A week and a half before Alex disappeared and, fifteen minutes later, he was found dead in the arms of Francisco Javier Almeida, 55, a mother called the police after she tried to convince her daughter to go home and the agent told her "what was I going to report" and "that they would be the parrot". The children called him "the old man."

In a hard session, the Provincial Court of Logroño has accepted today the stories of several parents of the children who played in the park in which everything happened that October 28, 2021 in which, allegedly, Almeida sexually assaulted and murdered Álex, nine years old.

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Judgment.

The head of the investigation of the crime of the boy from Lardero: "His death was extremely violent"

  • Writing: ANA MARÍA ORTIZ Madrid

The head of the investigation of the crime of the boy from Lardero: "His death was extremely violent"

Spain.

The accused of the Lardero crime says he remembers everything as a "cloud" and alleges that the child acted "voluntarily"

  • Writing: EFE Logroño

The accused of the Lardero crime says he remembers everything as a "cloud" and alleges that the child acted "voluntarily"

The father of the boy Alex has been the first, telling what happened that day in the Entre Ríos park. That day, they had gone to the picnic area of some friends, located in the park.

They were already going to dinner, and they asked the children, who were playing outside, to come in. Alex asked to say goodbye to friends and was let out. Alex was accompanied by another girl: "Wait for him to go with you," his father told him and Alex turned and nodded.

"In nothing, came" the other girl, the father has related, "saying that he had been taken by a gentleman." This girl pointed them to a portal, where he had been taken, and they began to search, although in the wrong portal.

"They have taken away our joy"

He couldn't help but collapse. "They have taken away our joy," he said to a question from the prosecution lawyer, Alicia Redondo, before which the judge, Fernando Solsona, has demanded, and implored, that he did not continue asking in that line: "I think we all take care of how they are, I ask you not to continue there," he said.

For Alex's father, Almeida had to take him by force. "For me yes," he said answering a question from the jury. And, although it has been said that he was going to see a puppy, he liked them, but he was "very scary" with animals.

While they were looking for the adults in the wrong portal (the girl who accompanied Alex could not give the indications well). Another child intervened, whose mother testified today. That day, this boy went to find his mother to tell her what had happened: "It was the man at the bank, the one I told you I didn't like him," he told her.

Almeida watched the children to such an extent that they had taken a picture of him. So this boy, that October 28, told his mother that they were looking in the wrong portal, took the skate and guided the adults to number five, where Almeida lived.

"He only related to children, he was always behind them with his mobile," said one mother while another has come to say that she called the police on April 14, 2021. She wasn't the only one.

Almeida sat on the bench, said a third, he did it alone, in the area opposite the park. "A week and a half before my daughter and two girls were with a ball, it escaped them, he took it and, when the girl approached, he told her that he had birds at home and if they wanted to see them."

One girl wanted to go but the other, instead of accepting, told her mother. It did not give "credit" and Almeida, as soon as he saw that there were adults, left. The mother started running but didn't catch him.

The mother called the police, who took the girl's statement and they told her: "What was I going to report if nothing had happened. That I stay calm, that they were going to comb the area, "he said.

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  • Lardero
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  • Sexual assault
  • Infancy
  • La Rioja