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 confession of a criminal act such as murder, the most serious of those that can be committed against a person, does not always give the perpetrator an advantage at the time of sentencing. The benefits of a confession that is made when there is still no investigation of the facts or if there is one, it is not directed against the person who is about to incriminate himself, are highly valued. This legal figure is not so defined when what is known as late confession occurs. This occurs when the investigation is already underway and the person investigated during the process provides very relevant information in aid of justice, in shortening the investigation times and with the contribution of very relevant information, especially if this clarifies the participation of third parties. But are the confessed repentant? Raúl Díaz Chacón admitted during the trial that yes, he did kill his wife Romina Celeste. He denied that she had been found dead. What did turn out to be true is that he dismembered her and got rid of her remains, as we told in the last installment of Black Dossier. His contribution of information was untimely and inconclusive.
The murderer Bernardo Montoya acted in the case of the unfortunate Marta Luelmo in a similar way to what Raúl Díaz did with his defenseless wife Romina, only that the man from Huelva confessed to the crime a few hours after being arrested – although in the first investigations he denied any connection with the facts - and not four years later as the engineer did in the Canary Islands.
A crime changed everything. The murder of Ana Orantes in 1997 at the hands of her husband after the victim appeared on a television program recounting four decades of mistreatment at the hands of her husband, and ultimately executioner, changed the consciences of a country that still has not took gender violence as a state problem. Ana's murderer beat her up and left her in very bad condition. He tied her to a chair and burned her alive in the yard of her house. He turned himself in a few hours after the crime and admitted to the crime.
Remote confessions. During the 2019 Christmas holidays, Mari Àngels, a 49-year-old resident of Girona, drowned her 10-year-old daughter in the bathtub. Her confession of the facts was most unusual: she did it while she was having a conversation over an instant messaging system with a journalist from the city newspaper. “Hello, Albert, I killed my daughter,” she snapped and then told him the details of the homicide.
Serial femicide. Ciudad Juárez, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, is a border territory and is often known for being the scene of episodes of extreme violence related to organized crime; with drug cartels. Intimately related to all this persists the ignominy of the thousands of women murdered and disappeared in the city for no reason or any other apparent reason other than their female status.
Mutilated corpses. As in the case of Romina Celeste, the dismemberment of victims is a prevalent practice in these cases. The author of Juana Canal's death confessed that he killed and dismembered her partner 20 years after the woman was reported missing. In the series that can be seen on Prime Video, Chained, the figure of a serial criminal who acted in Germany in the 80s and 90s of the last century is drawn with a real basis.
