Olot care-home killer is “a woman trapped in a man’s body”

When police arrested Joan Vila Dilmé in 2010, he broke down as he confessed to killing 11 elderly residents at a care home in Olot, Girona province. What subsequently emerged was a macabre case of sustained abuse that surprised those who knew Vila. Many of them have given evidence in the trial of the “Porter of Olot” three years later.
What residents of the small town did not know about Vila is what defense lawyers plan to use in their case: “He feels like a woman trapped in a man’s body,” said psychologists Miguel Soria and Lluis Borrás after Vila revealed his homosexuality and admitted to “wearing my mother’s heels and clothes around the house when I was young.” Vila also said he suffers from manic depression and has been examined by psychiatrists while in custody.
On the day of his arrest, October 18, Vila admitted killing Paquita Gironés, 85, by forcing her to drink a descaling agent in her room at La Caritat nursing home. She was his final victim: the day before his arrest, …