Dad’s final act as gang-raped daughter Noelia Castillo, 25, dies by euthanasia

Noelia Castillo Ramos made headlines around the world when she died by euthanasia at the tender age of just 25 on Thursday.

The paralyzed gang-rape victim had fought her own father, Geronimo Castillo, for two years in a lengthy legal battle that reached the country’s highest courts before she won the right to end her own life.

But tragically, despite his unwavering determination to keep his daughter alive against her own will, Castillo said her father had stopped calling or visiting her in the days before her death.

“Why does he want me alive just so I can stay in hospital?” the young woman, left paraplegic after a suicide attempt in 2022, said in a TV interview hours before her death.

It comes as heartbreaking footage showing her father reportedly cheering her on as she took assisted steps using crutches during her painful recovery emerged.

In the clip, recorded on a mobile phone and obtained by Spanish outlet Okdiario, Geronimo can be heard speaking encouragingly in Spanish to his disabled daughter.

“Careful — what a machine,” he states as she takes slow strides, according to the New York Post.

“We’re strolling through Badalona, she’s so cool. She’ll be running in no time.”

He then called time on the video, explaining he didn’t want to go over “one minute of recording”, as he praised Castillo’s efforts: “Very good, very good. Don’t rush, take it easy.”

Her death last week, carried out using a lethal cocktail of three drugs fed into her body intravenously that within 20 minutes stopped Castillo’s heart, signaled the end of the family’s bitter legal dispute over her right to die by assisted suicide.

She decided to pursue euthanasia in April 2024, explaining that the physical and emotional pain she was grappling with became too much to bear, according to Spanish Antena 3 program Y Ahora Sonsoles.

“I don’t feel like doing anything: not going out, not eating. Sleeping is very difficult for me, and I have back and leg pain,” she explained.

“I hope I can finally rest because I can’t take this family any more, I can’t take the pain any more, I can’t take everything that torments me from what I’ve been through.”

Castillo’s suffering began before she suffered three separate sex attacks, including a gang rape at a nightclub, by the age of 21.

During her last interview, the young woman recalled a “happy” childhood that became derailed by her parents’ divorce and financial troubles.

“After that, it was all bumps in the road, darkness, emptiness,” she stated, explaining how she and her sister subsequently entered the care system after her parents lost custody due to addiction, mental health struggles and homelessness.

By her early 20s, she had attempted suicide several times, before the incident that left her with a severe spinal cord injury and paralyzed from the waist down.

According to medical reports Castillo suffered from borderline personality disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder with paranoid ideation and recurrent suicidal thoughts, The Times reports.

Her irreparable spinal cord injury had also left her with incontinence, and a catheter that needed to be changed every six hours. She also had limited mobility with a wheelchair and only a very limited ability to walk indoors in adapted environments.

Under Spain’s euthanasia laws, which only came into place in 2021, the right to die can be granted for severe psychological distress as well as chronic conditions.

The Catalan government granted her the right to assisted dying in mid-2024 but the process was suspended at the last moment after legal objections raised by her father, with the backing of a conservative Christian campaign group.

Geronimo argued his daughter suffered from a personality disorder which affected her judgement, the BBC reports.

He also pointed to “the obligation of the state to protect the lives of people, especially the most vulnerable, as is the case with a young person with mental health problems”.

What ensued was an 18-month legal battle which ended when the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled in Castillo’s favor.

“He hasn’t respected my decision and never will,” Castillo said of her father’s legal bid.

“Nobody in my family is in favor.

“I am leaving and you are staying here with all the pain, but what about all the suffering I have endured over the years? I just want to leave in peace and stop the pain.”

Her mother, Yolanda said: “I am not in favor of euthanasia, of course I am not in favor, but I will always be by her side until the very last moment, as long as she allows me.”

She died wearing “her prettiest dress” after receiving the legal euthanasia that was scheduled for 5 p.m. on March 26, 2026 after her condition was deemed “serious, chronic and disabling” under Spanish law.

Her death has sparked a huge debate, with some who are shocked a father’s wish to keep his daughter alive should supersede an adult woman’s bodily autonomy.

Others argue the case has exposed cracks in the Spanish legislation.

In Australia, Voluntary assisted dying (VAD) is legal in all states and the ACT, allowing eligible adults with terminal illnesses and intolerable suffering to request assistance to end their lives.

It involves strict safeguards, requiring a voluntary choice, mental capacity, and, typically, a prognosis of death within six months (12 months for neurodegenerative conditions).

It remains illegal in the Northern Territory.