Today began the first trial against Nelson David MB, the 25-year-old Colombian accused of five deaths of men he met through gay contact chat throughout the second half of 2021 in Bilbao. It’s the first time he’s sat in the dock, so there’s a lot of anticipation to find out what he’ll say and how he’ll behave at the hearing, which will last three days. The accused and the victim are scheduled to testify this Monday, behind closed doors at their own request, and on Tuesday and Wednesday, witnesses, retina and experts. The resolution will be decisive for the evolution of other cases.
This first case to come to court is judicially classified as an attempted murder. It happened on December 17, 2021 in an apartment in the Old Town of Bilbao. The victim, a middle-aged man with high purchasing power like everyone else, contacted Nelson David through the Wapo network, a gay dating app.
According to the Prosecutor’s account of the events, which requested 9 years in prison for the accused and 10,000 euros as compensation to the victim for moral damage, the two stayed at the victim’s house, the smartest place possible, after to eat. When the appointment arrived, the host invited him to sit on the sofa in the living room and have coffee. According to the complaint, the young man kissed her and hugged her from behind.
Suddenly, he unexpectedly tried to strangle him using a technique known as mataleón, squeezing his neck with a clamp on his elbow, but the man freed himself and ran. According to this version, Nelson David chased her down the hallway. The victim opened the door of the house and shouted for help, but the young man grabbed her by the arm and brought her back inside the apartment. Then, he hit him on the head with a decorative wooden figure in the shape of a cat that was at the entrance and opened a gap.
The popular action, which was carried out by the LGTBI + Gütt association, increased the request for a sentence to 17 years and 11 months in prison by classifying the facts as an attempt to kill the competition in a crime of damages and with aggravating factors taking advantage of the circumstances. Gitu’s thesis is that the accused suffocated all his victims without leaving marks and when they were unconscious, he accessed their phones with the help of their fingerprints.Gitu asked the Prosecutor’s Office that all the cases in which Nelson David MB is being investigated be tried because they have the same criminal pattern. The Court of Biscayan, however, recently issued an order reopening one of the archived deaths in which it argued that the combination of factors means “an unreachable and unnecessary amount of information.” Three of the cases were investigated in court number 6, and the rest were scattered in one of the ten investigative courts in Bilbao.
Thanks to the attempted murder that will be tried starting tomorrow and where chronologically the last of the acts accused of him, the accused will be recognized by the Ertzaintza. When the neighbors started to come out of the stairs, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, Nelson David ran away from the house, leaving behind a backpack with his passport. He had the nerve to show up at the Zabalburu sub-police station to report the loss of his documentation. The court took several months to issue an arrest warrant against him, in March 2022, where he was arrested when he turned himself in at the Irún police station.
In addition, he was also accused of another attempted murder, similar to this one, with a date through a chat involved. The complaint was filed after the case was discovered by the press and is still under investigation. Of the five suspicious deaths in which Nelson David MB was investigated, initially considered natural, one has been archived due to lack of evidence. One will be ruled a murder and the other temporarily dismissed, a decision pending appeal. Although the Court has recently opened an archived case which is considered to have strong indications that the accused may have caused the death of the victim. Among them, two bills of 1,000 euros were sent from the victim’s cell phone to the accused’s account and a slave bracelet of the victim.
Until now, in front of the court he alleged that he did not act alone but with a gang and disassociated himself from the deaths, although he partially admitted his participation in economic crimes, where had the most evidence against him. However, the Ertzaintza investigation was unable to find any of these possible accomplices.
The fact that they were initially considered natural deaths because there were no signs of violence or signs of forced entry into homes, worked in their favor, because there was no evidence to collect and when the scandal broke it was too late. to go find them. The suspicion that he narcotized the victims with liquid ecstasy was dissolved because, except in one case, traces of this substance were not found in the blood samples, some of which were severely degraded.
- Office of the Prosecutor. He asked for 9 years in prison for attempted murder and 10,000 euros as compensation for the victim’s moral damage.
- Popular action. The association of LGTBI+ Güttu demanded 17 years and 11 years in prison for attempted murder in conjunction with a crime of damages, with the aggravating circumstance of exploiting the circumstances.
- Defense. Nelson David MB has so far denied responsibility for the deaths and admitted only to some economic crimes. He declared that he was associated with a gang, although the Ertzaintza has not yet identified the alleged accomplices.
- Victim. The victim, presented as a private prosecutor, will testify behind closed doors and behind a screen at his own request.
