A man kills his three-year-old daughter and commits suicide in Madrid

Police found the bodies of a 47-year-old man and his only daughter, three, on Thursday night at their home in the Embajadores neighborhood, in the Centro district of Madrid. Both had died violently and the main hypothesis of the researchers is that it is a case of vicarious violence, a type of sexist violence in which the abuser uses the children to do the greatest possible harm to the mothers. According to a police spokesman, the man, who was separating from the minor's mother, killed her daughter and later took his own life. If the case of this girl is confirmed, the number of minors murdered this year due to sexist violence would rise to seven ―46 since 2013, when data began to be collected―. According to the police,there was no restraining order against the father and no allegations of mistreatment in the couple.

More information

Vicarious violence within sexist abuse: what it is and how to recognize it

The parents were in divorce proceedings and on Thursday the father had to return the girl to the mother, but she showed no signs of life.

He didn't pick up the phone or open the door, even though there was light inside, as the woman could see as soon as she looked out onto her balcony.

The couple lived just a few meters apart, one right in front of the other, he at number 91 and she at 84 Amparo street, both on the fourth floor of a one-way street full of blocks from the late nineteenth century. Traditional taverns and multicultural food, gadgets, cosmetics and telephony businesses, like all of Lavapies.

Worried and impatient, the mother of the minor, a Spanish national, called the police late in the afternoon because there was no way to locate the father, whom she referred to in her call as her ex-husband, a French national.

His name was Julien Charlon and he was a photographer.

No neighbor on the street, shocked today by the event, could remember his name, for everyone he was "French", a dark and very tall guy.

Those of the mother and the girl, yes.

At about a quarter past nine at night, the agents entered the house and found the two bodies, each in a room in the house.

According to a police spokesman, everything indicates that the man killed the girl and then committed suicide.

The police do not detail how they died or any other details of the event, as it is an ongoing investigation and the victim is a minor.

The agents called Summa 112 and a team of doctors confirmed the deaths around ten o'clock at night. The Summa also does not specify the cause of the deaths, but it does specify that they were violent. Emergency Psychologists treated the minor's mother and grandmother in the street, who were suffering an anxiety attack. Agents from the Group of Violent Crimes of the Scientific Police and homicides also came to the home to take charge of the investigation, as well as two vans from the funeral home, which took the bodies last night.

"But what happened?" Asked the owner of the bar Al Margen this morning, alarmed when she raised the blind of her premises. A neighbor who comes back from shopping, Carmen Parejo, crosses the sidewalk and tells him very upset, while she tears up and points to her rolled-up arm, her hair standing on end. “Of course we knew them, on this street we all know each other,” says Carmen, who has been at number 95 for 30 years. “He was very, very unfriendly, I didn't like him at all, and the little girl, a cute, a real beauty. They had a brown lab and the girl always played with my dog ​​when I met her. In the last weeks he was more serious and more borderline than normal, if the air suited him he would greet you, if not, then no ”, he assures. The couple had been "here for about eight or ten years, she arrived about a year before and then he."“Fifteen days ago I saw him leave her house, with the girl in his arms crying and the mother saying 'darling, you have to go with daddy' and he already left with the girl without stopping crying and the mother, running to work, ”recalls Carmen.

Last night, this neighbor was also returning from shopping when she saw "at the Frenchman's door" a lot of police cars and ambulances and felt a bad heartbeat. “When they told me it was in the room, I imagined it. I saw a very long body take out and I already knew it was him. But then I saw a small body and I began to pray, my God, that it is not the girl, that it is the bitch ", explains the neighbor, to add that" how it must have been that there was so horrible that even a nurse came down del Summa with an anxiety attack ”. The morning news, which she never sees but today, has confirmed the worst.

"What a fatality", say the clients of the Alfaro winery, crowded with customers pouring out the last beer of the year and door to door with the woman's home. The owner, with the face of very few friends, warns: "I am not going to make statements." The waitress, with teary eyes, implores understanding with her gaze. “I knew them by sight, I saw them crossing from one portal to another and also that they used to come here for a drink. This is an atrocity, "he says of a young neighbor who lives" a little higher up "and who prefers not to give her name. His father, José Luis, with whom he is having a beer, affirms that they were a “normal” family. “We found out when we came down this morning and saw the street full of cameras. What will go through a person's head to do this, this pandemic shit is driving us all crazy,between that and the needs that exist in this neighborhood ... ”, he laments.

Like them, many neighbors and shopkeepers have found out what happened from the press, despite the fact that many saw or heard police and ambulances. "But was the uncle who killed his daughter here? The French? What a son of a bitch, another case of vicarious violence ”, comments a man when passing by the winery and hearing the news from another neighbor, Begoña, who claims to know“ from third parties ”that the woman“ went to ask for help from the courts, but they ignored him ”. Begoña, from the same block as the mother, cannot believe that the Frenchman has been capable of something like this. "He looked very loving, at least publicly, with the girl." "How, in front? I hadn't found out about anything! ”Confesses Diana Armijos when opening the door. “My mother, what a tragedy, what a great disgust, I live under the mother and I felt the girl when she was there.The legs are here, I was laughing, "he says, still unable to believe what happened. Nobody enters or leaves the block of the alleged murderer for hours, nor does they open Correos Express. Finally, Álvaro comes down, from 1ºC, in a hurry with his suitcase because he has to catch an AVE. “Really, here? Well, I didn't know anything ”, he is surprised. Yes, in Amparo street a helpless girl died last night.

A type of violence "gender, against women"

Sonia Vaccaro, clinical psychologist and expert who coined the term vicarious violence, emphatically affirms that we must be aware that this type of violence "is gender-based, against women."

"They cannot be dissociated, because a violent individual who is capable of murdering a woman can commit this type of aberration by having access to their children," he specifies.

The problem, he clarifies, is that at present it is considered that, even if the person is violent and there is a restraining order, they can continue to be in contact and take care of the children.

In this way, Vaccaro adds, the dangerousness of a violent man is being minimized, who "kills children exclusively to harm the mother and considers children a mere object." And this happens both to women who report and 80% who do not. "They all believe they are getting out of violence through divorce, but if there are sons or daughters that forces you to have contact with them and that is another form of violence," he says. He also considers that in these cases one should not speak of suicide, "these individuals kill themselves, suicide is a clinical picture that implies a lot of suffering for the person."

The number of minors killed by sexist violence this year rises, if the girl is confirmed this Thursday, to seven (46 since 2013, when data began to be collected).

Another 28 minors have been orphaned by sexist crimes during 2021 (334 since 2013).

According to the official accounting of the Ministry of Equality, there are 43 women murdered in Spain during 2021, 1,125 since 2013. The last three murdered are a 25-year-old woman in Elche and another 40-year-old and her 11-month-old daughter in Liaño de Villaescusa (Cantabria).

The 016 serves all victims of sexist violence 24 hours a day and in 52 different languages, as does the email 016-online@igualdad.gob.es.

Attention is also provided through WhatsApp through the number 600000016, and minors can contact the ANAR Foundation telephone number 900 20 20 10.