Spanish
police have arrested a US couple after their son’s badly decomposed
body was found inside the family flat in the north-eastern city of
Girona.
The dead boy is believed to have been seven years
old and police sources said that the body, found in a bed under several
blankets, could have been left to decompose for several weeks. There
were no obvious signs of physical violence, the same sources said.
Officers from Catalonia’s Mossos d’Esquadra police
force attended the family’s home on Tuesday after being called by the
couple’s landlord. He told the police that he had visited the family to
settle unpaid bills but became suspicious when he was not allowed in and
heard screams the other side of the door.
When police agents gained access to the flat at
midday on Tuesday they were met by a strong smell of decomposing flesh.
The body was not taken away until some six hours later after officers
had searched the home for clues which could explain the cause of death.
The results of an autopsy were being awaited on Wednesday, while the
police questioned and eventually arrested the couple on suspicion of
manslaughter.
The couple have been identified only as American
citizens of 38 and 39 years of age. They have two older children, a boy
and a girl, who were also in the flat when the police arrived. They are
now in the care of local authorities and are being given psychological
support.
Neighbours described the couple as unusual in
that they were Americans who did not speak much Spanish or Catalan. One
resident of the same building told the newspaper El Periódico that in
recent weeks he had only seen the father, said to be an engineer who
worked over the border in France, leave the house.
“The only really strange thing I saw with them was that the children did not go to school in Girona, but seemed to do classes online”, said one neighbour.
Even if the autopsy shows that the child died of
natural causes, the parents could still be charged with manslaughter if
they are considered to have been reckless in not seeking out medical
treatment.
Source: The Telepgraph
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