When Antonio Cosme walked out of prison on parole, he had served roughly seven years of a nine-year sentence for raping a 13-year-old girl at knifepoint in the small Spanish town of Benejúzar, in the Alicante province. The girl was Verónica Rodríguez García. Her mother was María del Carmen García. And on a June day in 2005, those three people would collide in a way that would make national headlines and divide an entire country.

What He Said at the Bus Stop

María del Carmen García was standing at a bus stop near her home when Antonio Cosme approached her. He was on parole. He was free. And he looked at the mother of the girl he had raped and asked, calmly, "How's your daughter?"

Those four words were the trigger. María del Carmen García did not respond with words. She left, purchased a canister of gasoline, tracked Cosme to a local bar, walked in, poured the fuel over him, and set him on fire. As the flames took hold, she told him: "This is so you don't forget me."

What Happened to Antonio Cosme

Antonio Cosme was transported to a hospital with burns covering 90% of his body. He died several days later. María del Carmen García was arrested and charged with his killing.

The Trial and the Public Response

María del Carmen García was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison. The sentence was later reduced to five and a half years on appeal, following a wave of national public support. Petitions circulated across Spain. People who had never met her signed them. The debate was everywhere: what does justice look like when the system releases a man who raped a child, and he uses his freedom to taunt her mother?

Her legal journey was long and uneven. She served one year and ten days before her sentence was suspended pending a request for an official government pardon. That pardon was denied. A regional high court in Alicante also rejected her lawyer's plea, and she was returned to prison. By 2017, she had been granted limited daytime release, allowed to leave the prison grounds between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. She was released the following year.

The Final Count

In total, María del Carmen García served approximately one year and ten days in custody for the killing of the man who raped her daughter. She was released in 2018. Her daughter, Verónica, had been 13 years old when Antonio Cosme held a knife to her and took something that could never be returned. The question of what justice was owed to whom, and who ultimately received it, is one Spain has never fully stopped arguing about.