Life imprisonment for the murderer of Marta Calvo

The Criminal Division of the Supreme Court has sentenced Jorge Ignacio PJ, the perpetrator of the murder of the young Valencian Marta Calvo, whose body he dismembered and has still not been found, to life imprisonment subject to review. In addition, it has raised to 140,000 euros the compensation he must pay to her parents in the form of civil liability for the murder of their daughter.

In addition to life imprisonment, the Supreme Court sentenced Jorge Ignacio to 137 years in prison for the death of two other women, Arliene Ramos and Lady Marcela Vargas, and the attempted murder of six more during sexual encounters they had with him involving cocaine use between June 2018 and November 2019.

In this way, the court has partially upheld the appeal of the private prosecution against the sentence of the High Court of Justice of the Valencian Community (TSJCV) which, like a jury court of the Valencia Court, imposed a single sentence for the three murders committed and did not apply the life imprisonment requested by the prosecution for the murder of Marta Calvo – a young woman who disappeared in November 2019 after meeting the convicted man – which was the third murder committed. It also upheld the aggravating factor of gender, since the convicted man met with women who were engaged in prostitution and were vulnerable.

Life imprisonment for the murderer of Marta Calvo

Specifically, in the first instance, the jury sentenced Jorge Ignacio to 159 years and 11 months in prison as the perpetrator of a crime against public health, a crime against sexual freedom and indemnity, six crimes against sexual freedom and indemnity in conjunction with six crimes of attempted treacherous murder and three crimes against sexual freedom and indemnity in conjunction with three completed crimes of treacherous murder, with the aggravating circumstance of discrimination based on gender. It also ordered him to pay compensation amounting to 640,000 euros to the seven living victims and to the relatives of the three deceased victims – the latter represented by lawyers Pilar Jové and Juan Carlos Navarro.

The TSJCV subsequently modified the lower court ruling only to increase the compensation that Marta Calvo’s parents were to receive in civil liability from 70,000 to 90,000 euros, as they were claiming 150,000 euros.

“Serial killers”

After studying the case, the Supreme Court imposed a sentence of life imprisonment subject to review for the third crime, which was that of Marta Calvo, on the grounds that there is no requirement for prior final convictions for the crime committed, but that life imprisonment subject to review also applies to “serial killers”, which is what happened in this case, since before killing Marta Calvo, whom he also dismembered, he killed two more women using the same procedure in which he had foreseen that they could be killed, as happened in three cases, and he was on the verge of doing so with six other victims.

The Supreme Court points out, based on legislation, that life imprisonment subject to review can be applied in the same sentence in which the joint prosecution of the crimes committed is dealt with, as is the case of serial criminals.

In his opinion, it is biologically impossible for the interpretation of the ‘mens legislatoris’ to require three final sentences, an unviable circumstance that could only be applied to a prisoner who was serving a sentence for murder and who killed in the same way while serving a sentence. “This affects serial killers, multiple terrorist attacks, for example, with various results, but without requiring previous final sentences,” he adds.

It adds that “it must be taken into account that both serial murders, when the perpetrator is discovered by one of them and the investigation is linked, as has occurred in this case, and multiple murders committed at the same time, are judged as a single act for all the crimes committed.”

“Deadly Predator”

The Supreme Court states that the case under analysis is, as cited by criminology, the case of the ‘lethal predator’, as he committed the acts in series with the presence of the “compulsion to kill”. He killed three women and was on the verge of killing six others with the method he used.

And he adds: “We have to say that when the legislator in 2015 introduced the sentence of life imprisonment, he was undoubtedly thinking of cases such as the one contemplated here, which is of absolute gravity with absolute disregard for the lives of the victims and without caring what the consequences of his actions would be, to the point that in the case of Marta Calvo he dismembered her after having murdered her.”

“But he was also aware of what could happen to Marta because she was the last of the victims, and before her he had already killed two more people, and was on the verge of doing it with six others, so he was fully aware of the consequences of his actions and what would result from them, without caring at all about Marta’s life, just as he did not care about the life of the previous victims due to the acts he was committing,” added the High Court.

In addition, in this case it is “evident” the cruelty with which these acts have been perpetrated and the disregard for the lives of women taking advantage of their vulnerability, “as well as the understandable state in which the families of the victims are left scarred for life by these crimes and with the added suffering that this entails,” asserts the TS.