A jobless waiter has been convicted of murdering and eating his mother after cutting her up into tiny pieces.
After his arrest, Alberto Sanchez Gomez, 28, was branded the cannibal killer of Ventas, the area of Madrid where he lived with his mother Maria Soledad Gomez.
Late on Wednesday, a jury found him guilty of strangling the 68-year-old after a row. He dismembered her body before eating part of her remains over the next fortnight.
The jurors, six women, and three men, also dismissed Sanchez Gomez’s claims he was experiencing a ‘psychotic episode’ when he murdered and cut up his mother.
State prosecutors demanded a 15 year and five-month prison sentence for the drug user if he was convicted of homicide and desecration of a human corpse when his two-week murder trial started on April 19 at Madrid’s Audiencia Provincial court.
The judge will decide how long he should be jailed for in the next few days. Sanchez Gomez told police who arrested him at their flat in Madrid in February 21, 2019, that he had been eating his mum ‘bit by bit with his pet dog.
Detectives found parts of tragic Soledad’s remains in Tupperware containers in their fridge and bones in drawers around the family home, an apartment near the Spanish capital’s famous Las Ventas bullring.
Her head, hands, and heart were found on her bed. Local reports at the time said her body had been cut up into more than 1,000 tiny pieces.
Officers who got him to open the door of the apartment they shared are said to have received the response: ‘Yes, my mother is in here, dead’ when they asked after the OAP.
The alarm was raised by a worried friend of Soledad’s who told the authorities she hadn’t seen her for a month.
A prosecution indictment submitted to the court ahead of the trial said the cannibal killer used a carpenter’s saw and two kitchen knives to cut up his mum’s body.
Sanchez Gomez, who cabinet-maker dad died when he was 15, claimed in court at the start of his murder trial he had heard ‘hidden messages’ when he watched TV and voices telling him: ‘Kill your mum.’
He told Madrid’s Audiencia Provincial court that the voices were those of neighbors, acquaintances, and celebrities. But he insisted he didn’t remember cutting up his mum or eating her remains as he told police when they went to the murder scene.
During a final address to the court last Friday he insisted: ‘I’m very repentant. I suffer anxiety from the moment I wake up.
‘I think of my mum and I’m absolutely heartbroken.’
Jurors heard the convicted killer, who regularly consumed drugs and alcohol, had been arrested 12 times for mistreating his mum before the grisly outcome of their last row.
A police officer who gave evidence during the trial said: ‘He began to tell us as he was being transferred to a police station he had strangled her from behind.
‘He also said he had eaten parts of her body, some cooked and some raw, and had given some pieces to the dog.’
