The crime of Patraix: blood, sex and lies

The case of the widow of Patraix (name of the Valencia neighborhood where the event occurred) has all the ingredients of the black chronicle: a murder that, allegedly, was arranged by the victim's wife, María Jesús Moreno,

, then 26 years, and her then lover Salvador Rodríguez to get rid of her husband, a 36-year-old engineer from Novelda, of a calm character, according to his acquaintances, and "in love" with his wife.

It is the story of a crime, splattered with blood, sex and lies, in which the defendants develop an "intelligent" plan that involves Salva, a "puppet" in the hands of Maje, the perpetrator and who assumes all responsibility. of the crime, according to the charges.

The trial began last Wednesday at the Valencia Court three years after the event amid great media expectation, not only because of the gruesome crime but also because of morbid details that have transcended Maje's life, in Picassent prison since 2018 - the young woman allegedly related to other inmates.

The two defendants, she dressed in a leather jacket and he in a blue polo shirt, kept their eyes down on the first day of the hearing.

Nor did they meet eyes.

“The image of an evil woman has been built, who cheated on her husband, manipulative… Let's not fall into the moral-sexual trap.

What matters here is who has killed Antonio Navarro ”, asked the young woman's defender, the well-known criminal lawyer Javier Boix, to the members of the popular jury —five women and four men— after, during the exposition of the accusations, Maje's love and sexual relationships were brought up before, during and after her wedding: her partner Salva;

Tomás, a physical therapist;

José, a publicist, and Sergio, a Barcelona city guard.

"Let's judge what the person has done, not the person," emphasized his lawyer, addressing the jurors who will issue the verdict.

But the prosecutor Vicente Devesa, who is requesting 22 years in prison for Maje and 18 for Salva, maintains that the two people who sit on the bench began months before the crime to fantasize about the death of the engineer and she asked him to kill him because He treated her badly and could not bear the situation anymore.

Salva bought a knife

15 centimeters in length and, guided by the detailed information allegedly provided Maje, surprised the morning of August 16 three years ago to the engineer when he went to get his car to the garage to go to work.

The eight stab wounds he struck caused him instant death.

Then he went to a storage room he used, changed his clothes and threw the stained into a container.

He threw the weapon into the septic tank of a plot of his property, which the National Police inspectors recovered after the accused confessed.

On the same day of the crime, they both met at the house of Maje's sister —who was on vacation—, and Salva told her the details "of the homicidal action" while she sent text messages to José, with the who went out, "proposing sexual intercourse that night."

Salva became obsessed with Maje.

He met her in 2015 at the hospital where they both worked, she as a nurse and he, 20 years older, married and with a daughter, as an assistant: "I would do anything for you," he even told her. The relationship was unequal: she was the The coldest part, the one in control, and him, the emotional dependent, describe the accusations.

The police, according to his account, found the widow's attitude "strange" when they interrogated her the day after the crime.

She still sobbed and was affected during the statement, that she picked up her mobile and did not stop

when there was a break.

The agents soon discarded the theft hypothesis due to the "unusual violence" of the crime.

Nor did they find debts, addictions, or infidelities in the life of Antonio Navarro, which could explain his death.

From the

to the two mobile phones of the defendants, the then head of Homicides of the National Police who led the investigation defined Maje in the trial as a person who offered two faces.

With her husband dead, Maje tells her close friend and partying partner, Rocío, to feel "happy" and "very liberated."

"We like the scene with hot guys and partying."

And she admits: "If she had to fuck me after a reconciliation [supposedly referring to her husband], I didn't feel like it," the summary picks up.

Regarding his relationship with Salva, he also affirms that it was he who sporadically provided "oral sex" and that it "disgusted" him.

However, the letters that the agents found among the defendant's personal effects, written by the young woman, have an undeniable romantic charge: “I saw him ... There he was ... smiling, with bright eyes from the infirmary control of the third floor.

[...] I liked him, he attracted me, I wanted him !!! ”, Maje writes shortly after meeting him.

The lawyers of the family of the murdered engineer point to the inheritance as one of the nurse's possible motives for, supposedly, planning the crime.

"Antonio was an obstacle for Maje and the divorce was not enough [...] He used deception and lies [...] And he concocted a plan to assassinate him," says the private prosecution, which alludes to the different lives that Maje she wore with her lovers, with the different versions she offered to these men.

"She marries [Antonio Navarro] out of interest, not out of love," says Miguel Ferrer, a lawyer for the victim's family.

The 'black widower' or the gender cliché

Salva's defense asks for his acquittal and describes his client as the "puppet, errant knight and lackey" of the accused.

She alleges in her favor that the defendant confessed the facts - first he cleared Maje but already in prison, a few months later, he ended up implicating her in disillusionment - and collaborated with the searches, in addition to facilitating the location of the knife.

Maje's lawyers also request her free acquittal and deny that she planned the crime.

In the case of the

of Patraix - his defender criticized the sexist charge of the expression with which the media have baptized the case: "I have never heard of a

," Boix complained - he has about two weeks left to go. testimonies, including those of the defendant's experts, friends, family or lovers.

Maje and Salva will be the last to be heard by the popular jury, before the parties present their conclusions and the trial is ready for a verdict.

The accused: two opposite profiles

Maje, a young woman from Novelda (Alicante), strictly educated in a Catholic family, went to Barcelona to reinforce her health studies and when she returned she began to squeeze her life;

She did not want to go back to her hometown, where she said she felt like a prisoner.

Antonio, a college student of one of his brothers and also of Novelda, crosses his life.

She marries him "to disconnect from the boring life he had in his town," says the lawyer for the engineer's family.

Salva, a 47-year-old assistant, married with a daughter, was dazzled by Maje and her love letters, which she signed with hearts or with "I love you."

He even made her vouchers for a night of love.

Salva's own lawyer describes him as a man obsessed with the young woman.

He ran her errands, took her on a motorcycle and when he confessed to the crime, he exonerated her from the murder.

Months later he reconsidered his statement and, disappointed, implicated it.