Robert Firth
A VENGEFUL mother strangled her seven year old son to death because she thought she would lose a fierce custody battle with the boy’s father.
The 38-year-old woman then tried to drive the body to the house of her father’s ex-partner, who had been acting as a maternal grandmother to the child.
When the mother arrived in the town of Las Norias de Daza where the grandmother lived, she approached a woman in the street and asked for her help getting the boy’s dead body out of the car.
The Guardia Civil were informed about the suspicious acting woman and stopped her at around 10:30am yesterday, before arresting her. She confessed to murdering her son shortly after to officers.
The 38-year-old was locked in a fierce legal battle with her son’s father about who should look after him.
The mother had custody and looked after him Monday to Friday, but an impending decision in the legal battle was likely to revoke that and give custody of the seven year old to her son’s father.
Neighbours of the woman described regularly seeing the boy left outside until 11pm at night in the cold and said the woman appeared to have a mental illness.
She had accused the father of domestic abuse, but he was cleared in March this year. Following the decision, she had started harassing him in an attempt to reignite the relationship.
The Guardia Civil and forensics teams spent Thursday afternoon searching her house in Almeria for clues.
