In the small and idyllic town of Mancor de la Vall, in 1928, almost a century agoall the neighbors knew each other. Some lived in harmony and others kept veiled quarrels. On January 13, a crime horrified everyone. Or almost all. The administrator of a farm, Gabriel Pou Fontanet, 47It was wildly killed to axes in the ‘tafona’. This is the chronicle of a crime that resulted in five detainees, although only two came to trial. And a death penalty request For both.
The deceased presented A total of nine incised wounds in the headall produced with a tool. At the foot of the victim the witnesses They located an axso the researchers determined that this was the murderer.
An Inca Court instructed the proceedings and the agents in charge of the case began to investigate who could have attacked Gabriel, that cold winter afternoon On the Biniaxent property. The researchers were certain: The aggressor – or aggressors – was someone from the closest circle of the deceased.
He had approached him without raising suspicions and then, perhaps during an angry discussionHe attacked him mercilessly, with the intention of killing him. The chronicles refer that at that time the neighbors or workers who entered the farm They were limitedso the police began to Inquire each of them.
And they reached a disturbing conclusion: Gabriel He was enmity with his brother Juan37 years, for issues related to the administration of the Mancor de la Vall farm. So, The circle was narrowing around the familywhich was finally arrested with Miguel Pericás Morro, 33, and three other neighbors in the town. The five suspects were interrogated separately and some of them They incurred serious contradictions. The case began to clarify.
Juan, the brother, He denied that he had disagreements with Gabriel And he said that day, after seeing him, he went home and did not leave again. He witnessed two womenbut then maintained that they had not really seen it and that they could not underpin their alibi.
He added that that night, to eleven, He knocked on the door Miguel, who told him that his brother was seriously injured in the ‘tafona’ of the farm. Both went to look for the doctor and when the doctor arrived he examined the agonizing body with an oil lamp, and warned the brother: “Don’t approach”. Had warned that he had been attacked with an ax, which constituted A murder.
Another witness declared that the main defendant, that night, before the body, warned him: “You see, shut up and we already understand each other”. Finally, of the five detainees only the accusation of murder for Juan and Miguel was maintained. The rest was exculpated of the violent death of the administrator.
The trial began at the end of the summer of that year and The prosecutor requested the death penalty For the two defendants, who cried out for their innocence. He argued that they had acted with alevosía and nocturnidad and with the aggravating kinship of Juan. In addition, he insisted that he had been a murder, not an accidental homicide, and claimed a compensation of 10,000 pesetas. The defense lawyer, meanwhile, requested his free acquittal.
On October 4 of that year Judgment was issued. The two inmates They held their breathaware that it could be his last day alive. They were lucky: Juan was 17 years old for a crime of homicide and Miguel, 14. But both dodged death. Something that Gabriel could not.
