During the San Buenaventura festivities, the streets of the town of Moraleja in Cáceres were filled every July with residents and workers from all the farms scattered throughout the municipal area. The Malladas farmhouse was one of those properties. It housed peasants, stable boys, servants and children and was practically deserted during those long-awaited summer holidays. Large meals and bullfighting festivities followed one another.
The Moraleja festival of 1915 was the most bitter in its history. On July 15, a boy entered the Malladas farm and located two girls, the mothers of the minors, and a man murdered there with axes. The women were maidens of that hacienda and the man, a butler.
Very soon the Civil Guard and the judicial commission focused on five harvesters, residents of Moraleja, whom they turned into suspects despite the fact that they were working 80 kilometers from there, in some fields in the province of Salamanca. The five from Malladas would end up turning themselves in and being subjected to a trial riddled with irregularities.
All the rivers of passion flow into the black chronicle: desire, greed, jealousy, anger, hate, love, greed, ambition… There are no stories only of good and bad. There are stories full of nuances, half-truths, strengths and weaknesses, innocence and cruelty.
Dossier Negro is a biweekly black chronicle podcast. You can also find its chapters on podcast platforms such as Spotify, Apple Podcasts or Google Podcast, among others.
