Trial for Spanish Cannibal who Allegedly Cut Mother into “1000 pieces” Begins Today
By: Wess Haubrich
Tags: Crime, Psychology, Serial Killers, True Crime, Spain

Trial for Spanish Cannibal who Allegedly Cut Mother into “1000 pieces” Begins Today

Alberto Sánchez Gómez. Source: abc.es

They had been arguing. Again. Her voice was a mix of nails on a chalkboard mixed with microphone feedback. His head felt near exploding.

He had to do something.

Alberto had no idea what sparked it. All he remembered was his hands throttling his mother’s throat and staring into her eyes as the life slowly drained. After a while, she was no longer writhing under him.

Yet, the voice continued, ‘what have you done Alberto?’

‘What have you done?’ WHATHAVEYOUDONE? whathaveyoudone?

He had to do something.

What he chose to do that day would be labeled ‘the most heinous crime in Spain’ by seasoned investigators and earn him the moniker “the Cannibal of La Guindalera” after the Madrid neighborhood where he lived with his mother, 66-year-old María Soledad Gómez.

I. The Cannibal of La Guindalera

Alberto Sánchez Gómez was 26-years-old when he became a matricidal murderer.

On February 19, 2019, Madrid police went to the apartment in the La Guindalera neighborhood of the city (near the famous La Ventas bullfighting ring) for a welfare check on the main resident, María Soledad Gómez. Her son answered the door.

Almost immediately the officers knew something was off. The apartment seemed empty apart from Alberto and the dog.

When asked where his mother was, Alberto confessed on the spot that he killed her. Then he made an even more shocking claim, ‘The dog and I have been eating my mother in pieces.’

Investigators found seven plastic containers — most in the refrigerator — filled with human flesh. He was arrested on the spot.

II. Background

Alberto and María had a sordid history with local police. Units had an extensive history of Alberto assaulting his mother.

The 26-year-old also has a history of chemical dependence and addiction. He would often go across the street from their building and drink with the homeless people who congregated there.

Alberto was a waiter and a somewhat disturbed poet too. The ‘brooding artist’ runs a small Instagram account where he recites verses he wrote, like this one (translated from the Spanish):

Walking the dog like a cowbell

I don’t know the shit I’m saying, but if I want to sink you I’ll bury you

I fall in love with Tiziano Ferro

I catch the ferry and leave you to zero

Cooking beef to lose my sanity

Sweet chicken and tough mind

There is no cure for my madness

I wait for the best to happen

Either you work or they treat you like a curve

I listen to the jungle while the bird whistles

Drinking beer and smoking sativa

III. Anthropophagy (Cannibalism)

There are two huge social taboos in most every culture across geography and time: incest and cannibalism. This leaves a wide open easy-to-see possibility for motive in this case.

The author is not a dogmatic and strict Freudian but he is a pragmatist. When a theory works it should be looked at and proven false if possible.

Freud’s Oedipal Theory seems almost tailor-made for this case. Did Alberto cannibalize his mother because he was in the throes of repressed Oedipal rage? It’s possible.

The kind of non-survival cannibalism is almost always sexual in nature. Jeffrey Dahmer admitted he cannibalized his victims because he couldn’t bear the thought of his dead lovers leaving him — despite the fact that they were already dead by his hand.

The relationship dynamic is interesting. Cannibals tend to be older with younger victims, not older victims with younger aggressors. The Vampire of Brooklyn Albert Fish is the quintessential example when he brutally tortured, killed, then cooked and ate the 10-year-old Grace Budd near Manhattan. Fish was a rat’s nest of mental illness — at one point he was caught yelling that he was John the Baptist close to his apartment building in the city and near his children. He was undoubtedly schizophrenic or at least psychotic at a profound level.

It’s unclear whether Alberto had a psychiatric history in the vein of Fish.

Grace Budd. Source: New York Daily News

IV. Conclusion

It’s hard to say with certainty what Alberto’s motives were at this juncture as the trial is just starting. Look here for another piece when more is known.

Journalist and dogged student of all things forensic, Wess Haubrich, examines the nitty, gritty details you didn’t know about famous (and not so famous but equally weird) crimes and their unseen motivations. Thanks for reading!

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