The case of the alleged murderer of the Bilbao homosexual dating app, which continues to be divided into seven proceedings, has reached court this Monday and has placed Nelson David M. B. on the bench for the first time, accused of five deaths and two homicides in a tentative degree. In his first trial, the defendant faces requests for sentences of between 9 and 18 years for one of the two cases of attempted murder, and, after pleading not guilty, he has appeared before the court that is trying him as a kind of henchman of a gang that only sought to steal. A young man with a difficult childhood, incapable of murder and who was now being used.
His statement has been expressive of the defense strategy that he will follow. Nelson David's story, the same one that he has conveyed to his girlfriend's family, is that he was living in an extreme situation and that he surrounded himself with several people who offered him to make money by scamming through credit cards. According to this story, the accused would acknowledge his participation in economic crimes, but not in murder cases. In this Monday's session, in addition, the accused has tried to discredit the victim by alluding to the fact that he used drugs and liked "strong, sadomasochistic sex", statements that give an idea of where his defense strategy will take him.
Contrary to this version, the Basque LGTBI association Gehitu, which is prosecuting the private prosecution, links Nelson David to five homicides and two more attempts. All of them would share the same modus operandi. The accused would have met through a dating app with his victims, in some cases with high purchasing power, and sought their submission to use their cards and steal from them. The events would have taken place between May and December 2021, and the procedures are related to five deceased victims and two alive.
The great difficulty of the case lies precisely in the fact that the deaths of five buried or cremated people must be investigated a posteriori after initially linking their deaths to natural causes. The situation is different in the two attempted cases, which are similar and in which there is, in both cases, fundamental evidence: the statements of both victims.
The case that is being judged since this Monday has to do with events that occurred on December 17, 2021. Chronologically, they are the last events investigated. The victim points out that the accused tried to strangle her, using the mataleón technique, when they were having a relationship in his apartment. Nelson David, meanwhile, has indicated that this attack was due to “an impulse” and has placed it in a context of a "sadomasochistic" sexual relationship and with drugs. The victim reports that after breaking away she was chased around the apartment and recounts a brutal confrontation that alerted her neighbors. From there, the accused would have fled from him.
The victim's complaint, which she declared behind closed doors this Monday, was key at the time for the Ertzaintza to investigate the deaths of men whose deaths had initially been attributed to natural causes as possible murders. Basically, that complaint, almost two years ago, was the trigger that uncovered the case. However, this is an extremely complex investigation and proving that the person under investigation participated in these deaths will not be easy.
