Nadezhda and Lyubomir Mladenov are a mother and son. They live in one of the poorest regions of the country – northwestern Bulgaria. Lyubomir has difficulty finding work because he has been convicted twice, has no permanent income, and in 2013 he settled down to live in his mother’s house in the village of Kostentsi, Montana. Their household is extremely poor, there is not even running water. His father has long been deceased, and his mother is an elderly pensioner with a low pension and poor health. Nadezhda is approaching her eightieth year, and suffers from several chronic diseases, has to take daily medication and receive support in everyday life. However, her son shows no desire to take care of his mother when she is at home, and is often absent, since the only opportunity to earn some money is sporadic seasonal employment in other settlements.
The people in the village are few and know each other well. They see that Lyubomir abuses alcohol, that he drinks the money from his mother’s pension and squanders it on gambling. This deprives the household of its only permanent, albeit minimal, income, and condemns the elderly woman to hunger and total poverty.
To help Nadezhda, the deputy mayor, together with a relative of the family, convince the elderly woman to receive her pension, and to take care of paying for the electricity and shopping for basic food products – activities that she is unable to do on her own, and that her son neglects. Soon after, during one of her visits, her niece notices Nadezhda’s deteriorating health, and sets out to organize her placement in a home for the elderly, where she would live in better living conditions and with constant care. In the meantime, Nadezhda tells a relative from the village that Lyubomir beats her. In June 2014, the documents were ready and after several conversations with her, the woman signed them, while her relatives waited for the decision on accommodation to take her out of the miserable and life-threatening cohabitation with her son.
On August 11, 2014, pensions were being distributed in the village. By virtue of the traditional arrangement, Nadezhda's relative took her pension and went to her house to figure out what to buy for her. However, no one answered his repeated calls. The man entered the house and found the elderly woman lying helpless. He called other relatives and called for emergency help. However, the mayor, who also responded to the call for help, noticed that the woman had bruises and contusions on her face. The arriving emergency team found high blood pressure and took her to the nearest hospital.
That same day, Lyubomir returned home very late in the evening. He was found at his home by a local police officer who was called in and was trying to gather information about the condition in which Nadezhda had been found earlier. The son initially denied having assaulted his mother. He later said that a day or two before that they had had a fight, as he had come home late, was hungry, and his mother had given their last piece of bread to the dog. He admitted that he had beaten her, but according to him – a little.
In the meantime, the elderly woman was admitted for treatment in the surgical ward of the Montana Hospital, with evidence of injuries of varying ages and severe malnutrition. After regaining consciousness, she herself shared with the medical team that her son had beaten her regularly and that she often went without eating for days. Despite the efforts made at the medical facility, on August 15, 2014, Nadezhda died in the hospital from complications resulting from the beating.
Her son Lyubomir was sentenced to six years in prison, with the court considering “the perpetrator’s difficult financial and material situation, his own understanding of life, and his low level of consciousness and culture” as mitigating circumstances.
More information about the verdict, as well as the court’s full reasoning, can be found here.