Mayan beliefs, purification of the soul, reincarnation: 50 years in prison for a Brussels man who murdered his children in Spain

The sentence is commensurate with the atrocity of the facts: Gabriel Carvajal, a Belgian national in his thirties, was sentenced Wednesday evening by the Valencia court to twice 25 years in prison, with a maximum incarceration of 40 years. His Spanish partner, Maria Gombau, co-author but considered irresponsible for her actions at the time of the events, escaped prison but was sentenced to internment in a psychiatric institution for two times 25 years, again with a maximum of 40 years.

Gabriel and Maria were found guilty of the murder of their two children, Amiel (3.5 years old) and Ixchel (6 months old). A crime committed on the night of March 13 to 14, 2019 in a squatted villa in Godella, a small village located about ten kilometers north of Valencia, Spain. On the night of the incident, the guardia civil had been alerted by a neighbor who had heard agonizing cries of children coming from the property on which the inscription “You will all die” had been written in red ink.

Arrived on the spot, the investigators had quickly arrested their father, Gabriel Salvador Carvajal. The two children and their Spanish mother could not be found. In the morning, Maria Gombau Mesua, hysterical, had been found, trying to hide, completely naked, in a plastic barrel.

It was only a few hours later, after searches that mobilized a hundred police officers, that the bodies of the two young victims were found, their skulls shattered and their bodies crippled with bruises.

Very quickly, the involvement of the mother in this crime could be established with certainty. But his mental responsibility had just as quickly been called into question. Four psychiatric expert reports determined that the mother was in the midst of a crisis of dementia when she killed her children. Expertise which has a consequence on the fate of the young woman. Convicted of the assassination, she was also recognized as irresponsible for her actions at the time of the facts. This will allow him to escape prison and spend the next forty years of his life in a psychiatric institution.

During the investigation and the trial, we learned that the defendants were so convinced of the existence of a sect that had a grudge against their children, that they organized night guards to avoid having their children kidnapped. .

The couple then turned to Mayan beliefs, which Gabriel had instilled in his partner. And both parents felt the only way to protect their children was to bathe them to ‘purify their souls’ before ending their lives by beating them so they could then ‘reincarnate’ into a better world. .

The whole issue of the trial held at the beginning of the month was to determine whether the father, originally from Brussels, had also struck blows. Hearinged, he maintained that he had smoked two joints around 10 p.m. before going to bed, having no knowledge of what was going to happen. The court did not believe him and found that he actively participated in the murder of his two children.

After the sentence was announced, Gabriel’s defense announced that it would appeal.