The man who dismembered his flatmate and hid him in a suitcase escapes from prison

BarcelonaThe man imprisoned for killing a roommate, dismembering the body, and hiding the torso in a suitcase has escaped and is at large. According to what was reported by The Case and sources familiar with the matter have confirmed to ARA, the man has not returned to Quatre Camins prison, where he is serving his sentence, after a scheduled release he made in Barcelona this Tuesday. According to prison sources consulted by ARA, the man had completed three years of his sentence, and this was his first release.

The May last year the man accepted a ten-year prison sentence for the murder of his roommate, who was renting a room, even though he had been in preventive detention since December 2022. Specifically, the man accepted a sentence of ten years and three months in prison for homicide and desecration of a corpse. There is now an active arrest warrant in case the Mossos d'Esquadra detect him, and if he is readmitted to the penitentiary center, either by police or because he returns voluntarily, he will have a new sentence that will extend his stay in prison.

Mental health mitigation

In both crimes, it was taken into account as a mitigating factor that the accused suffered from a chronic post-traumatic stress disorder at the time of the murder. The Prosecutor's Office already added in its indictment that, at the time of the crime, the man "presented a chronic and secondary post-traumatic stress disorder that could have slightly diminished his cognitive and volitional capacities". Therefore, the same Prosecutor's Office already foresaw that a mitigating factor for mental alteration could be applied to him, as was finally included in the agreement that annulled the trial.

At first, the Mossos expected a very complicated investigation. Only the victim's torso had appeared and without other marks, fingerprints, or teeth, it was difficult to identify the victim and those responsible for the crime. But in this case, the door-to-door investigation and the analysis of the security cameras in the area were key to putting a name and surname to the victim and apprehending the suspect in record time. In addition to collecting images, the Mossos visited many neighbors in the area in the hours following the discovery.