“We have just been told here by Dr. Pedro Morales, who was the deputy director of Forensic Medicine, acting director and is one of the forensic doctors who knows the most about this whole issue, that according to the autopsy of Mauricio Leal’s body he had ingested nine zopiclone pills.”
“This is a pill that is used for nerves, for sleeping, and he says: ‘you take one of those pills and after 15 minutes you are exhausted for eight hours. If you take two, you sleep for twenty hours. If you take nine, you fall asleep suddenly, you can’t even talk, you lose your will, the person becomes automated, the person has no will at that moment, it’s very difficult,” added Sánchez in the interview with .
“He was also covered in blood and had wounds on his body. We don’t know if he had already taken the nine pills or if he had taken less, but you can see that he has no willpower, that he is practically, excuse the term, like an entity,” she said.
Watch the full interview with Florencio Sánchez:
Regarding zopiclone, the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products defines it as “a medicine used for the treatment, of a transient and inducing type, of chronic or short-term insomnia situations (including difficulty falling asleep, nocturnal awakening and awakening in the morning) in adults. Qualigen zopiclone belongs to a group of hypnotic and sedative (calming) medicines.”
And he added: “More than nine zopiclone pills, imagine that. Would he have been capable of going to the kitchen, looking for a knife and burying it in it? The answer is, technically, negative. In this way, Johnier, with savagery, I am talking about an inference, you attack your brother. Not satisfied with that, Jhonier, you decide to make a change to the scene, moving your mother from her room on the third sub-level to Mauricio Leal’s room, with the bad luck, There is no perfect crime, you find your mother’s blood stain on the first step outside Mauricio Leal’s room.”
“You are the author of the acts of homicide, of double homicide, of Mauricio Leal Hernández and your mother, Marleny Hernández Tabares, but also of concealing and obstructing the scene. You modified the scene using gloves,” said prosecutor Mario Burgos at the time.
The two bodies, Marleny’s (Mauricio and Jhonier’s mother) and Mauricio’s were lying on a large bed and next to them they found a fingerprint, an empty glass, the supposed farewell letter and a box of zopiclone pills. The prosecution then indicated that the scene was so carefully planned that there is no doubt for investigators that it was a complete setup to pass off Leal’s murder as a suicide.
