Journalism is taught in universities and learned on the street, alongside professionals who know much more than you. People like the photojournalist Roser Vilallonga (Barcelona, 1960), who taught me to love the job even more and gave me a master class that I will never forget. He was in Cuenca, following a double murder. I have remembered this teacher thanks to a spectacular photo. Yours, of course.
It was a photo of a civil guard in front of a grave with lime. But before explaining the reason for that photo, I have to go back to a terrible traffic accident and an atrocious event: a boy killed a girl in Sant Quirze de Besora, in the Osona region of Barcelona. On October 28, 1992, I went to the scene of the crime in an Antena 3 mobile unit with a great reporter, Billy. On the highway we saw a wrecked motorcycle. Wow, we thought...
And now let's go back to the pit with lime. In August 2015, that disgustingly common thing happened: a sexist crime. Sergio Morate Garcés, who is now serving 48 years in prison, meticulously planned the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Marina Okarynska, 26, of Ukrainian origin. He planned to the place where he would bury her, in a rugged area, near the source of the Huécar river, in Cuenca. In a pit with lime.
The murderer lured his victim into his home with tricks to stage an amicable separation and allow him to take the last belongings that were left in the home. He had planned everything, yes, except that Marina, whom he did not forgive for having abandoned him, came with a friend, Laura del Hoyo, 24 years old. When the two young women arrived, she changed her plans. He wouldn't commit a crime. He would commit two.
We spent a week in Cuenca and we covered the discovery of the bodies, the funeral, the mourning... There are place names that contain a landscape in their sound. Rambla ravine. The reiteration of the letter erre draws a rough, sullen earth in the mouth. Err, err. Beautiful, but rough. Next to the post of the GR 66, there is a fork and a goat track leads to the Huécar spring, in the Palomera area. There he half buried them.
Saturday, August 15, 2015. We had more than 530 kilometers of highway to Barcelona. Upon arrival, they had to finish the chronicle about the latest news (the funeral of the two friends and the capture of the murderer, who had fled to Romania). Roser insisted that we still had something to do. That? What! I thought, anxious to be gone.
She won, of course. First we went back to the killer's house. Then Roser proposed to return to the Barranco de la Rambla. We had been the day before and it didn't help much either. The place was cordoned off and not even Roser's 4x4 could go down that stony ground, I argued. He won her again. To my surprise, the area was no longer guarded.
Or yes, because ahead of us was a Civil Guard Nissan. "Now its occupants will get out and force us to turn back," he thought. But not. We continue the path towards the pool, between rocks and branches, escorted and without problems. Pure mount on one side and the other that forced to slow down the march and scratched the sides of the two vehicles.
Those agents were about to end their shift. They were looking for Marina and Laura's grave because they felt the need to say goodbye to them. That's what Roser wanted. I get goosebumps every time I remember it. The sound of the river, the aquatic plants, the soft sound of rain that the wind ripped from the poplars...
The four accidental companions redid the path several times until we arrived. Earth with signs of having been moved very recently. Remains of lime The agent who led the march stopped suddenly, head down, in an attitude of recollection. There, among heather, brambles and weeds, I received my best lesson, next to the pit.
Sergio Morate Garcés had everything studied. The ditch, quicklime to speed up decomposition. He never imagined that Marina would arrive accompanied. He was waiting only for her: the trench he had dug days before was deep enough for a single body, not two. That allowed them to be found much sooner than he would have wanted.
A few hours earlier we had attended the funeral. Laura's procession had so many flowers that two hearses were needed, one extra for the wreaths. However, all of Marina's flowers fit into one vehicle and traveled with her. Some bouquets were placed on her coffin and the ground was strewn with petals. They looked like tears on the asphalt. I took one of those petals, just one, and kept it.
When we left the grave, I looked at Roser, took out the petal and left it on such an impious mound, asking for forgiveness in the name of the human race. We return to Barcelona. I never told Roser how much I admire her. She is the bravest woman I know, despite her 22 operations and 208 centimeters of scars from her. Do you remember the wrecked bike from 1992? It was hers.
She also went to Sant Quirze de Besora. She almost dies in the accident. Hard as steel, she recovered and I was lucky enough to share the newsroom with her at La Vanguardia. Now our paths have separated, but from time to time I discover her in a book, a magazine, an exhibition or an 8-M. And I always think the same thing: "Thank you, Roser, for teaching me that it is not enough to report an event, we must honor and respect the memory of the victims."
Another version of this text was published on our website on Friday, December 31, 2021
