A mother in Spain who confronted the man who raped her 13-year-old daughter set him on fire, killing him, after he taunted her. María del Carmen García was later sentenced to prison for the attack, which took place in 2005.
The Attack and Its Aftermath
In 1998, María del Carmen García sent her daughter, Verónica, to a bakery in Benejúzar, a municipality in the Valencian Community, Spain. On the way, Verónica was seized by local bricklayer Antonio 'Pincelito' Cosme, 62, who threatened her with a knife and raped her. After the assault, he told her he would slit her throat if she told her mother, according to Gema Peñalosa's book "Fuego" (Fire).
Verónica returned home and immediately informed her mother. María took a knife and went to Cosme's house, where she shouted at him: "You don't deserve to live! You son of a b****. You son of a b****!"
The Fatal Confrontation
Following the incident, a medical examination confirmed semen and wounds compatible with sexual assault. The family moved to another part of town, and a year later DNA evidence matched Cosme. His trial began in October 2000, and by December he received a nine-year prison sentence. He appealed, but the appeal was rejected.
In June 2005, María was at a bus stop when Cosme, who had been granted temporary release without her knowledge, approached her and asked, "Good morning, ma'am. How is your daughter?" Fearing for her daughter's life, María fled to a petrol station, then returned home to retrieve a one-and-a-half-litre bottle and a box of matches. She filled the bottle with petrol and went to a bar where Cosme was eating breakfast, demanding, "Do you remember me?" before dousing him and setting him alight.
Sentencing and Release
Cosme suffered burns to 60% of his body and died 10 days later. María was admitted to the psychiatric unit of Fontcalent penitentiary hospital. At her trial in 2009, she said: "I didn't want to kill him; I wanted to scare him so that he would leave and never come near my family again." Verónica told reporters: "If his [Cosme's] family had acknowledged that he raped me and had let us live in peace, what is happening now would never have occurred."
María was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison, placed under a restraining order, and ordered to pay damages to Cosme's family. In 2010, the sentence was reduced to 5.5 years. In November 2017, she was allowed to serve the rest of her sentence at home, initially returning to prison each evening before being fitted with an electronic tag. She was released on parole and freed in August 2018.
