The pending ‘true crimes’ of black Spain: the cases that television fiction has not yet dared to touch

The Spanish black chronicle is full of absolutely atrocious cases. Our criminal history has nothing to envy, in terms of violence, darkness and enigmas, to those of other countries. That’s why it’s not strange that more and more themed series are emerging. true crime analyzing and recreating many of these crimes. Only in the last few months we have had the Netflix hits ‘The Body on Fire’ and ‘The Asunta Case’, to which is added the recent ‘The Marquis’, about the Galindo case.

However, there is much more to examine in our black chronicle, so full of characteristically Spanish cases, impossible to export to other countries. These are some of the most atrocious crimes of black Spain that have not yet been adapted to television fiction.

The Severed Hand (1954)

A true extravagance that makes for a Blumhouse horror series, and whose protagonist is Margarita Ruiz de Lihory, Marchioness of Villasante, Baroness of Alcalahí, Duchess of Valdeáguilas, Viscountess of la Mosquera and lover of Primo de Rivera. In 1954, her son denounced her for carrying out various mutilations on the body of the marchioness’s daughter, who had died a few days before. When police inspected the house, they found a vessel with a severed right hand, fingers up, submerged in a white liquid. They also found blood-stained cotton, tweezers and other surgical instruments. When they exhumed the body, they found that a piece of her tongue and her eyes were missing and that her public hair had been shaved. The marchioness and her partner spent time in a psychiatric sanatorium in Carabanchel, but the reason for the mutilations was never known, nor if they were ultimately responsible for the girl’s death.

The Tailor’s Murders (1961)

One of the most inexplicable events in the Spanish black chronicle. And a 48-year-old man killed his wife and his five children each in a different way: with a hammer, a knife, a metal bar and a gun. He himself called the police to report what he had done: they extracted his address, but he refused to leave until a priest confessed it. They managed to talk to him from a balcony of the building opposite, where they saw how the murderer displayed the bodies. When they confessed to him over the phone, he killed himself, and it was never known what reasons led him to commit the multiple crime.

The arropiero (1964-1971)

The serial killer responsible for the most atrocious murders in our geography, with 48 crimes behind him and with necrophilic tendencies. He was an ex-legionnaire and vagabond (he was in the Legion, before deserting, where he learned to perform the tragantón, a lethal blow to the nut that he put into practice in some of his murders) who earned life as a hustler. He was arrested in 1971, after the body of a woman with whom he had a relationship was discovered in an open field, and whom he killed for having questioned his virility. Considered “a supreme social danger”, he was not tried, but the National Court opted to leave him in psychiatric custody until he died. A change in the Penal Code gave him freedom and he spent his last years again as a vagabond until his death in 1998.

The Old Man Killer (1987)

The biggest serial killer in the history of Spain was marked by hatred of women (accentuated because his mother kicked him out of the house, which triggered a long career as a rapist). He was sentenced to 27 years in prison, of which he served eight for good behavior, getting all of his victims except one to forgive him. Upon leaving prison, he married a disabled woman who was not suspicious of his double life, and during this period he murdered 16 elderly women who lived alone. He was so confident that he left cards with his name and address at the scene. He was sentenced to 440 years in prison, but was murdered by two inmates, for being a rapist and for being a snitch to officials. He apocryphally and very freely inspired the 2016 film ‘May God Forgive Us’.

The Puerto Hurraco massacre (1990)

The starting point not only of the current consideration of black Spain (it happened the same year as Almansa and only two before Alcàsser), but also of a sad golden age for television sensationalism around these cases. The Puerto Hurraco crime is the climax of a long rivalry between two Extremaduran clans, the Izquierdo and the Cabanillas. Two brothers from the first family left the house with shotguns and killed nine people, including a couple of Cabanillas girls. The origin of the dispute, induced by a pair of sisters of the murderers, was three decades earlier due to some boundaries and, in the eighties, with a love disagreement that ended with stabbings. The story was made into a film in 2007 by Carlos Saura in ‘The Seventh Day’.

The crime of Almansa (1990)

Two years before the events in Alcàsser that shocked Spain, this atrocious crime (the worst infanticide in the country’s history) drew attention for its horror movie elements: an 11-year-old girl was disemboweled by her mother (known healer from the area of ​​Almansa, Albacete), an aunt and two neighbors (one of them had a hidden sexual relationship with esoteric overtones with the healer) in the middle of a ritual, because they believed that the girl was pregnant by the devil. The events occurred after three days of confinement and the consumption of psychotropic plants. None of those involved went to prison: one was free and two were admitted to a psychiatric center.

Alcàsser (1992)

The most media crime in the history of Spain was magnified by a television feverish with morbidity and blood, in a year as significant for the country’s history as 1992. The mystery surrounding the murder of three teenagers triggered conspiracy theories in programs like late night by Pepe Navarro, and he is still giving his all despite the fact that the case is legally closed and its solution is more or less clear (and, surprise, the motive and development was nothing esoteric). Curiously, no fiction has ever been filmed about the case, although the extraordinary Netflix documentary ‘The Alcàsser Case’ is highly recommended.

The crime of role (1994)

And two years after Alcàsser, another crime shakes Spanish society, once again making the press infamous for its lack of scruples and its way of distorting reality in search of impactful approaches. The scapegoat this time was role-playing games: two friends aged 21 and 17, immersed in a game called ‘Races’, created by the eldest of them, murdered a 52-year-old man chosen at random in Madrid. Manoteras neighborhood. His death was a terrible fifteen-minute agony caused by numerous stab wounds, knife blows and blows. Months later, the murderers were discovered because they couldn’t help but brag to their friends.

Dynamite Montilla (1982-2022)

An extraordinary case of a classic serial killer in a country like Spain, where passionate outbursts or temporary parraques are more common. In the eighties, a man known as Dinamita Montilla was sentenced to 123 years in prison for four crimes that occurred between 1985 and 1987: gunshots, stab wounds, charred corpses… the murderer varied his modus operandi and only recognized one of the murders. He left at the age of 23, benefiting from the Strasbourg ruling that overturned the Parot doctrine. In recent years, Montilla had opened a Tik Tok account about hiking and it was thanks to clues about his location that the Civil Guard arrested him again for the death of a mountaineer in 2022. He is suspected of the disappearance of a woman in 2023.

In Xataka | I have been consuming documentaries and ‘true crime’ films all my life. My conclusion is that the genre is exhausted