Neighbours say detained mother was “strange”

PALMA
THE 30-year-old mother suspected of having drowned her nine-year-old son in the bath in Minorca two years ago was yesterday described by her neighbours as being “strange”.

Monica J.F. was arrested on Friday afternoon and ordered to be held in custody in prison on Monday morning by a judge in Mahon.
She is due to be transferred to Palma prison to await trial for the apparent murder of her son.
The tragedy has shocked Mahon, where she lived and worked, but yesterday neighbours in Calle Sant Llorenc, described her as odd and said that neither she nor her partner hardly had any relation or contact with local residents.

Neighbours have spent the past few days living shoulder to shoulder with the local and national media pack but very few have been prepared to go on the record, many are still in a state of shock that such as crime could be committed on the island. “They kept themselves to themselves, they did not have any contact with any of us and hardly said hello,” said one neighbour.
Those who have spent the past few years living right next door to the prime suspect said that they can not understand how Monica J.F. could have lived with her secret for all this time, “We can't understand how she could have carried on with her daily life, going to work as usual after such a terrible crime,” they said.
Others said that they would often see her spending hours in front of her computer through the window.
The National Police murder squad have ascertained that Monica J.F. would spend a great deal of time on internet chat sites, similar to the one on which she met her current partner while living in A Coruña, Galicia, where her son, Cesar, was born.

The owner of the property she and her partner rented said that the rent was always paid on time but added that lately, Monica J.F. had been talking about moving to the country and having a large dog and some land.

It was confirmed yesterday that she will be tried by a jury for the alleged murder of her son in 2008.
She had never told her partner about Cesar and when the grandparents sent him to live with them in Minorca, Monica J.F. told everyone it was her nephew and that he would only be spending ten days with them.

According to sources close to the investigation, she eventually became tired and increasingly nervous about hiding the secret of her son and allegedly drowned him in the bath and then hid the body in a suitcase which she dumped in a little used area of countryside in Binidali to the south of the island.

However, personal items inside the suitcase, including a rubber with Cesar's name written on it and extremely quick and professional work by the National Police enabled the murder squad to resolve the mystery in a record time last week.