DNA and confession narrow the net on 'el Tuvi' for the murder of Isabel Raducanu in Xàtiva
David Soler, sentenced to reviewable life imprisonment for another crime, is accumulating evidence against him for the murder of Isabel Raducanu, who was six months pregnant.
Seven years without trial for the murder of the pregnant woman in Xàtiva
According to Ideal, almost seven years after the murder of Isabel Raducanu, the six-months-pregnant woman stabbed in her home in Xàtiva on 11 June 2019, her family is still waiting for a trial date to be set. "Almost seven years have passed and no date for the trial has yet been fixed; this endless delay only prolongs our suffering," says Gavril, the victim's brother.
The main accused is David Soler Oltra, known as 'el Tuvi', who is already serving a sentence of reviewable life imprisonment for the murder of Wafaa Sebbah, a 19-year-old young woman whom, according to what a jury found proven, he tortured, stabbed and threw into a 16-metre-deep well in Carcaixent five months after Isabel's murder. The court characterised those acts as an expression "of his superiority and domination over women".
Now a new jury will have to try Soler for the murder with treachery and cruelty of Isabel Raducanu and the baby she was carrying, whom the family intended to name Briana Laura. The private prosecution, conducted by lawyers Florentina Marín and Sergio Noguero, maintains that the accused immobilised Isabel by holding her by the wrists, hit her head against the floor and inflicted 37 stab wounds with the intention of deliberately increasing her suffering.
"The murderer of my sister took two lives from us, Isabel's and the baby's she was carrying. With all the evidence that exists, we do not understand the delay," says Gavril, who warns that the delay benefits the accused: "The longer justice is delayed, the better for the guilty party; he gains time and some witnesses may become increasingly less reliable".
An investigation that initially pointed in another direction
Initial investigations by the National Police identified Juan Vicente A. N., Isabel's partner, as the main suspect. Several factors contributed to this: the alleged domestic abuse he had apparently perpetrated against her—pending trial in a separate proceeding—the positioning of his mobile phone on the antenna providing coverage to the home on Calle Francisco Gozalbes at the estimated time of death, and the contradictions in his initial statement, in which he claimed to be working for a juice company in la Pobla Llarga. Juan Vicente was arrested in March 2020 and remained in custody for eleven months before being released.
A dozen clues point to el Tuvi
The first and most direct is that Soler admitted in his statement as a witness, in February 2021, to being a regular customer of Isabel's. Four calls made by him to the victim provide evidence of contact until three days before the crime.
The clue that the prosecution considers most objective is the finding of the accused's DNA on black Puma-brand underwear found next to the corpse, with a mixture of genetic profiles from Soler and the victim. The accused himself admitted that the garment could be his and justified it by claiming that the last time he was with Isabel, she "rushed him to leave the house quickly", adding that Raducanu warned him that her partner "would cut his throat" if he discovered them. The prosecution finds it striking that he used that specific expression to try to incriminate Juan Vicente, who, according to the record, knew and consented to his girlfriend engaging in prostitution.
The fourth clue is a direct confession. According to three reference witnesses, Soler himself admitted to a friend, approximately two weeks after the crime became known: "I've screwed up, I've killed a prostitute".
Isabel's pink-coloured iPhone was never found and generates two additional lines of evidence. Police found among Soler's internet searches a link in which he entered the IMEI number that matches the one registered on the box of the missing mobile phone from the victim's home. Additionally, a protected witness states that David Soler disposed of the device by throwing it out of the car window, driving over it several times to destroy it and then throwing the remains into bins.
A week after testifying as a witness to Isabel's murder, el Tuvi's phone recorded a search that the prosecution considers the seventh clue: "What happens when there is your DNA at a crime scene".
The family demands swift action
For Gavril, the accumulation of evidence makes the delay incomprehensible. "With so much evidence incriminating him, we do not understand this delay and how there has still not been a formal charge," he insists. Isabel's family has spent almost seven years burdened with the uncertainty of a process that, to date, has no scheduled trial date.
Source: Ideal