EXPAT KILLER
20 years for stabbing wife
A WEALTHY expat who stabbed his wife to death after locking their son out of their Costa del Sol home has been jailed for 20 years.
Computer programmer Geoffrey Elton was convicted on Friday of murdering headteacher Gloria Tornay, 58, after a jury ruled his alleged mental disorder was “made up”.
Yesterday judge Rafael Linares jailed Elton, 57, from Worksop, Notts, for 20 years and a day, the lowest penalty he could receive under Spanish law.
The court heard he knifed his wife 17 times in an hour in March 2019 after an attempt to suffocate and strangle her failed.
State prosecutor Julio Angel Martinez Carazo said he believed Elton had a mental illness distorting his appreciation of reality, but it did not exempt him from responsibility.
All nine jurors ruled Elton was sane when he killed his wife of 33 years and compounded his “vile” crime by locking son Alonso, 15 at the time, out of their home to impede the arrival of help as she lay in agony on the marital bed. He also threw away three phones.
As the verdict was read out, Elton looked on impassively a few feet from his two sons and his Spanish wife’s relatives. The sentence, confirmed in a 30page ruling, matched the punishment a state prosecutor was seeking. A private prosecutor acting for the victim’s family had called for the maximum 25 years. Elton, who shared a £560,000 house near Estepona with Gloria, was ordered to pay a total of £276,000 in compensation – £84,000 each to his sons and the rest to her five siblings. Elton, whose lawyer had wanted him sent to a secure psychiatric centre instead of prison, apologised in a short address at the court in Malaga. Gloria’s brother Nicolas Tornay said: “Nothing will bring my sister back but we feel some satisfaction in knowing justice has been done.”