She burned her daughter’s rapist alive after he made fun of her: “So you don’t forget me”

It was a warm morning on June 13, 2005 when María del Carmen García -nicknamed La Madre Justiciera- was waiting for the bus in Benejúzar, Spain. Everything was going normally, when suddenly a big and corpulent man approached her. Quickly, Garcia’s eyes filled with fury as he stared at him. “Good morning, ma’am, how is her daughter?” the man asked her. Clenching his fists, he blurted out: “Damn, damn, it’s you.”

After this, the 69-year-old man made his way to a small town bar, calm and collected, as he enjoyed a day of freedom. But María del Carmen was not so calm. That person who had given her a smile was Antonio Cosme, alias El pincelito, the man who had raped her daughter when she was thirteen years old.

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At that time, Cosme was serving a nine-year sentence and that day he had decided to try his luck by going to the city thanks to a prison permit. He had thought about having a drink, meeting up with his friends, and then going back to the Villena prison. However, this never happened.

The beginning of everything

The true sentence of María del Carmen García began on October 17, 1998, when she asked her daughter Verónica to go for a package of bread. It was then that her neighbor Antonio Cosme Velasco approached the young woman, grabbed her by the shirt, put a knife to her neck and forcibly took her to a nearby forest.

According to the report drawn up by the Provincial Court of Alicante, it was there that he sexually assaulted the young woman. The defendant always denied the facts, despite the fact that the medical reports presented by the plaintiffs showed that there were traces of semen in the minor’s underwear and body.

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The weight of what had happened to her daughter increased thanks to the comments and accusations from the community. According to what she told the Spanish medium The Provinces, the community constantly pointed at her saying things like “here comes the mother of the raped woman”. In addition, the family had to change their residence, since they were neighbors of the attacker. This not only caused great insecurity, but they were also forced to take action due to the threats suffered by people close to Cosme.

The mother with her daughter. (Twitter @HoyMismoTSI).

Two years later, In December 2000, the courts sentenced Antonio Cosme to nine years in prison and also ruled that he had to pay compensation of 18,000 euros. The latter due to the collateral damage suffered by the victim and his family.

However, since 1998 María del Carmen García began to be treated at the Orihuela Mental Health Unit for a picture of personality adjustment disorder derived from the rape of her daughter. This is important to take into account, since according to the experts who tried García, the incident he later had with the culprit was a “mental explosion”.

A grieving mother and a bottle of gasoline

While the culprit was walking towards the tavern, Garcia had changed course and was now heading towards his house. There he took some matches and a plastic bottle, then walked to a nearby gasoline pump, filled the container with fuel, and headed toward the place where Cosme was. At the bar, Antonio was at the bar talking and drinking with another person. When he entered, the owner of the premises realized that something strange was happening and stood in front of the 51-year-old woman.

“Move Antonio, nothing’s wrong. I just want to talk to him,” she replied. With anger and determination she pushed the worker away and walked towards the rapist of his daughter. It was then that Carmen took out the bottle and began to spray gasoline over her victim’s head while yelling “so you don’t forget me.”He threw a match at him and watched as the man burst into flames.

María del Carmen ran out of the bar and was arrested that same night in the vicinity of the Port of Alicante. When she appeared, she was so disoriented that the police could not take her statement. This was a fact that went around the world. Several people initially criticized her actions, others called her a murderer, but there were also those who saw a heroic act in her.

So much so that some media outlets and netizens began to nickname her “The Righteous Mother” or “The Mother of Courage.”

Garcia’s grief

One week after the incident, Antonio Cosme Velasco died at the La Fe Hospital in Valencia due to the severity of the burns, which affected 60 percent of his body. Due to this, María was sentenced in 2010 to nine and a half years in prison by the Provincial Court. While the defense argued that the woman was only trying to scare the victim, the court ruled that it had been a treacherous homicide; that is to say, that the deceased had not had any way of defending himself.

On June 13, 2005, María del Carmen García, after meeting her daughter’s rapist -who was on prison leave for this crime- sprayed him with gasoline and set him on fire, which caused his death days later in a Valencia hospital. pic.twitter.com/XLh35nCq8z

— Lucia Etxebarria (@LaEtxebarria) September 9, 2020

The ruling also highlights Garcia’s psychological problems stemming from the rape of his daughter, which triggered the urge to do something about it. According to the ruling, “the external stimulus received by the defendant was of such emotional depth that her reaction was proportional to her aggressive action.”

Secondly, The woman should compensate the widow of the aggressor with 80,000 euros, despite the reasons for which she committed the crime. The judge before this specified that he understood that the mother of the minor was passing, but that in the same way his duty was to enforce the law.

However, at the last minute, the Supreme Court reduced the sentence to five and a half years in prison, understanding that the mental disorder “had a special importance in the commission of the facts.”

the woman of #benejuzar who burned his daughter’s rapist will enter prison today after the judge rejected the suspension. pic.twitter.com/sKqIXcuzQN

— Radio Alicante Cadena SER (@radioalicante) May 8, 2014

Five thousand signatures of support

In order to prevent Carmen from going to prison, her lawyer, Joaquín Galant, had tried to obtain leniency from his client on two occasions, but had failed on both occasions. despite having collected more than 5,000 signatures supporting Garcia’s petition for release.

But Galant did not give up. They say that the third time is the charm and that was how In 2017 Verónica’s mother was released from the Villena prison. That day she enjoyed the company of her family and was re-entered in the afternoon at the Fontcalent penitentiary in Alicante, where she had been redirected in order to complete the third grade. The third degree refers to a measure of ‘semi-liberty’ in which she could go out during the day, but she had to continue sleeping in jail until completing her sentence.

“She will be locked up for a month or so. I don’t understand why the third grade is like this, ”her daughter explained to the Spanish media The confidential. In 2018, the defendant served her sentence and since then has stayed away from the public eye.

Source: Elcomercio