mid-February in the couple’s apartment, on Padre Basabe de Castro street- with these searches on the Internet and also doing “gathering”in November, Diazepam (Anxiolytic that she had prescribed and that was found in the skull, but the amount has not been determined given the state it was in, due to the time elapsed and having been manipulated).

“Mrs. Merino is not a psychopath,” said the prosecutor, echoing the conclusion of the psychiatric expert report performed on the defendant. In his opinion, “he had to use alcohol to be able to undertake the macabre task that happened at that address”, thus alluding to the acquisition of several bottles of whiskey and the alleged dismemberment of the corpse with a chainsaw.

It has also highlighted that the disappearance was reported by a cousin of the victim, not the defendant, and her reaction when the skull was discovered, as well as a statement of the facts in the oral hearing that does not make “sense” and lacks “logic and coherence”, based on “trying to blame what she has committed on other people “.

The trenches of defense: cover-up or homicide, not murder

The defense has warned the members of the court that this trial “is not a contest” about “who makes the most logical and coherent story”, but that they must base your verdict on “evidence and facts” with a sufficient “degree of certainty” and not on deductions, imaginations or suspicions.

Thus, without knowing what he died of or through what action, there is no “causal link” with the homicide or murder, since “dismembering or decapitating a corpse is not proof of killing.” In line, he has asked the juries to separate events after and before the death, such as the search for the decomposition of a corpse, which proves nothing.

And although the death was violent, it is not known nor is there evidence of its authorship, in the eyes of this lawyer, who has clarified that he does not attribute it to himself -nor the possible participation in the facts- “nobody”, but rather exposes his “doubts”, thus alluding to “suspicions” of the Civil Guard that there were more people.

Finally, it has considered that “in the worst possible scenario” Merino could be sentenced for murder, but “never” for murdersince the “probative gap is total and absolute” as to whether the crime was committed at home or that he ingested a high and involuntary amount of Diazepam.

Process contamination

The private prosecution believes that the defender has tried “contaminate” the procedure in an “desire to introduce third parties” into this “macabre and horrifying” crime, which he attributes to Merino, with a “total and utter premeditation” and with a “very clear” purpose.

This lawyer has questioned that did not plead not guilty at firstthat it was “so wide” when the head appeared or its “lack of transparency”, and has recounted “contradictions” and “lies” in which it has incurred in the interrogation.