The Second Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas held this Wednesday the oral trial against Juan José Heredia, accused of assaulting a house in Argana and beating an old woman to rob her in 2020.
The events date back to January 8 of the pandemic year. Juan José Heredia lived on the same street as the victim, whom he knew because the defendant's father and the woman's husband are first cousins.
According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, at 5:00 p.m. on that day, the accused allegedly entered the house, knowing that its owner did not usually lock the door and that she was taking a nap at that time, to surprise her in the living room of the house, hit her with a hammer and steal the money she used to keep in her bra. In addition, the Prosecutor's Office accuses him of hitting her on the head with a hammer, "knowing that he could cause her death."
In addition, the Public Prosecutor's Office presented to the Court the only testimony of the victim before the investigating body in the same year of the events, where she stated that the accused allegedly "threw her to the ground, hit her against the furniture and dragged her along the ground by the sleeves of her jacket."
The woman was seriously injured and had to be transferred first to the Molina Orosa hospital in Lanzarote, and then to a hospital in Gran Canaria, where she remained in the Intensive Care Unit for several months. Since then, the old woman has not been able to hear or see through her right ear and eye. In addition, she was afraid to return to her home because of its proximity to the defendant's home.
Juan José Heredia denied that he was involved in the robbery in the house. According to his testimony defended in court, Heredia had left his house and, by chance, had met the victim at the door of her house and had asked her how her son was, who had been ill for some time. He sat on a bench in the street "five or ten minutes" to chat with other neighbors and returned to his house, where he changed his clothes. "It was hot because it was summer and I changed my clothes," he stressed. To which the Prosecutor's Office reminded him that the events were in January.
After that, Heredia assured that he went out of the house again, this time to buy tobacco at the kiosk that was on the corner of the street and there he saw that something had happened to his neighbor. According to his version, he only approached the house after the aggression to help, entered through the window of the house, together with the victim's nephew and his partner, to help the woman. Once inside, the old woman was lying on the floor, completely covered in blood and with a hammer next to her.
The victim's nephew testified this Wednesday that when he saw the hammer he picked it up and asked the old woman if she had been hit with it. The Prosecutor's Office maintained, with the statements of the witnesses in the investigation, that Juan José Heredia took the hammer from the old woman's nephew and left the house visibly nervous, gesticulating and saying that "they were going to kill whoever had done that." In addition, he claimed that he tried to hide the weapon. However, the witnesses who had revealed this situation denied it in court or claimed that they did not remember it after five years.
For his part, the accused assured that he did not try to hide the weapon, nor did he gesticulate. In addition, he confessed that at that time he was a drug user, but that he went to a detoxification center and now lives in Tenerife with his family. "I have a clear conscience," he said. To which he added: "This among gypsies is a very big shame. God knows what I'm going through, they threatened me and that's why I left here."
Several witnesses contradict themselves
The oral hearing included the testimony of six witnesses, eight agents who participated in the operation or analyzed the samples, and two forensic experts. The first two witnesses to pass by the victim's house testified that they were walking down the street when they heard the screams. Although at first they did not respond to this call for help, when they passed by the area again they decided to open the blind of the house that faced the street and saw the woman on the floor. After that, they alerted their relatives, who lived in apartments above her house.
The trial was plagued by contradictions from the witnesses, despite the fact that the judge stressed the importance of telling the truth and not lying if they did not remember the facts and that the Prosecutor's Office recalled that lying is a crime and that there is the right to take legal action for these contradictions. The first of the contradictions came from the housekeeper who worked in the house where Juan José Heredia lived with his mother in Argana. This witness assured in court that that afternoon the accused was at her house and that she greeted him. However, in her previous statements to the National Police and to the Investigating Court she had said that she did not see him that afternoon.
The victim's nephew, who was one of the first to appear at the old woman's house after being alerted, stressed that he entered with his wife through the window. In court he assured that he did not notice whether the accused had a suspicious attitude or not and that he took his aunt to the hospital in his car together with his neighbor. Although the victim declared in October 2020 that it had been Juan José Heredia who had allegedly assaulted her and that that same day, in the car on the way to the hospital, she told her nephew, the young man denied it in court. "You are not going to suspect someone you have grown up with," the man added before the Court.
The victim's nephew's wife also contradicted her initial version. Although in a previous statement in court she had assured that during a visit to the hospital in Gran Canaria, the victim told her that it had been Juan José Heredia who had beaten her and that she had not told it during the police statements for fear of reprisals, this Wednesday she denied that she had traveled to the neighboring island to see the old woman and that she had pointed out the culprit. The sixth witness, who was a tenant of the family and a neighbor, defended that this visit to Gran Canaria did take place because once in the hospital they made a video call so that this neighbor could talk to the victim, but they deny that in that conversation the victim accused anyone, contrary to their previous testimonies.
The agents who took the first statements, those who went to inspect the victim's house, the agents who collected samples in the accused's house and those who were in charge of arresting him several days later in Playa Blanca when he disembarked from a boat between Fuerteventura and Lanzarote appeared in court. In this arrest they seized 800 euros in cash and a bloody ticket, although he was receiving an unemployment benefit of 480 euros, earnings that Heredia attributes to the street vending with which he took money to support his children and denies that they were part of the more than 1,600 euros stolen from the victim.
Among the investigations, the agents analyzed Heredia's house and took clothes and two shower heads, they also took several clothes from the victim's house. According to the scientific police, they did not find DNA of the accused in the victim's house, nor DNA of the victim in the accused's house.
The victim suffered a traumatic brain injury with intraventricular hemorrhage, several facial and shoulder fractures and other injuries that put her life at risk. She spent 70 days in hospital, six of them in the ICU, and suffers several physical sequelae. In addition, she could not appear in court for medical reasons.
For its part, the defendant's defense showed "its outrage" and assured that it is "a case that is not sustained by any part", that "based on assumptions the presumption of innocence cannot be undermined". In addition, he lashed out against the investigation, which he has described as "disastrous" and pointed out that "it has been delayed for five years."
The Prosecutor's Office is asking for the accused, who has seven previous convictions, a total of 12 years in prison, in addition to special disqualification for the right of passive suffrage during the time of the sentences and the payment of court costs for the crimes of robbery with violence and attempted murder. In addition, it requests 15,152.86 euros in compensation for the money allegedly stolen, the days of recovery and the physical sequelae.
