On January 8, 2023, Leonel asked his colleague to take him near the center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Marbella, where Natalia, with whom he had been in a romantic relationship for approximately seven months, went every Sunday. The friend agreed without knowing that this day would end in a brutal sexist murder, for which Leonel was convicted. sentenced to 19 years and six months in prison.
They both got into the Peugeot Boxer rental van and, around 12:30 p.m., Leonel saw Natalia as she arrived at the worship center, at the roundabout next to the Quirón Hospital. There, they began a “friendly conversation” and she agreed to accompany him to the beach. I didn’t know the ending what awaited her: murdered, decapitated, mutilated, cut open and thrown naked into the sea.
Leonel’s friend left them in the parking lot of the Lunamar urbanization, Leonel and Natalia heading towards Reales beach in Zaragoza. In the dunes they had consensual sex, after which Leonel, with the intention of ending Natalia’s life, in a surprising way and with her on his back, he grabbed her by the neck and without her having the opportunity to defend herself, he managed to suffocate her, causing her death.
Following he decapitated her with a construction cutter and cut off his handsthrowing these and the head into the sea. Then he did the same with the rest of the body, to which he previously made an incision at the level of the abdomen to make it sink into the water.
It wasn’t like that. The storm that day forced the body to navigate through the waves a few kilometers and get to wash up on the rocks next to Club 200 in Marbella. There, friends who were drinking beer saw him and notified the police. The hands were found a few days later, a few kilometers further, towards Levante, on a beach in Mijas, while the head was not found.
The accused knew that on January 8, 2023, a sentence of ban on communication with Natalia and approach her, her home or her place of work, imposed in a judgment of December 21, 2022 by the Violence Against Women Court 1 of Marbella. He had been convicted of breaking Natalia’s nose.
The conviction explains that Leonel acted with “express contempt for the female sex of the victim”because not only did he hide his marriage, but he also attacked him on other occasions, which gave rise to complaints and criminal proceedings. The convict did not tolerate the woman denouncing him and controlled her through multiple telephone calls (around 20 days before the incident).
Domination and contempt
Leonel was possessive and wanted to show “his superiority” over Natalia, to the point that he believed he had the power to dispose of her body through consensual sexual relations and to continue his life. “He ended up revealing this feeling of domination and contempt towards womeneven after Natalia’s death by removing her clothes and cutting off her head and hands, even cutting her stomach as if it were a thing”, adds the judgment of the Malaga court.
The accused, detained at the police station for violation of the restraining order, spontaneously admitted to having undergone an intervention during Natalia’s disappearance, he also agreed to a reconstruction of the events, recounting what happened. The confessions were also made during the trial.
For all this, Leonel is condemned as the author responsible for a crime of murder consummated, the aggravating circumstance of kinship and the similar mitigating circumstance of confession contributing to the sentence of 19 years in prison. Furthermore, for a crime of violation of sentence six additional months are imposed.
Likewise, Leonel will have to pay 100,000 euros to Natalia’s children to each of them compensation. This will also add 15,662.25 euros to one brother and another 20,883 euros to the other.
