The civil guard Laura Cruz -farewelled yesterday in Llanes in a large and heartfelt funeral- and her attacker, Dámaso Fernández, also an agent of the Corps, were never married. They maintained a relationship that ended around 2012, when she was pregnant with the twins and the eldest son – who yesterday carried his mother’s coffin on his shoulders – was six years old. “He went to Girona to prepare for the dogs [he was a canine guide, part of the Canine Group of the Civil Guard of Zamora] and never returned to Llanes,” recounts a person who knew Laura very closely and the details of her personal and judicial ordeal.
In 2014 they decided to separate and formalized the measures regarding the three children they had in common. He settled in Zamora and she left the house they had bought together in Llanes to move to the local barracks house. “Then he began to constantly exert psychological abuse on her,” this source recounts. “When he went to see the children in Llanes, he did not notify her in time. It was agreed that he could use the shared home only when he was visiting the children, but he often used it without visits or installed his mother there.”
In the five years following the separation, between 2014 and 2019, he reported her “approximately 45 times.” “He would file a complaint on Friday when he arrived to see the children and another on the day he left. Since she was in charge of gender violence complaints and frequently went to court, some were handed to her by officials: ‘Here, Laura, you have two more.’ They were things like ‘I arrived at the apartment and there were no sheets,’ ‘she didn’t give me the girls’ car seats,’ ‘she delivered the children late.’ She wasn’t even aware of others because they were all dismissed.”
Dámaso did not file civil enforcement claims, as would be appropriate if he considered the custody agreement was being breached, but criminal complaints. “Because his goal was not to enforce anything but to psychologically abuse her; he knew perfectly well they would be dismissed. Many were filed at the very barracks where she worked.”
According to the Commander of the barracks, the purpose of these complaints was “to screw her over,” as the officer would later declare when proceedings were opened against Dámaso for a gender violence crime.
“She feared he would be expelled from the Civil Guard; for him it was everything”
She did file an enforcement claim against him because he did not pay for the children’s extracurricular activities. She won. Just a few days later, on July 28, 2019, the following happened: “He had to deliver the children at the barracks door, outside. She repeatedly asked that he not be allowed in because she was afraid of him. Laura knew perfectly well he was going to kill her. That day, taking advantage of a vehicle leaving the barracks, he spun around and entered with his car; he almost ran over Laura. He got out and went to the trunk of the car and opened it. Meanwhile, Laura went to take the keys from the ignition. When he saw her taking the keys, he forgot about the trunk and went after her. It was later found that he had a gun in the trunk, but he said he was looking for the children’s toys. He went after her and assaulted her. There were 12 witnesses. Witnesses unrelated to the Civil Guard and Laura who were visiting declared that the assault was brutal. Thank God, she only suffered a broken tooth and bruises and contusions. The officer who got him off Laura was hit in the nose.”
The three minors witnessed the assault. Dámaso never saw them again, because from then on his visitation rights were suspended.
The trial for the events had to be repeated three times because there were two nullities. Finally, the case was closed on July 15, 2025, with a sentence from the Provincial Court of Oviedo that upheld the conviction imposed by the Criminal Court number 4 of Gijón in March 2024, which had convicted him of a crime of abuse and another of coercion in the family sphere. The sentences for both totaled one year and eight months in prison, four years of deprivation of the right to possess and carry weapons, a restraining order from Laura and her three children of 1,000 meters, and three years of disqualification from exercising parental authority over the minors.
In December they denied extending the restraining order
Shortly before – July 2025 – Laura had apparently finally reached an agreement with Dámaso regarding the shared apartment. She was going to keep the property, which had a high debt because the mortgage had not been paid, but he did not confirm the transfer. The Provincial Court had not yet convicted him when Dámaso wrote to the bank representative in these terms: “I will accept the conditions of the deed if she withdraws the criminal complaint she has filed against me.”
This caused Laura to report him again on August 5, 2025 – exactly one year before her murder. She argued that she was still economically subjected to the mortgage due to her refusal to sign and possible coercion and breach of the communication prohibition because of the message he had sent to the bank.
Laura was also worried about the approaching end of the restraining order – December 17, 2025 – so her lawyer, Isabel Buj, requested an extension of the measure but it was not granted. “In court, she was the bad one. Laura was never the typical abused woman. She swallowed everything inside. Since she was a civil guard, big and strong, and was the one processing the VioGén complaints…” says the source close to Laura, who also regrets that the murdered civil guard was not informed that Dámaso had just been removed from the Civil Guard as a result of the internal file opened against him for gender violence. “If she had known, she would have been alert. That was what Laura feared most, that he would be expelled, because the Civil Guard was everything to him. He had nothing left to lose.”