A COUPLE found dead in their home in the province of Huelva are believed to have committed suicide by overdose – and were not found until five days later when the woman's young children made a passing comment to their landlord.
According to Mario Peña, mayor of the town of Calañas, the children’s mother, aged around 40, and her current boyfriend had only lived in the house in La Zarza, a tied hamlet of the municipality with around 1,200 inhabitants, for a month – an area she had lived in all her life until a few years ago.
A post-mortem has found high quantities of prescription and over-the-counter drugs in the couple's system, but no signs of violence, leading authorities to believe their deaths were the result of a suicide pact.
The woman's children, aged between five and 13, said they had been washing, dressing and feeding themselves for the last five days and not realised their mother and stepfather were dead.
They were frequently left to their own devices, so this was nothing unusual, they said.
None of them thought to check the bedroom, where the bodies were, because they 'assumed' that their mother was asleep and her boyfriend was 'on the PlayStation', a situation they were used to and which had often gone on for days.
It was only when their landlord called round and one of the children said their mother could not come to the door as she was 'asleep and very cold' that his suspicions were aroused and the Guardia Civil called out.
According to the landlord, he immediately noticed a foul smell and asked the children to open the bedroom door.
The mother had recently visited the social services in Calaña to apply for benefits to help her pay her rent, and this was said to be in process at the time of her death.
It is thought the appointment was just a few days beforehand, given that nobody had seen her or her boyfriend – said to be 10 years or so older than her – in the village since 'at least Tuesday or Wednesday'.
The father of the three youngest children, who lives in Tharsis (Huelva province), has been given temporary custody of all four, and the social services are on the case.
They may all be taken into care, but the father hopes to be able to keep them.
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