A Tenerife County Court has imposed a twenty-three-year prison term on a man named Eliseo in connection with the murder of his former partner. The verdict, delivered by a local people’s court, found the death to be the result of a premeditated, treacherous act carried out with brutality and without mitigating circumstances.
During the trial, the prosecution pressed for a twenty-three-year sentence, while a specially designated prosecutor representing the victim’s family sought a twenty-five-year term. The case unfolded in March 2020 in a location within the town of San Isidro, in the Granadilla de Abona region, Tenerife, at noon. Eliseo organized the meeting under a false name and used a decoy vehicle to approach the transaction, masking the arrangement as if it involved purchasing a musical instrument.
Eliseo’s defense announced plans to appeal to the criminal chamber of the Canary Islands Supreme Court of Justice, arguing that the defendant acted in self-defense. Any compensation awards will be determined after the sentence is finalized, with focus on damages for the two daughters and the partner of the deceased businessman.
The offices of the prosecutor and the special prosecutor proposed compensation levels of 150,000 euros for each of the two children and 100,000 euros for the widow. The High Court of Justice of the Canary Islands will assess the credibility of Eliseo’s account, including his assertion that he went to offices to collect a debt and had burned his former home and car earlier in the week as part of an alleged sequence of events. The narrative has included claims that he encountered the victim during the confrontation and later blamed himself for the fire linked to his properties. [Citation: Canary Islands High Court]
In the testimony presented at trial, Eliseo claimed that during the confrontation the victim reached for a knife, triggering a struggle in which a gun fell to the ground. According to the defendant, he picked up the gun and began the attack on the businessman from that moment onward.
The victim sustained twenty stabbing injuries, many of them fatal. The injuries in several areas were described as severe and akin to a brutal pounding, consistent with forensic examinations of violence. The jury found that the victim could not defend himself and was surprised, with forensic findings indicating the first knife entering the scene just before death, and the victim dying after enduring significant agony. The prosecutor’s office and the family’s representatives alleged that Eliseo had previously used another person to arrange a meeting under a false name, intending to take the life of the deceased while avoiding debt obligations.
The intermediary who helped with the arrangement reportedly told Eliseo that he would assist but expressed doubt after learning of the intended violence. This person warned the victim about the danger he faced, and the investigation followed those lines of inquiry.
doubts
From early on, suspicions focused on Eliseo, who was arrested a few days later and confessed to his role. He stated that he had disposed of the murder weapon in a garbage container significantly taller than thirty centimeters. After the confession, authorities conducted a large-scale search of waste, roughly twenty tons, to locate the weapon used in the killing.
Initial defenses attempted to provide an alibi, claiming that Eliseo was repairing a truck with his supervisor on the day in question. Yet the supervisor’s timeline did not align with Eliseo’s claimed window between 2:45 p.m. and 4:00 p.m., a discrepancy that reinforced investigative suspicions.
Even while admitting responsibility, Eliseo maintained that the act occurred in self-defense and that he had rebuilt his life with another partner. He maintained there was no jealousy or resentment toward his ex-wife. The ex-wife testified that she had sought reconciliation but described Eliseo as overly aggressive. She alleged ongoing psychological abuse and ongoing conflict during the later years of their marriage. She also suggested a fire in a car associated with Eliseo occurred days before the murder, hinting at a possible link to the broader sequence of tensions. [Citation: Canary Islands Court records]