Psychotic mother commits ‘ritual murder’ of her own children, 50 years in prison for father | Abroad

The parents, a Spanish woman and a Belgian man, lived with their two children in inhumane conditions in the Spanish village of Godella, not far from Valencia. Without water or electricity. And with little food. For most of the day, Gabriel Carvajal and his girlfriend Maria Gombau were high from the marijuana they smoked. The children had to make their own plans.

Gombau’s own mother had already notified the police because she was concerned about the well-being of her grandchildren. But the officers who went to the scene wrote in their report that “it was a family quarrel.”

On March 14, 2019, a few weeks after the police visit, neighbors raised the alarm. They had seen the neighbor and the half-naked neighbor fighting. Then the woman, who was bloodied, ran away.

When the Spanish guardia civil arrived on the scene, the husband reacted very confused. The couple’s two children were nowhere to be found. And there was blood at the pool.

‘order from god’

The father could barely say anything meaningful, let alone explain where his two young children were. His wife was finally found the next day: she was half-naked and hidden in a fetal position in a large, empty barrel.

In bits and pieces she told a story about a pedophile sect that wanted to kidnap their children. And that’s why they took turns keeping watch at night. They also spoke of “a command from God to kill the children.”

Last week, when the court gave him the last word before the jury withdrew, the Belgian asked for the acquittal. “She did it,” it sounded. “I slept.”

Psychosis

The woman was severely psychotic, according to the law doctors and the court psychiatrists. She was talking about a purification ritual in the pool. The children would have drowned. She had buried the bodies in the abandoned grounds around the house. There they were indeed found. Buried in a well.

But, the doctor said, they didn’t die from drowning. The children were severely beaten with a blunt object. And they were hit hard with the head against the ground. They lost a lot of blood.

The Belgian Gabriel Carvajal, an exiled Brussels busker, was sentenced to 50 years in prison on Wednesday, or 25 years for each murder.

Maria Gombau, who is considered the perpetrator, is being interned and will be transferred from prison as soon as possible to a psychiatric clinic where she will be treated.

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