On October 6, around 2.30pm, a resident of an apartment building in Palma's Santa Catalina district phoned the National Police emergency number to report not having seen an elderly neighbour for more than a month. Officers went to the fourth-floor apartment. When no-one answered, they called in the fire brigade to force the door open.
This proved to be unnecessary. A man in his forties, now identified as Javier S. (aged 43), opened the door. The officers and firefighters found bloodstains in the bathroom, which he claimed were his. When they entered one of the bedrooms, they found 80-year-old Antonia G. lying on the bed with the fan running and the radio on. She was dead.
Javier was arrested on October 14. He appeared in court on Friday, charged with a crime against a person's life. He was released, pending the final results of the autopsy.
He told the judge that he found his mother dead at the end of August; the fan was running and the radio was on. His mother had high blood pressure, for which she was taking medication, and had gone to hospital emergencies shortly before because of high blood pressure. He added that Antonia's sister had died a few weeks earlier, and that this had deeply affected her.
The judge also heard that preliminary analysis showed certain signs that could be consistent with a violent death; there were some marks on her neck.
It has emerged that most of the neighbours were under the impression that Antonia lived alone. Javier hardly ever left the apartment. Sources close to the investigation say that he suffers from mental health issues that have led to severe social phobia and depression. One resident reckons he hadn't left the apartment for years, but it has been established that he was on friendly terms with a neighbour, Antonio. He died around the same time as Antonia.
In the apartment, officers discovered that the bedroom door had been sealed with duct tape. This was because of the odour from the body. Over the weeks from the end of August, Javier lived off his mother's pension - he still had some of his own money - eating Quely biscuits, boiled rice, and canned chickpeas. The police have established that his father had died and that his sister had committed suicide. She had suffered from schizophrenia.