A man kills the woman and then commits suicide in Toledo

A 43-year-old woman has been murdered this Thursday in Seseña, province of Toledo, by her ex-husband, who has committed suicide. The man, fifty years old, had a history of gender-based violence, and according to the Efe agency, both he and the victim were in the VioGén monitoring system but without any judicial measures. The woman, of Venezuelan nationality, was named Melissa and is the 17th fatal victim this year and the 1,360th since official records began in the State in 2003.

According to initial information from investigators, the woman had reported her aggressor just three months ago, at the end of January, for psychological abuse and harassment that she had been suffering since November 2024 when she had initiated divorce proceedings. In fact, the aggressor was arrested as a result of this report and on April 12th he was arrested again for breaking the restraining order issued to protect the woman. The murder occurred in the early hours of this Thursday after a fightbetween the killer and the woman's son.

Double assault

Shortly before 6 in the morning, the Civil Guard received a call alerting to an assault between the two men. A patrol arrived and found under a parked van a 20-year-old young man who had been the victim of an assault, and he was transferred to the University Hospital of Toledo.

Minutes later there was a second call from a woman asking for help and alerting that they wanted to kill her. But on this occasion the agents who went to the address found no one. It wasn't until they were able to speak with the admitted young man, once he regained consciousness, that they were able to reconstruct the events. According to the son's account, he was walking through Toledo going to catch the bus when his mother's ex-partner lunged at him and started hitting him.

With this testimony, the Civil Guard linked the two calls and accessed the boy's home, where they located the woman's body, with signs of having been attacked with a bladed weapon, and her killer. The woman was registered in VioGén with a low assessed risk. According to experts, divorces and separations are high-risk moments because the aggressive man feels he is losing control over the woman he mistreats. However, the vast majority of victims of machista violence live with the aggressor.