This text belongs to ‘Dossier Negro’, a newsletter inspired by the podcast of the same name, which Enrique Figueredo will send on Wednesdays on a biweekly basis. If you want to receive it, sign up here.
Every year in Spain thousands of people disappear. These absences usually cause emptiness and pain in the closest environment of the one who is no longer there. It is becoming common knowledge that, on occasions, police forces begin investigations to find someone whose disappearance has been reported and when they find their whereabouts, they refuse to give any more information than that they are still alive. Nothing else. People in Spain have the right to disappear and cut all previous ties. There are even some that manage to appear invisible for decades, such as the case of Blanca Mabel Otero, who disappeared in 1995 and managed to remain undetectable for 25 years. With hardly any contact with the administrative bureaucracy of the State, she survived by taking care of children, pets, and doing domestic cleaning work.
Disappearances without apparent cause can be voluntary, as we have seen, but, unfortunately, also forced. They are those that have a criminal background. In some cases, investigations opened in the belief that the person has left of their own free will lead to much more sinister matters. That was what led to the case that we addressed in the last installment of Black Dossier. Once again, the family of the absent person did all the pressure they could so that the matter did not end up in a drawer of the police or judicial apparatus.
Empty duels. In the world of disappearances with criminal origins, there is a doubly distressing variant. It is one in which there is certainty, morally and judicially, that the absent person has been murdered, but his body does not appear. One of those cases is that of Marta Calvo.
Inexhaustible hope. From the saddest stories, although it never serves as consolation, initiatives can flourish that allow hope to spread. The parents of two missing young women, although the body of one of them finally appeared, Inter-SOS was born in 1998. They were the parents of Cristina Bergua and Llum Valls.
Infinite fight. The disappearances of minors and those of women related to episodes of gender violence are the majority in Spain. Parents determined to see justice done in the case of their 17-year-old daughter are those of Marta del Castillo. A criminal has been convicted for her death, but he does not specify where he left her body and that drives those who suffer crazy.
Until you lose consciousness. The Spanish black chronicle has recorded in thick letters the so-called Alcàsser case, a triple disappearance and death that occurred in the 90s of the last century that caused some protagonists and the media to lose their minds in search of explanations and an audience. A Netflix docuseries explains what those days were like and what they entailed.