María del Carmen García, the woman who murdered her daughter’s rapist in Benejúzar twelve years ago, will not have to spend her nights in jail anymore.
Late last month she was given day release after serving a sentence Villena prison since May 2014. The agreement required her to report into Folcalent prison in Alicante, however, where she spent her nights.
In the latest move, however, the prison authorities have now approved her wearing an electronic bracelet so she will no longer be required to sleep in prison.
This has been confirmed by her lawyer, Joaquín Galant, who explained that by using this system her whereabouts will be known during the seven hours of the night that she must remain at home.
In 2009 María del Carmen García was sentenced to nine years in prison. Following the murder of Antonio Cosme, the rapist who sexually abused her daughter when she was just 13 years old.
The crime took place on June 13, 2005 when Cosme, who was on day release from prison, approached the mother when she was standing at a bus stop in Benejúzar. The woman went to the nearest petrol station, filled a bottle of gasoline and then threw it over the man, then setting him on fire by throwing a match. The rapist died from burns just ten days later.
In 2014, she too ended up in prison after the appeals court twice denied her request for a pardon.
María del Carmen García will finally end her sentence in August 2018 and until then she has to appear at the prison twice a month. Currently, her request for pardon is pending a resolution.
Galant is confident that “if everything goes smoothly, possibly by January we should be able to completely remove the tag.”
The lawyer said that this will end “twenty years in the life of Mari Carmen that was stolen by the rapist of her 13-year-old daughter.” The woman suffers from all sorts of effects and disorders because of the rape and the circumstances surrounding the sexual assault. “Now she wants to get back to some semblance of normality, surrounded by her husband, children and grandchildren,” said Galant.
