Last February 3 was the last time there was news of Héctor Bernabeu. Since then, the family has not known the whereabouts of the Valencian photographer specializing in fashion. The SOS Disappeared association issued a statement on March 19 announcing the disappearance of this resident of Tarragona, but there is still no news. He hasn’t left a trace.
The statement detailed that it is a 40-year-old man with a height of 1.80 meters, brown hair and green eyes. He also has various tattoos on his body.
Bernabeu is known in the world of fashion because countless models have posed in front of his lens and he has worked for brands such as Massimo Dutti, Carolina Herrera, Purificación GarcÃa and Mango on catwalks, events and online stores. His brother Jorge points out to El Periódico that the world of fashion is “dangerous” and that Héctor had fallen into drugs.
“There are people who touch a lot of money, people who live the world of the night, and if you don’t have willpower… and Héctor doesn’t have any willpower, it’s easy to fall into drugs,” laments his brother, also a photographer. .
“When you talk about addiction, drugs and detoxification centers, the police seem to keep disappearance in a drawer,” Jorge insists in that newspaper. Twenty-four hours after reporting him missing, the police investigation concluded that it was a “voluntary march.” For this reason, the brother began to investigate on his behalf without success.
Héctor had settled in Torrevieja with Jorge in 2022 to try to leave bad companies and his addictions behind. However, it didn’t work. Voluntarily, at the end of last summer he agreed to go to a detoxification center in Tarragona.
Jorge recounts in El Periódico that he was doing well. “He was clean, happy, and he had already found a job for later. We talked about it in our last conversation. He would go to Madrid when he finished treatment.” Six months after his internment, he disappeared. He left voluntarily and turned off the phone.
Then began the search for his brother, who discovered through another inmate that he had gone with another man to Barcelona. In the drug suburbs, he learned that Hector’s companion had recently been released from prison after serving 21 years for having killed his wife and his cousin. He also managed to get the express phone number, but he never answered.
He did respond to the call from the Torrevieja Civil Guard. They told him that they knew him and that he was in a soup kitchen in Barcelona. The case was referred to the Mossos. They went to the soup kitchen but did not find it.
A month after his disappearance, three people appeared at Jorge’s house to threaten him. “They talked about money that in theory (Hector) had stolen from them. They repeated that he had gotten into trouble, they said something about a topic of cooking drugs.”
Two bodies have been found in Torrevieja in recent weeks. Other drug addicts in the area confirm to Jorge that they have seen him. The brother goes to the police, but “you tell them about the issue and the doubt, and they laugh at you,” he criticizes. “If it were him, you would know,” they told him from the Civil Guard, who confirmed that Héctor had not been arrested during this time as he had no criminal record.
Jorge’s last letter in these more than two and a half months was to announce that Héctor had an inheritance pending, since their mother had died on March 8. Another tragic piece of news that Jorge had to deal with. That attempt did not have an effect either to reunite with his little brother.
