Shortly after millionaire insurance executive Alberto Izaga, 36, attended a motivational seminar given by South African explorer Mike Horn on May 29, 2007 in Geneva, Switzerland, the high-flying Spanish-born Londoner, according to friends, appeared to have been deeply affected by the conference, on which he reportedly had become fixated. In fact, it was the first thing that he began talking about with his wife when he awoke the next morning. Four days later, on June 3, after recalling having viewed the movie, Bug while on a recent vacation to the U.S., and after having not slept for at least 72 hours, Izaga attacked his two-year-old daughter, Yanire, by bashing her head against the wooden floor of his multi-million pound flat that overlooks the Houses of Parliament. Bug, which is about a man and a woman who were driven insane by insects crawling beneath their skin, was directed by William Friedkin, the man who directed The Exorcist in the early 1970s. It had been the only movie with available seats at the time they had decided to see a movie.
The night before the attack, while Izaga and his wife walked to a riverside restaurant for dinner, Izaga began gesticulating to no one in particular. Much to his wife's surprise, he also began talking to himself. When he awoke at 4:30 the next morning, June 3, he startled his sleeping wife when he began punching a pillow and crying, apparently over not being able to sleep. For the next several hours he walked around the apartment, ranting about such things as religion, the movie, Bug, and a secret sect that he believed was recruiting financial executives like himself to take over the world, before walking into the sitting room where he picked up little Yanire, who had just woke up, and began shouting "muerte," Spanish for death, as he shook her, and said: "I know what to do. I have to kill her."
Horrified as Izaga began slamming his little girl's head against the floor, his wife made a desperate attempt to get help by placing a call to a friend. The friend, however, did not answer the phone. Instead, the friend's cell phone's voice mail recorded part of Izaga's shouting during the attack.
"She doesn't exist, she doesn't exist…she's disappeared now," Izaga shouted as his voice was recorded on his wife's friend's voice mail. "She's dead…there is nothing left ... I have to kill you."
He was also heard screaming: "God doesn't exist, the universe doesn't exist, humanity doesn't exist…I just want to sleep. It's the only thing I want to do. I have to sleep…danger, danger, danger. I have to sleep…I've died. I'm finished…it's over."
When the police arrived, Izaga, sweating profusely, was holding his daughter, bloodied and unconscious from the attack. He also chanted "Big Ben" repeatedly for about 10 minutes, and referred to one of the police officers as his boss at the Swiss insurance firm where he was employed.
Although Yanire was taken to a hospital for treatment, she died two days later from brain damage.
Following his arrest, Izaga told psychiatrists that he believed that he, his wife, and Yanire were possessed by the devil. He also exhibited grandiose delusions and believed that he was personally engaged in a mission in which he struggled with good against evil. The psychiatrists who examined the suspect in this bizarre case determined that Izaga was suffering from "acute mental illness" which had manifested itself in a "rapid onset."
During a court appearance before a jury at London's Old Bailey, Izaga's wife told the court: "Alberto was simply not himself. He loved us. It is impossible to believe this has happened. The best times were when the three of us were together and Yanire would start singing because she was so happy. She became our life."
The jury was also told that Izaga was "universally liked" and was "absolutely devoted" to Yanire. He had told others that she was "the most precious treasure on Earth."
After hearing testimony that Izaga had been hallucinating and hearing voices prior to the attack, and that it was believed that he was attempting to destroy what he perceived as a satanic entity that had taken over him and his family, Judge Richard Hone instructed the jury to return a verdict of "not guilty by reason of insanity."
"This is a truly agonizing case and nobody who has listened to the evidence can have any argument with the verdict," Hone told the defendant. "No sentence I pass can ever match the sentence you will pass on yourself."
Izaga will be confined and treated at a secure psychiatric unit until doctors have determined that he has recovered.
"I visit Alberto every day," his wife said after the hearing. "We write to each other every other day. We discuss how we should re-start our lives. We tell each other not to give up."
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