Jury convicts black widow
Off- duty policewoman witnessed the attack
A JURY has returned a unanimous verdict of guilty against a woman who pretended to be disabled and her supposed carer, who together killed her husband near Playa de la Albufereta in Alicante, reported the Regional Supreme Court ( TSJCV).
Concepción Martín, known as Conchi but dubbed the ‘ black widow’ in the press, and Francisco Pérez had claimed that an unknown person who they could not identify had killed retired truck driver José Luis Alonso, 69, at about 22.00 on August 22, 2018, just weeks after she had married him.
The principal witness for the prosecution, an off- duty policewoman who had seen the attack, identified the two accused as having carried out the assault.
She testified to the provincial court that Conchi had held down the victim while Francisco inflicted more than 20 injuries to his chest and neck, according to the forensic report.
This was the version of the events that the nine members of the jury believed.
Forensic and prison doctors cast doubt on Conchi’s claim when she was arrested that she was tetriplegic and could not move from the neck down.
They found no muscle atrophy that would be caused by this condition and she had given contradictory accounts of how she had recovered in prison, before eventually claiming in court that she had fibromyalgia.
Meanwhile the psychiatric report by the institute of legal medicine concluded that she suffered from borderline personality disorder with histrionic traits, but she knew what she was doing and was fit to stand trial.
The judge will now have to decide the appropriate sentence for the offence of murder aggravated by cruelty and taking advantage of the location and time, and in the case of Conchi by her relationship with the victim.
The public prosecutor is calling for her and Franscisco to be given 30 and 28 years in prison respectively.
The lawyers prosecuting on behalf of the children of the deceased have called for them both to be given 31 years on the grounds that the offence was further aggravated by malice aforethought, use of a disguise, and abuse of superior strength.