The Court of Valencia celebrates this Tuesday the second session of the popular jury trial against Jorge Ignacio Palma, accused of murdering three women -Marta Calvo, Arliene Ramos and Lady Marcela Vargas- and sexually abusing another eight by introducing high-purity cocaine into their genitals without your consent. The body of the first young woman, missing since November 7, 2019 in the Valencian town of Manuel, has not yet been found. The defendant turned himself in to the Civil Guard and confessed that he had dismembered her and distributed her remains in containers.

It was precisely the media impact of the Marta Calvo case that uncovered a trail of similar acts attributed to Palma. The first of the victims, a woman who worked as a prostitute in a house in Valencia, has recounted in court, visibly affected, her traumatic experience with the accused: «It has ruined my life, I cannot have a partner, I am afraid and panicked to men.

I have psychological treatment. I tried to kill myself."

D.'s ordeal, 39 years old at the time, began at midnight on June 29, 2018, when "la mami" -referring to the woman who ran the brothel- asked her to take care of a client that he wanted to hold a "white party" -what he has defined as "accompanying the client when sniffing"- because a colleague had refused. She accepted because, although she doesn't like to consume, "since they're so crazy, they don't know that we're pretending."

He also thought that he was not going to give him problems because he was Colombian. According to his testimony before the nine members of the jury, he was impressed by the "bunch of drugs" that Palma was carrying because of the quantity - "an exaggeration" - and the "penetrating" smell that it gave off. While she was getting ready, the client painted four stripes on a tile. "Don't force me, I know how to do my job," she told him.

Palma offered to give her a face-down massage, to which she agreed. At that time, she pointed out to her, she called his attention to the fact that she had a clenched fist: «It was giving me a little mistrust». The discomfort was not long in coming. "It felt like my heart was racing," she said. A state that he blamed on the heat. When she went to the bathroom and got into the shower, "rocks of coke started coming out" from her vagina. "Five or six. Many », she specified. In addition, the victim believes that Palma took advantage of her absence to pour something into her glass.

«He introduced the drug to my private parts in front and behind. From behind I found out from the doctor, because I didn't feel it », she explained. She tried to ask for help, but the brothel manager ignored her and forced her to continue with the service.

Returning to the room, D. reproached the defendant for what he had done, but continued to work for his children. When he drank from the cup he felt "as if it were sand" in his mouth. «I was dying», he has influenced him. "Get me out of here, this man is going to kill me," he has assured that he shouted unsuccessfully at the "coldness" of his client. It was then that he went to the kitchen and took a knife to defend himself: «You kill me, but he comes with me. He won't leave me without my children." "My body was numb." “I was out of place because I was so drugged,” he recounted.

Hours later, she went "alone" to the Arnau de Vilanova Hospital with severe abdominal pain. She was diagnosed with "syncope with loss of consciousness", according to the medical report, and cocaine was detected in her blood. "Five minutes and you die," the doctors told him.

"Never", he clarified, would have agreed to participate in that lethal game. "I tried to track him down because of what he did to me," but he was unsuccessful. The woman herself has collapsed when recognizing the image of the accused on a screen, to avoid eye contact: "This is the murderer who tried to kill me and ruined my life." D. reported to the Civil Guard some time later, after seeing his face on television: "When I saw him, I said: hell, that was the one who did that to me." "He is a monster." «I recognized him and said: I will have the strength to denounce him because he is going to continue attacking more women. He did what he had to do », he has defended.

Despite the fact that Palma's defense has opposed the existence of a partition between the victim and her alleged aggressor, it has finally been installed. In this sense, the magistrate has criticized on several occasions the attitude of the defendant's lawyer for the impertinence of the questions that she was raising during the hearing.

The head of Homicide of the Civil Guard of Valencia has also appeared this Tuesday, who has confirmed the 'modus operandi' of Jorge Palma. A "coincidental" pattern that reaffirms the testimony of the first woman and that is repeated in most cases: the victims contact the agents because they see the photograph of the accused in the media. "Some of them recognize the facade of Manuel's house", while others arrive through the traffic of calls from the defendant.

That "common" way of acting, according to the person in charge of Homicide, was to contact via Whatsapp with girls who advertised their sexual services on websites, with the intention of holding "white parties" using a "very large amount of cocaine" that invites to consume In fact, he "has to hold her with both hands" and "is very stubborn" about her snorting. His story also coincides, he has emphasized, with the massages and the introduction of fingers into the genitals. Likewise, those who agree to drink, encouraged by Palma, "go into deep sleep" and do not know how long they have been in that situation.

Along the same lines, the Civil Guard agent stated that she took a statement from D., after she contacted the Benemérita after Palma's arrest, given her repeated presence in the media. The young woman did not want her job to be made public because she had minor children and it was very difficult for her to tell details of the sexual assault.

It was, in fact, "the victim who later denounced," the agent pointed out. "He didn't want to be another victim," but at the same time, she "wanted to let us know so he couldn't do it again." After three interviews, and with the help of psychologists, she finally agreed to be part of the procedure.

For their part, the two forensic doctors who have appeared during the hearing have agreed to point out the "lethal effect" of the dose -9.31 milligrams per liter of blood- presented by the body of Lady Marcela Vargas. They have also explained that there are different degrees of affectation, depending on the purity, tolerance and "idiosyncrasy" of the consumer.

However, the repeated effect on the victims does not match the stimulation - "like a Red Bull", they have exemplified - that normally generates the cocaine that is sold adulterated on the black market. In most of these cases, however, it caused loss of consciousness.

In addition, they have focused on the fact that this drug is soluble in water, but, however, it lasted for hours in a humid place such as the vagina, so they believe that there was something that weighed it down and turned the powder into rock. "We do not know what substance was in that product that was administered," one of them has clarified, which has described it as "much more dangerous."

The Prosecutor's Office asks for 130 years in prison for Jorge Palma for some thirty crimes, while the accusations request a reviewable permanent prison. The defendant's defense, which he will not testify until July 6, demands free acquittal. The nine members of the jury, according to the planned schedule, will retire to deliberate on the 13th of next month. Until then, a hundred witnesses, experts and security forces will pass through the judicial headquarters, to compose, chronologically, the account of the events that lasted for fifteen months.