A MAN who had lived with his schizophrenic mother all his life beat her to death with a spade and buried her near Algodres (northern Portugal) in 2004.
Nuno Barros, aged 27, was sentenced to nine years in prison by a court at Almeida for homicide through diminished responsibility a fortnight ago.
He was driving his mother to spend the weekend in her home village of Algodres when, while being subjected to a tirade of abuse, he snapped, stopped the car, took a spade out of the boot and beat her to death.
In March 18, 2004, 11 days after having committed the crime, the man walked into a GNR police station at Canas de Senhorim and said: “I’ve come here to tell you that I’ve murdered my mother with a spade and buried her body on a building site.”
The crime had been committed on Friday evening, March 7, 2004. Dalila Barros, aged 51, was found buried in a shallow grave covered in earth and branches.
By the body of his mother Barros had left a white plastic dove “so that she could rest in peace.”
Examinations carried out on the spade at police forensic laboratories confirmed that the spade was covered with the hairs and blood of the victim.
After having killed his own mother he put a plastic bag around her head to make sure she was really dead.
The court presided over by Judge Jerónimo Gonçalves accepted the case was one of simple manslaughter and was satisfied the murder had not been planned beforehand.
