Joshua Parfitt
SHE did not plunge the knife into his back, but the ‘black widow of Valencia’ is now facing 22 years in prison over the murder of her former husband in their garage last August.
“Kill my husband for me,” is what María Jesus M.C. told her lover as she allegedly invented a story that her husband, Antonio Navarro, was a violent domestic abuser holding her captive.
And while alleged killer, Salva R.L., set off to murder Antonio in the early hours of August 16, the mistress and wife of both men was spending the night with a third male lover whom she had been seeing since May, 2017.
The brutal tale has shocked Valencia city, where residents have given her the epithet ‘black widow’ after the deadly spider that eats male partners are conceiving.
Court papers revealed that María Jesus had sexual relations with Salva, with whom she worked in a local hospital, before and after her marriage to Antonio on September 3, 2016.
Following a ‘fierce attraction’, María, 28, told her lover 20 years her senior that she was having ‘serious problems’ with her husband prone to violent outbursts.
Public prosecutors, however, could find no denouncements nor evidence of the abuse.
Nevertheless Salva claimed she gave him ‘a need to protect her’ – a need that would result in both plotting the murder of Antonio.
Salva bought a 6-inch kitchen knife while María Jesus gave him the keys to the garage at her marital home.
Salva then went to the house on Calle Calamocha, entered, and hid beside Antonio’s car before assaulting him at 7.40 with six sudden stab wounds he could not defend.
Courts papers revealed María Jesus arrived crying at 3.30pm – but that night, going over the horrific murder of the day with Salva, the black widow was soliciting sex from another man for that same night.
The public prosecutor is asking for 22 years prison for María Jesus and 18 for Salva for murder.
The desired sentence would also see both alleged murderers paying €250,000 to the family of Antonio, an accomplished engineer.
