Isabel Fuentes was brutally attacked with a claw hammer while she slept on her sofa.
She survived the assault against the odds. But 37 days later, while she was still being treated at a hospital in Ourense, Spain, her attacker returned during the night and stabbed her to death.
The shocking case is explored in the new Netflix documentary Unprotected: Murder in Galicia, which examines what happened during those 37 days, why authorities failed to keep the 66-year-old safe and the unexpected person who wanted her dead.
“He’s a calm killer, he’s a patient killer, he’s a person who deceives the public,” Sgt. Eduardo Novoa says in the documentary. “He killed Isabel twice. Twice in extremely cruel fashion.”
Here’s what to know about the tragic case:
Who Was Isabel Fuentes?
Friends and relatives remembered Isabel for her warm smile. Although she attracted plenty of admirers, she had dated very few men.
That changed when she met her future husband, Aniceto Rodríguez, a former bar owner and butcher from Riós, Spain, while she was working in a shop.
Her cousin’s son, Eduardo Pérez Jr., described them as the “perfect couple.” Others recalled how openly Aniceto doted on his wife.
What Happened to Isabel Fuentes?
April 1, 2015, began like an ordinary evening for Isabel. She and Aniceto spent the night at the home of her cousin Corona Salgado and Corona’s husband, Eduardo Pérez “Perreras,” who lived directly across the street.
At about 1 a.m., Isabel and Aniceto returned home. Not long afterward, Perreras was suddenly awakened.
“Aniceto yelled Perreras someone killed Isabel. Isabel got killed,” he recalled in the documentary. “I put on some pants and went over there shoeless and shirtless.”
Inside the house, he saw that “the windows were broken, a flower pot had been knocked onto the floor, there was a hammer and the floor was covered in blood.”
Isabel was still on the sofa where the attack had taken place, clinging to life.
“When I examined Isabel in the recovery unit at the hospital in Ourense the type of wounds she sustained made us think that whoever inflicted those injures wanted to be certain they had killed her,” forensic examiner Fernando Serulla explains in the documentary. “The injuries are caused by three precise blows exclusively directed to the head.”
Serulla said the attacker had used the clawed end of the hammer.
Police Question Aniceto Rodríguez’s Account of the Night
Aniceto told investigators that burglars had entered the house and violently assaulted his wife.
“From the get go there was a series of clues that Aniceto’s story was a lie,” Novoa, who was then head of the judicial police team in Verín, says. “Right from the jump we noticed there wasn’t anything stolen, no theft had actually taken place, but once we visually examined everything we saw that the timing in the report was off.”
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Aniceto claimed he went directly to bed after arriving home, while Isabel remained on the sofa watching television. He told police that the intruders had disappeared by the time he reached the kitchen. Investigators, however, considered it unlikely that he would not have heard the shattered glass or Isabel’s cries—or seen the intruders searching through two handbags.
A set of keys was discovered outside in the garden, indicating that the attacker or attackers had taken time to locate the correct key for the garden door.
“All of that would have had to be accomplished in six or seven seconds, which is how long it would take Aniceto to cover the distance between his bedroom and the kitchen,” Novoa explained.
Other evidence indicated that Isabel was still lying down when she was struck, suggesting that she may have been asleep.
Authorities began to suspect Aniceto was responsible for the assault and grew seriously concerned that Isabel remained at risk.
“The kind of attack that Isabel had suffered,” Novoa explained, “was so brutal that I was sure that as soon as he had the opportunity, if one presented itself in the future, Aniceto would try it again.”
Friends and relatives, however, continued to view Aniceto as a devoted husband.
“In the ICU, there wasn’t a single relative who spent as much time with the patient as he did,” Corona recalled in the documentary. “He was saying ‘my queen, when you get better we’ll take a vacation. We’ll go anywhere you want.’”
Even so, investigators brought their evidence against Aniceto to a judge in Verín on three occasions and asked for his arrest. The judge concluded that authorities had only “mere suspicions,” rather than evidence strong enough to withstand scrutiny in court, Spain publication ABC reported.
The judge also turned down requests to monitor Aniceto’s phone or prevent him from visiting Isabel in the hospital, according to the outlet.
Isabel Fuentes Stabbed to Death at Hospital
On the night of May 8, 2015, Aniceto told nurses he intended to stay beside his wife. By then, Isabel could not speak and had been transferred to a general ward, where monitoring was less intensive.
The 77-year-old brought a boning knife into the ward and stabbed Isabel to death before attempting suicide by cutting his throat, El Pais reported.
A security guard intervened and stopped Aniceto, according to Martin CID Magazine. He was then taken into surgery.
“When I learned the story of Isabel Fuentes, what struck me most was not only the crime,” writer and director Jorge Laplace said of the project, “but an uncomfortable question I could not explain to myself: How was it possible that she was murdered in a hospital when it was known that she was in danger?”
Isabel’s killing sparked outrage across the community, with many questioning why stronger measures had not been taken to protect her.
What Happened to Aniceto Rodríguez?
Several theories emerged, but investigators never established a definitive motive for Isabel’s murder.
Aniceto was eventually arrested and, in June 2017, convicted of attempted murder and completed homicide, according to the documentary. Under Spain’s law addressing gender-based violence, he received a 31-year prison sentence.
He died in prison in 2018.
