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.
The loss of a loved one is a very painful thing, but that grief reaches gigantic proportions when parents are the ones who witness the death of a child. This illogic of natural chronology is even more ruthless when the death is due to a violent cause and, much more so, if it is homicidal. Supporting parents who have lost a child requires knowledge and patience. The point, these experts say, is for the victim to grieve in the best way possible. It is a fairly studied process that responds to a series of constants. When Marianela Olmedo, in the spring of 2013, her husband and eight-year-old daughter were stabbed to death in the Huelva town of Almonte, her devastation was acute, but it had not yet reached its limit when her new partner was arrested as suspect of a double crime committed in the heat of the Virgen del Rocío. We tell it in the new installment of the Dossier Negro podcast.
The murder of the young Diana Quer caused her parents to become involved in the maelstrom of the media, especially while the 497 days lasted during which it was not known where the body of the 18-year-old girl was, the prey of a ruthless killer. nicknamed El Chicle. The discovery was supposed to facilitate the way each of the parents, separated before the crime, made their mourning process.
Wait in vain. The parents of the young Cristina Bergua, who disappeared on March 19, 1997, have mourned the absence of their daughter ever since. There is no grave where you can pray, at most you can visit a space that the Cornellà City Council has dedicated to the memory of the young woman. The girl was 16 years old when her figure was erased forever. Her body has never been found.
Without giving up the fight. The unfortunate Yéremi Vargas was seven years old when he disappeared on March 10, 2007 while playing, a few meters from his house, in a field in Vecindario, a town in Gran Canaria. The little boy's body has not appeared, which complicates the way in which his family mourns his absence. Yéremi's mother has revealed herself to be a tireless fighter.
To go crazy. When three teenagers are murdered suddenly, the number of parents and family members who suffer multiplies. Miriam, Toñi and Desiré, three names that will forever be linked to the memory of Alcàsser's macabre crime, were raped, tortured and raped in 1993. The atrocity of the events captured the attention of the media and the parents were dragged into a dynamic that could drive anyone crazy.
Parents courage. Eva Casanueva and Antonio del Castillo are the parents of the young Marta del Castillo, who at the age of 17 was murdered in Seville in 2009 and whose body has never been found. They have never stopped fighting in the judicial system so that their daughter's case is not forgotten and that all those involved in the crime sit in the dock, beyond Miguel Carcaño, who initially confessed to the crime and who had launched the body to the river. He has changed his version numerous times. A documentary on Netflix gives the measure of the pain and complexity that the case exudes.
