Daniela Valencia Guevara had never positioned herself as a victim before, yet this Monday she faced the defendant by sitting across from him on the bench. She is charged with killing his former partner, Geovanny, by delivering four stab wounds to the chest inside the Sprout residence on February 14, 2020. Valencia Guevara is currently serving a prison term of 20 to 25 years, a sentence the defense requested at trial on the grounds that overwhelming fear kept her from acting otherwise.
In a courtroom statement before jurors gathered at the Huesca County Court, the accused repeated his claim of fear and panic as he listened. The 24-year-old woman admitted to the killing but said she acted in self-defense.
She described realizing she was the attacker as the struggle intensified. “He grabbed the knife from the kitchen, pulled my sweater, and had my back turned while pressing the knife to my neck.” She said she begged him to stop, but he struck several blows and she felt she had never been so terrified. She noted that he did not seem himself that morning.
During their confrontation, she managed to wrench the 27-centimeter knife away from Geovanny. Forensic investigators observed no defensive wounds on him. “I buried the knife in Geovanny. At that moment I thought I had killed him. The knife fell to the ground, I went home, unsure of what to do. I could hardly believe what I had just done,” she stated. She then washed herself, though not all at once, using the same weapon and even wounded herself in the chest as she attempted to escape.
The murder occurred within a jealous context that left her feeling as if she might lose her mind. “He told me I was a whore, that I did the same thing whenever he had the chance, that I was unfaithful.” Valencia Guevara confirmed, adding that she spat on him and pounded on the door.
The victim and the accused appear in a joint photo. /EP
Some statements surprised the prosecutor, as neither Civil Guards nor the Court of First Instance and Boltaña’s Single Directive observed any malicious intent from Geovanny. “He was impulsive and aggressive, often out of his mind that day. At other times he would grab my arms and push me away when something displeased him. They were not beaten, but I did feel his slaps, and I always believed him capable of anything,” she explained. She also recalled him accusing her of attending a birthday party the prior week and insisting she should not go. She took her mother’s car keys and, when asked why, handed them back. “I went to his house to fetch the keys, became angry, tore some clothes from the closets with a knife.” Civil Guards noted several incidents on February 6, eight days before the murder, including knife-related tensions, and later found textile fibers on the weapon.
“I wanted to go to heaven with Geovanny; I never intended to hurt him. The circumstances pushed me to it,” Daniela Valencia said in a letter she wrote after the crime and before her arrest by the Civil Guard the following day. She claimed the note was an admission of what happened.
“I wanted to go to heaven with Giovanny, I never wanted to hurt him. It was the circumstances that led me to it”
The defendant explained that the argument began when he took the victim’s cell phone and saw the number of the child in the call log, a sign of prior infidelity.
The trial continues. Further testimony is expected.
The Civil Guard reconstruction continued into the late afternoon of February 14, 2020. Valencia Guevara killed her ex-boyfriend Geovanny at his home, reportedly without the ability to defend herself, leading to an immediate fatal outcome. The trigger was a tantrum as the 26-year-old victim moved to end the relationship.
Before the crime, the woman spoke with her ex for more than twenty minutes, trying to persuade him to reconcile.
On the same day, Geovanny, who had learned his wife might be involved with someone else, denied the possibility. The defendant, who entered the duplex where he lived wielding two kitchen knives of 27 centimeters, became enraged and tore several items of clothing. While Valencia Guevara remained at home, Geovanny arrived and attacked in a sudden, shocking act that left him fatally wounded by four stabs. The victim, who had no injuries to his hands, was removing his jacket when the assault happened.
The defendant was arrested the following day in Yebra de Basa after wandering through various paths in the region and eventually entering the victim’s car. She confessed during the reconstruction of the facts.
The prosecutor seeks a 20-year term in prison for the defendant, along with an order to distance her from the victim’s relatives for 10 years after release, and a total damages award of 184,300 euros. The private accusation, represented by Huesca lawyer Marcos Franco, requests a 25-year term on grounds of an aggravating kinship element due to the close relationship between the parties.
It also calls for a restraining order of more than 500 meters from the victim’s relatives for 10 years after serving the sentence and a total compensation of 239,000 euros.
Defense attorney Mateo Ayala, not specifying the final punishment length, characterizes the case as an injury crime in competition with reckless homicide, presenting two possible forms of serious or lesser charges, or alternatively deliberate manslaughter. Daniela is described as having a profile of an abused woman.