Francisca Ballesteros

Victims

3 CONVICTIONS FOR MURDER AND 1 FOR ATTEMPTED MURDER: her infant daughter in 1990, her husband and fifteen-year-old daughter in 2004, and her twelve-year-old son, who was poisoned with the same drug and survived. All four charged, all four convicted; nothing further attributed

Years active

1990 / 2004

Location

Melilla, Spain

Method

Poisoning (Colme)

Status

Arrested on June 7, 2004 at the Melilla hospital where her twelve-year-old son Antonio was being treated for poisoning, after doctors found the same drug, colme, in his system that had killed his sister days earlier. She confessed, and the 1990 death of her infant daughter Florinda, certified at the time as natural, was reopened. Tried before a jury at the Audiencia Provincial of Málaga sitting in Melilla and CONVICTED ON SEPTEMBER 26, 2005 OF THREE MURDERS AND ONE ATTEMPTED MURDER, the attempt being her surviving son, and sentenced to eighty-four years. UNDER SPANISH LAW THE MAXIMUM ACTUAL TERM IS TWENTY-FIVE YEARS, so the sentence expires in 2029 at the latest with earlier release possible. The Tribunal Supremo confirmed the conviction and sentence in 2006. She told the court she had wanted to be free of her family to begin a new life with a man she had met online. Held in the Alcalá de Guadaira women’s prison near Seville.

Ballesteros was born in 1969 and lived in Melilla, the Spanish enclave on the North African coast. In 1990 her five-month-old daughter Florinda died; the death was recorded as natural at the time. The Spanish press called her the Poisoner of Melilla.

In 2004 her husband Antonio Gonzalez died, and shortly afterwards their teenage daughter Sandra. A third child survived being poisoned. She had used Colme, cyanamide, a drug prescribed to alcoholics that produces violent illness if alcohol is taken, given in large quantities over time.

The 2004 deaths were investigated together, the 1990 death was reopened, and she confessed. She said she had wanted to be free of her family.

She was convicted and sentenced on September 26, 2005 to eighty-four years. Spanish law caps time actually served, and the practical maximum in force for offences of this period was in the region of twenty-five to thirty years, so the eighty-four-year figure is nominal. A point worth making wherever these Spanish totals appear.

The accessible sourcing is Spanish press reporting of the trial.