The father of the suspect has admitted that last summer he killed the elderly man who cared for him in Madrid after bringing him home from the hospital. The caregiver sits in prison awaiting trial. Before and after the crime, the caregiver emptied the elder man Man Manuel Larios accounts, a retired engineer who lived alone with no nearby family. This outlet has learned that the elder man’s Madrid apartment will be inherited by the two oldest sons of the man who killed him.
It is a ninety square meter apartment on Abrantes Avenue in the Carabanchel district. That is where Manuel lived and where the man who would later be his killer, an Ecuadorian immigrant named Jaime, attended to him for years. Investigators from the Civil Guard in Ávila say they were able to arrest the caregiver and recover the elder man’s body on September 20.
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The Civil Guard has since uncovered that years before his death Manuel changed his will. After his sister passed away, the man aged 89 had no surviving family. Thus, in 2020, before tensions with the caregiver had begun, he decided to leave the apartment to the two eldest sons of the caregiver, with whom he lived.
During Manuel’s lifetime those two young men had already enjoyed living in the apartment. The elder man had moved to San Martín de Valdeiglesias, following the caregiver, and the flat stood empty. The caregiver’s two sons studied at a university in Madrid and stayed there at least during the academic year, according to case sources.
The crime occurred last summer when Manuel was discharged from a private clinic on July 12. He had announced his intention to enter a care facility, but the caregiver Jaime went to collect him and drove him away in a car.
According to Jaime’s confession, the two argued and he strangled Manuel with a seat belt. He then placed the body inside a plastic drum filled with lime and stored it in a storage room at the San Martín de Valdeiglesias home they shared, hoping the lime would decompose the body. He later bought the wrong kind of lime, leaving the corpse embalmed rather than adequately decomposed.
In September, the caregiver’s wife alerted the Civil Guard. A patrol arrested him on September 20 at a property in Sotillo de la Adrada in Ávila. In his car, authorities found a cabinet he had built that concealed a plastic drum containing Manuel’s body.
The Civil Guard maintains that before and after the crime the caregiver drained funds from the elder man including access to his credit cards. He arranged purchases such as a new apartment and a van. In the year of the man’s death alone, around 110 000 euros were withdrawn, and the total misappropriations reached roughly 500 000 euros, including the Madrid apartment that will go to the caregiver’s two eldest sons as per the will in effect at the time of Manuel’s death.
SOURCES: Civil Guard findings and case filings; investigative briefings from patrol reports and lines of inquiry cited in the ongoing case. The reporting notes that the two heirs have since faced questions about the estate and the transfer of property after Manuel’s death. Further developments are expected as prosecutors and investigators continue to gather statements and financial records.