The Supreme Court has ratified a court sentence that handed down a total of 134 years’ imprisonment to three deaf mutes.

Juan R, Jose Luis G and Carmen H, all both deaf and mute, were found guilty of murdering a man and attempting to slit the throats of his wife and two children.

Sounds complicated?

The victims were the family of one of their half-sisters, who was also a deaf-mute. Yes, It’s complicated, so let’s start at the beginning.

The whole sorry story begins in Armilla in 2012 with José Luis G. being obsessed with an amount of money that his half-sister, Mónica, had ‘appropriated.’ The money came from the sale of their mother’s flat.

As José Luis is unable to read, he enlisted the help of Juan R. to examine the bill of sale. His friend didn’t like what he had read and became just as obsessed over the money as José Luis.

So, José, his wife Carmen, and Juan hatched a plan to go around to the half-sister’s home and kill the lot; Mónica, her husband Ivan, and their two children, aged nine and seven.

They drove there in a van, with Carmen as the get-away driver and were met by Mónica who welcomed warmly as aggressors and victims chatted away in sign language for about an hour.

Whilst the chat was going on, Ivan dropped off to sleep as he had taken sleeping pills, which was when Jose and Juan made their move.

Ivan was killed and the mother and two children were wounded, all suffering several knife wounds – they all had their throats partially slit.

Carmen in the get-away car pleaded before the judge that her condition as a deaf-mute should be an attenuating circumstance and Jose Luis claimed that they had never intended to kill anybody, neither of which swayed the judge.

(News: Armilla, Granada, Andalucia)