84-year-old man arrested at nursing home in Spain on suspicion of killing another resident

An 84-year-old resident of a nursing home in Cascante (Navarra) in Spain has been provisionally imprisoned, without bail, on suspicion of killing another resident, 67, on Monday, 28 July.

According to the judge, “there is sufficient evidence to consider” the defendant responsible for the murder, given that he was “the only other person in the room” when the victim was killed. The incident happened in the room that they shared, sometime after 8pm, which was when they had gone to their respective beds to sleep.

The court order stated that the defendant allegedly approached the victim’s bed and threw him to the floor. He then proceeded to violently hit him on the head, without the victim being able to defend himself, causing his death.

It was around 10.40pm when the staff found the body on the floor of the room. There were several injuries to the face and the skull. The defendant was lying in his bed, with traces of blood on his hands and feet.

Upon inspecting the security cameras, which showed the corridor but not the interior of the bedrooms, the investigators saw how the two residents entered the room, after which nobody went in until the staff found the body. According to the order, this “evidence unequivocally establishes – the detainee – as the perpetrator of the brutal aggression”.

The residence staff told police that the defendant had said that someone had been put in their room to kill his roommate. This, as well as his brutally aggressive behaviour, can be attributed to the “cognitive impairment he suffers”. That night was the first time he had to sleep with someone else in the room, which he might have interpreted as a “disruption”.

“Such solid evidence is sufficient to hold him criminally responsible for the crime under investigation,” the order stated. Furthermore, the judge considered that “there is a risk of repetition of the offence, in view of the sudden and brutal aggression carried out by the detainee”. For this reason and to prevent another act “of an identical nature”, the judge ordered his pre-trial detention.

The defendant faces a sentence from 15 to 25 years in prison. An appeal for reconsideration against the detention order may be filed with the same court within three days, starting from the day after notification. An appeal may also be filed, either as a subsidiary to the appeal for reconsideration or independently, within five days, also starting from the day after notification.