They connected online through a gaming site and formed a rapid, all‑consuming bond. Cristina Jiménez was twenty‑seven and a mother to a two‑year‑old named Aaron Gálvez from another relationship. After days filled with video games and long conversations, she left everything behind to move in with José Antonio Pérez, taking Aaron from Madrid to Elche in Alicante. Neighbors and researchers describe a couple who nested so tightly, only the two of them could fit. On September 13, 2018, five months after they began living together, Aaron was killed. His death followed weeks of tireless neglect and escalating mistreatment, culminating in a pattern of abuse that had become all too ordinary in the apartment they shared.
