The Provincial Court of Tenerife has imposed 23 years in jail to a man named Elisha whom the popular court declared guilty of murdering the partner of his former wife.
The jury also concluded that the death took place after being planned, treacherously and cruelly, without appreciating any kind of mitigation.
The Prosecutor’s Office had requested a sentence of 23 years in prison, while the private prosecution, representing the partner and the relatives of the deceased, demanded 25 years in prison.
The acts took place in March 2020 at a place located in the town of San Isidro, in the Tenerife municipality of Granadilla de Abona at noon, when the convicted person made an appointment with a false name and using an intermediary under the excuse of buying music equipment.
The lawyer of the accused has announced that it will file an appeal before the criminal chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC), defending that its client acted in self-defense.
When the sentence is final, it will be the moment in which the amount of compensation will be set for the two daughters of the deceased businessman and his partner.
The Prosecutor’s Office and the private prosecutions established the indemnities at 150,000 euros for the first two and at 100,000 euros for the woman.
now corresponds to Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands determine if the story offered by the defendant is true, who said that he went to the offices to collect a debt and that he then reproached him for having burned his ex-wife’s car, which occurred days before.
The now convicted man indicated that at that moment he saw how the victim made a movement to remove a knife from his back, before which they struggled, the weapon fell to the ground, he picked it up and from there he attacked the businessman.
The victim received 20 stab wounds, several of them fatal, and some of special cruelty like the one observed in the skull, which resembled when the skin of a fruit is removed.
The jury determined that the victim had no chance to defend himself, so he was surprised by the attack. Proof of this is that the first knife appears stuck in the back, as determined by forensics, who also reported that the victim died in great agony as a result of the cruelty with which he was attacked.
The version of the Prosecutor’s Office and the private prosecution representing the family of the deceased maintained that Eliseo used a person the day before to make the appointment using another name because he had planned his death.
That intermediary, however, gave the businessman notice and said that he agreed to do this favor because Eliseo assured him that the deceased was avoiding receiving it since he did not want to pay him a debt.
Excuse that the intermediary did not find credible and therefore warned the deceased of the danger he was running.
Almost from the beginning, suspicions were directed towards the person of the defendant, who was arrested a few days later and confessed his version of what happened and that he had left the murder weapon of more than 30 centimeters in a garbage container.
After his confession the Civil Guard he had to rummage through 20 tons of debris to find the murder weapon.
At first, the defendant offered as an alibi that that day he had been with his boss fixing a truck but, as the latter said, he was absent precisely between 2:45 p.m. and 4:00 p.m., which further confirmed the investigators suspicions.
Although he accepted the authorship, he always maintained that it was in self-defense, that he had rebuilt his life with another partner and that he did not hold any kind of jealousy or resentment towards his ex-wife.
She said that he had tried to get back with her and accused him of being a “very aggressive” person, to the point of confessing that he had suffered psychological gender violence and that the fights were constant during the last years of marriage. She also suspected that he was the perpetrator of the fire in her car that occurred ten days before the crime.
