Transcription
Foreign from the second part of the 20th century. So sit back as we go to Spain.
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He had Martinez de la Aguila was born in 1953 in a small village in the province of Mercia in Southeastern Spain. She had two older brothers, one named Jose Antonio and the other named Manuel. Her father named Andres came from a humble rural family and like many men from the village, was employed on a local farm. He worked very long hours, but the wages were low and despite his dedication, there was never any extras for small treats for his family. His wife named Antonia stayed at home looking after the house and the children.
Some of the neighbors had moved away to larger Spanish cities and Antonia wondered if doing the same may mean that they could get a bigger house and a higher standard of living and greater opportunities for their children. She was aware that her two sons and her daughter were happy in the village, playing with friends in the square and in the many surrounding fields.
At the time, there was a construction boom in Spain as a government had started to build much social housing. These properties were then being made available to buy or rents at very affordable prices. Some of the houses were built in the Del Carmen neighborhood of Mercia, a city in southeast Spain famed for its architecture, large squares and beautiful gardens. It is also the closest city to the village where the Martinez de la Aguilar family lived. Many factories were opening and many people from rural areas were arriving to take advantage of the increased work opportunities.
Andres was offered a position to train and become a bricklayer and assist with the building of the many houses needed for the workers and their families who would be arriving in the city. His wife Antonia was excited about this. She was very happy to be starting a new life and although she was a little worried that her daughter Piedad may miss her friends, she believed that living in Murcia would mean that in the future all of her children will be able to find better paying employments, especially as more industries were opening in the area and Spain was becoming more industrialized.
However, things became more difficult for the family when over the next few years, Antonia gave birth to seven more children. Despite her husband's better wages, his salary wasn't enough to keep their large family. The eldest children had learned to read and write but had to abandon their studies to go to work in order to help with the family's financial needs. Sixteen-year-old Jose Antonio, who is the eldest child, followed in his father's footsteps and obtained a position as an apprentice bricklayer, while his fourteen-year-old brother named Manuel found a job as a metal worker.
Piedad was now 12 and had always enjoyed playing in the neighborhoods, but now with so many siblings and her being the eldest daughter, her mother relied on her to help look after the young ones. Not only did she feed, change and dress her little brothers and sisters, but she also had to clean the house, do the laundry and help prepare meals. If that wasn't enough, she was expected to earn a little extra for the family, so found a part-time job polishing motorcycle parts. Sometimes her ten-year-old brother Jesus and an eight-year-old sister Christina would help her with this endeavor. Her mother cooked food to sell in the streets, but by the start of 1965, she was six months pregnant. The lovely home they once had was now overcrowded with children and motorcycle parts, and their living conditions had deteriorated drastically.
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Time. Spain was undergoing a period of significant political and social transformation. The country was still under the rule of General Francisco Franco, who'd been in power since the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939. Spain was largely isolated from the International Community and faced economic challenges due to years of autocratic policies and limited foreign investments. However, the country was experiencing a gradual shift towards a more liberal and open society. Industrialization had modernized many cities and Spain started to embrace foreign visitors, particularly those from Europe. The tourism industry began to flourish, especially along the Mediterranean Coast. Despite this progress, the country was still characterized as one of political repression. The Franco regime tightly controlled the media and granted very limited freedom of expression. Political opposition was suppressed and dissenting voices faced censorship and persecution.
On the 4th of December 1965, the Martinez de la Aguila family witnessed a tragedy when Maria Carmen, the youngest child at only nine months old, died under mysterious circumstances. The doctor from the Social Security diagnosed the cause of death as meningitis. This wasn't the family's first loss, as five years earlier, a two-month-old baby had also succumbed to the same illness. Five days later, on the 9th of December, the second youngest child, a two-year-old boy named Mariano, suddenly died. Again, the doctor diagnosed meningitis. Suspicion started to arise when five days later, four-year-old Encarnita died. The family doctor refused to sign the death certificates and alerted the court and health office about the unusual deaths that were happening. Three children dying within two weeks of each other raised concerns. Neighbors had grown anxious, fearing that the family may be affected with a contagious disease or that a strange virus was transmitting from one sibling to another. Consequently, they began to distance themselves from the family.
The authorities were quick to act and sent the Martinez de la Aguilar family to the Provincial Hospital of Murcia. Initially, it was thought that the children may have died from a food intolerance, but after conducting various tests, the doctors confirmed that they had found nothing unusual and the family were allowed to return home just in time for Christmas. However, two weeks later, on the 4th of January 1966, the now youngest child, five-year-old Andreas, became ill and died. Four of the Martinez de la Aguilar children had died in less than a month of each other, and all seemed to have been in good health before their sudden demise.
