The defendant accused of trying to "stab her children in June 2015 in Arrieta" has stated this Wednesday, in the trial held in Arrecife before the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court, that she "does not remember" the events that are imputed to her, although she has acknowledged that "it is possible" that she committed them. "I was crazy. And not only the day before. Days before, weeks before," the defendant argued in her statement, explaining that she suffered "deliriums." In fact, she has stated that on June 24, 2015, in whose early morning the events occurred, she had been "three days without sleeping," without eating, and in the last hours she did not speak because she was convinced "that the mystics were listening to her." In her statement, she explained that she felt very alone and has stated that throughout her marriage she has suffered "psychological and physical abuse" from her husband.
The woman has recounted what happened during the day of June 23 and until after one in the morning of June 24, the time at which she returned with her husband from the Hospital, after having had to receive medical attention. She has stated that she spent the whole day very nervous, stressed, and that at one point she started to "scream" and previously "to throw things."
However, she has reiterated on several occasions that she "has no memory" of having stabbed her children. The events occurred, according to the Prosecutor's indictment, around half past one in the morning, when the woman entered the bedroom of her children, who were then 3 and 5 years old, "carrying a steel kitchen knife of about 29 and a half centimeters in length and attacked them with the weapon, depriving them of any possibility of defense."
Treatment and evolution
Regarding her current situation, the defendant has stated that she "feels better," although she has not hidden that she "feels pain and shame" for what happened. Since the events for which she is now being tried occurred, she has been following "psychiatric treatment" and has been "prescribed antipsychotics." In addition, she sees a psychologist in prison every two weeks, where she has been incarcerated since July 29, 2015, and a therapist weekly. Treatments that, in her opinion, have improved her condition. In this sense, she has stated that at the end of October her "medication was reduced by half," without having had "any relapse."
The defendant has stated that now she "feels that she can breathe" and that even in the "hostile environment" that prison implies, where she assures that she has suffered some aggression, she is "better than in an hour of visit with him [referring to her husband]." Asked about the relationship with her mother, the defendant has stated that it has improved and has described her as "her only support." She has also explained that she sees her children periodically in prison and that she talks to them every day. At first, according to her statement, she "was afraid of seeing them again," but now she has described the reaction of the children as very good: "they give me hugs and tell me mommy I love you."
The defendant's lawyer proposes that his client, based on both the "medical reports from the prison itself and the private ones," remain in "family custody" and be treated outside the prison for the disorder she suffers from. During the course of the trial, the defense lawyer asked the defendant's mother if she would be willing to take care of her daughter and be able to exercise that family custody, in case this is the measure imposed by the judge. Responsibility that the mother has assured that she feels "capable of assuming," highlighting at the same time the "improvement" she has seen in her daughter's condition, whom she visits every Sunday in prison. "My daughter is now like when she was with us in Colombia. She has stopped having that fear that she had," her mother added.
She was precisely the one who helped her grandchildren after the "aggression." In her statement before the Court, she stated that a little earlier she had said goodbye to her daughter and her son-in-law, after they returned from the Hospital, and had gone to her house in the same building leaving the children asleep. When she had just gotten into bed, according to her story, she heard some noises that she thought were from animals, "like meows of a cat," and went to her daughter's house. The boy, who was in his bed injured, "cried and moaned," the grandmother recalled, while describing with gestures that the little one covered his head with his arm. The woman took him out of the house to seek medical help, meeting her son-in-law then who "was returning from walking the dog."
The woman returned for the little girl and also took her out of the house. Inside it was the defendant, "lying on the bed," with the knife in her hand and taking it to her chest and abdomen "but not in a hard way," according to Diana's mother helping herself with gestures. The accused "said many things, but there was no time to understand her," her mother stated.
Admission to a psychiatric center
The Prosecutor's Office asks for the woman to be freely acquitted and that she be admitted to a psychiatric center for a period of 15 years, for each of the two crimes she is accused of, for "the treatment appropriate to the type of anomaly or psychic alteration" she suffers from. The Public Prosecutor considers that the accused incurred in two crimes of attempted murder, although it points out that "the exempting circumstance of criminal responsibility" concurs in the defendant. For the Prosecutor's Office, the woman committed the acts "having absolutely annulled her volitional and intellectual capacities, being under the influence of a delirium that conditioned the acts."
After the statement of the accused and the mother of the accused, the president of the Chamber has decided, with the approval of the prosecutor and the defense, to suspend the trial, which had barely been an hour of celebration, in view of the fact that the development of the same was going to "delay more than expected." Its "resumption and completion will be indicated on the closest possible dates," according to judicial sources.
