Spanish man sentenced to 15 years for killing, eating his mother
June 17, 2021 09:27 AM
A Spanish man dubbed the "cannibal of Las Ventas" was sentenced to 15 years in jail after being convicted of killing and eating the remains of his mother.
In early 2019, Alberto Sanchez Gomez strangled his mother in the apartment they shared in Madrid following an argument between the two, according to a statement from the Madrid, Spain provincial court.
Gomez later cut up his mother's body and ate her over a period of at least 15 days, CNN reports. He was arrested in February 2019, and started his trial in April.
When officers arrived to the scene, they found parts of the victim stored in Tupperware boxes. Documents show Gomez placed other parts of his mother in the freezer and in trash bags.
The court sentenced Gomez for the desecration of a corpse and ruled he must pay around $73,000 to his brother.
While the defence claimed Gomez was "psychologically disturbed," the plea was rejected by the court.
During the trial, the court heard that Sánchez, then aged 26, had strangled his mother during a dispute. He then dismembered and ate parts of her body over the following two weeks, feeding some to his dog.
Spanish media say he had been known to police because of violence against his mother and that he had breached a restraining order at the time of his arrest.
Sanchez has been dubbed the "cannibal of Las Ventas" by local media, after the area of Madrid where he lived with his mother.
In December 2018, two South African men were sentenced to life in prison for murder in what locals dubbed the "cannibal case."
The previous year a South African traditional healer named Nino Mbatha turned up at a police station carrying a human leg and hand, telling officers he was "tired of eating human flesh."
Mbatha later took police to a house where more body parts were found. He later denied eating human flesh but was convicted of murder alongside another man, Lungisani Magubane.