Bring Me The Head Of Jesús María Baranda

When a neighbour gives you a box of 'something' to look after for them these days .....

Jesus and Maria Before He Wrote A Will

.... its really a good idea to insist of examining those 'something's' before accepting to box into your safekeeping.

Take for example Mari Carmen, the neighbour of Maria del Carmen Merino in Castro Urdiales, Cantabria in Northern Spain. In April 2019, Ms Merino approached her to look after a box of 'sex toys' for "safekeeping". An unusual request you might think, but apparently the neighbour was happy enough to take the box from her.
 
However some months afterwards, on the 28th September 2019, the trusting neighbour told the police that she noticed a awful smell coming from the box and opened it, only to find a decomposing human head wrapped in cling film and plastic. The head, reportedly with no human tissue on the skull, because it had been boiled, and then wrapped in foil and plastic bags to disguise the smell, was identified by the police via a tooth, as belonging to the now, late, Jesus Maria Baranda, He was Ms Merino's partner of seven years, and who had been reported as 'missing' in February 2019 by his relatives.

It Was Hard To Explain Why She
Kept His Head As A Memento

61 year old María del Carmen Merino was arrested, but she still denied any involvement, and told police investigators that her partner voluntarily fled and took €12,000 [£10,671] with him, but that "Someone left Jesus's head on the doorstep, and I kept it as it was the only memento I had of him." .... she even pointed the finger at her neighbour who had a key to her apartment.

The poor neighbour told police that she had a panic attack when she opened the smelling box, before she could alert the police ... she said that María del Carmen Merino had asked her to keep her box full of sex toys at her home, because she didn’t want police to find it when searching her house in relation to her partner’s disappearance, which was why she had accepted it ..... obviously Ms Merino didn't want the head found .... but why she didn't dispose of the head with the body is a mystery.

The neighbour claimed that Ms Merino had asked her to keep her box full of sex toys at her home because she didn’t want police to find it when searching her house in relation to her partner’s disappearance.

Of course where the rest of Senor Baranda's body was being kept was of interest ... in fact the police focused their search for Jesús María Baranda's body on a rubbish tip in the holiday resort, after the suspects cleaner told officers she had been asked to help throw out some heavy black bags four days before he was reported as 'missing'.

When the case finally came to court in November 2022, the neighbour said she opened it, not due to it smelling bad, but because she was “sick, really sick” of it being there. The  rest of Jesús María Baranda’s body was never found, despite a search of the rubbish tip. Ms Merino was facing up to 25 years in prison if found guilty of murder, but was given a 15-year jail sentence after being convicted of homicide after a fortnights trial ... murder and homicide attract different penalties in Spain, and there was some suggestion that she may have hired a killer.   

The reason for the killing was stated as being greed .... a written ruling released to the press, stated that she had acted out of greed when she “participated in an active way" in causing his death, after being named as sole heir of 67-year-old Jesus Maria’s will.