The serial killer of homeless people has accepted a sentence of 63 years in prison after signing an agreement with the Prosecutor's Office and the rest of the accusations. The defendant, Thiago Fernandes Lages, has signed the pact before starting the trial for the murder of three people who lived on the street in April 2020, in full confinement due to the Covid health crisis. The sentence implies the imposition of 21 years in prison for each of the three crimes for a crime of murder and another against moral integrity, understanding that the criminal took the lives of homeless people, violating their dignity. The agreement also implies that the effective serving of the sentence is 40 years, with which the defendant, who is currently 38 years old, will be able to leave prison at the age of 78 and from then on he will be subjected to 30 more years. probation.
- Is the author of those deaths recognized? – The prosecutor, Elena Contreras, asked him.
Yes, the defendant replied.
-Are you sure? Do you have no doubt, of the facts that are imputed to you, that you recognize them?
-I agree – has settled.
The trial, despite the agreement, must also be held since the agreed sentence exceeds six years in prison. The defendant sowed panic among the homeless by committing up to three murders in a matter of eleven days. It ended the life of Imad Allouss, a 22-year-old Moroccan; Juan Ramón Barberán Giner, born in Teruel and 76 years old; and Jean Pierre Herbillon, a 32-year-old Frenchman. He killed all of them by hitting them hard on the head with an iron bar while they slept. The defendant took refuge in the dark of night and took advantage of the deserted streets of the confinement to murder vulnerable and defenseless people. None of the deceased could ask for help since there was no one on the street. The three people “died because they lived on the street. The defendant killed them because he thought they deserved to die for being poor and vulnerable, ”lamented the lawyer from the Fundació Arrels, the entity that exercises popular prosecution.
The first victim was killed on April 16, 2020 when he was sleeping in the vicinity of the National Auditorium of Catalonia. She attacked him with an iron bar that had one end curved like a cane. Just two days later she attacked again with the same method. She hit a man who was sleeping on Caspe street at the height of Pau Claris, near the Tivoli theater, up to six times. And in the third case, when the Mossos had already deployed a device after noticing that a serial killer was on the loose, she killed again. The victim was sleeping on Calle Rosellón, in the Eixample, and was beaten to death. Before all of them, on March 19, there was another murder in which the victim was stabbed to death and in which the Mossos suspected the accused but in which no evidence of her participation has been found.
The Mossos detained Thiago Fernandes on April 28, 2020 in a caravan parked in the Les Planes neighborhood, an area where he had settled for three weeks. His public defender has rejected that his client acted out of aporophobia - fear and contempt for the poor - and has argued that at the time of the events he was under the influence of drugs, such as hashish and ayaguasca .
