Father stabs his own children to death

8 July 2004

MADRID – A father stabbed his two young children to death Thursday.

After killing the two children, who were aged nine and three, he jumped out of the third-floor window in the area of Leganes in Madrid.

The tragedy happened after a row between the father and the mother of the children, who were separated.

Police said they were called at about 4am, when neighbours heard the sound of his screams.

The man was found in the street badly injured and semi-naked.

When police went inside the house, they found both children were already dead.

One had been killed in a bedroom and the other in the kitchen.

The father was found with a knife in his chest.

It seemed that his fall had been broken when he landed on a green Peugeot 405.

He was taken to hospital in a critical condition.

The mother of the two murdered children was in a different house – together with her two other daughters, aged 12 and 14 – when the tragedy happened .

Earlier, she had told neighbours that she had left for the beach in an effort to escape constant attacks from her former husband.

The 30-year-old woman, named only as Carmen, also said she had planned to complain to police that she had been threatened by her mother-in-law.

The former husband had two previous convictions for domestic violence.

Social services in Madrid said they had been working with this gipsy family for four years to supervise the welfare of the four children.

The children were going to school and the family had cooperated with the authorities efforts to monitor the care of the family.

Already, 35 women have been killed in domestic violence in Spain this year.

But this is thought to be the first time children have been victims.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news