The deaths had a strange pattern. The children were dying in ascending order of age, and they'd all presented exactly the same symptoms. The bodies would begin to get a nasty rash and marks that turned darker like bruises. They would also develop purple spots. This was accompanied by a fever, followed by blackouts and strong convulsions, then they died. Still not knowing what was causing these strange and tragic deaths, doctors in Murcia removed the internal organs of Andreas and Encarnita and sent them to Madrid for analysis at the National Institute of Health. Here, no presence of any virus was detected, so the organs were passed on to the Institute of Toxicology. Subsequently, the bodies of the four children were exhumed. The toxicology report confirmed that without doubts, all the children had been poisoned. There were traces of DDT and potassium cyanide. At the University of Murcia, doctors conducted experiments with 21 guinea pigs and some dogs. They wanted to determine how much of the poison was needed to kill someone because they were unsure if the victims had unknowingly ingested the poison in some way or if it had been given to them on purpose. Following their experiments, they concluded that the children had been deliberately poisoned. They then sent their findings to the criminal investigation brigade.
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The first suspects logically were the parents. Andreas Martinez de la Aguila and his wife Antonia were arrested. Antonia was in the advanced stages of pregnancy and due to this, she was held in the maternity wards of the San Juan de Dios Provincial Hospital, while her husband underwent a mental health evaluation at the El Palmer Psychiatric Center. The news of the death of the children soon spread throughout Spain, catching the interest of a weekly publication named El Caso. This magazine, that was known for its coverage of strange occurrences and mysteries, sent a journalist to interview the Martinez de la Aguila children. All of the children had been given a bed in the hospital so they could be looked after by their mother and observed by the police and the medical staff. The local priest was also a regular visitor.
The youngest was a six-year-old boy named Manolo, who expressed to the journalist a haunting belief that he would be next to die, given the pattern of events. The deaths were happening in ascending order. In an attempt to console the little boy, the journalist assured him that this would not happen. The reporter observed that Piedad did not really engage with him. She exhibited an eerie sense of calm, seemingly waiting without fear for her turn to be mourned. The journalist informed the police, and they wondered if she may have been responsible for killing her siblings. She had been in charge of taking care of the little ones when her parents were out of the house working. An inspector devised a plan to see if this may be the case. He invited her to a bar and engaging in playful banter, he pretended to throw a ball of chloride into her glass of milk. She was initially amused, but Piedad quickly grew angry and prevented him from continuing. The inspector persistently urged her to drink, but she adamantly refused. At that moment, he confronted her, saying that she understood the potential harm such actions could cause, reminiscence of what she had done to her brothers and sisters.
Under pressure, Piedad confessed. She admitted to killing all four siblings, but insisted that the first three were at her mother's behest, while the last one was her own impulsive act. She explained her method of preparing the poison by combining metal cleaning tablets, especially those used for motorcycle parts, with rat poison. The lethal mixture was then poured into a glass of milk, which the children unknowingly consumed. This toxic combination would have caused rapid death, explaining why the children had died within half an hour of becoming ill. Upon admission to the psychiatric hospital, she began recounting five different versions of what happened, each one more contradictory than the last. She persistently accused her mother of being the person responsible. She always spoke calmly and clearly, looking at the officers in a way that made them feel that such a sweet girl surely could not be capable of doing something so awful. Although in the eyes of the doctors, she appeared to be a normal yet perplexed girl, fully aware of what she had done and the devastating effect of her actions.
Authorities believed that she had poisoned her siblings in a calculating and malicious manner. However, both the police and the medical professionals were unable to work out how such a young girl, who only possessed basic education, managed to discover the lethal potential of household products. The authorities were initially skeptical of Piedad's accounts and continued to investigate. Eventually, they established that she had acted independently when she confessed that her mother had been unaware of her actions. She described how she had been overburdened by the responsibility of caring for her siblings. She was the eldest daughter and was expected to remain at home while her parents and elder brothers were working. Here, they had resorted to poisoning the younger ones as they demanded the most attention. She aimed to eliminate them all, hoping for the freedom to be able to play with her friends.
When the magazine El Caso wrote their article about Piedad and the poisonings, they had record sales, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. The journalists included the line, "We could find ourselves before a girl of extraordinary cynicism or astonishing tranquility." He went on to describe her as strange, ironic, and sly, but the journalist also wrote that he believed that Piedad was the sole author of the four deaths. Being a minor, Piedad couldn't be formally charged and was instead placed under the custody of the juvenile protection courts. She found solace in a convent in Murcia, which provided compassionate care and support for at-risk girls. Despite her compelled confinement, she was polite and pleasant to the staff and to the other children and was always happy to be outside playing. She learned how to knit, and this became something of a passion. She would spend many hours knitting, and it was noted that she often had a sewing box by her side.
The family's name, however, continued to be in the press. The eldest brothers, Antonio and Manuel, started a singing duo and a businessman took them on a tour of Spain. This career did not last long. Antonio also tried to become a bullfighter, but again, his attempts to become famous in Spain for something other than being the brother of Piedad Martinez Aguilar failed. As time passed, both Antonio and Manuel became known to the police for their unlawful activities. They were eventually arrested for the theft of a motorcycle, and a few years later, Antonio was found guilty of murdering a taxi driver and given a sentence of life in prison. As the family's story disappeared from the papers and from the minds of the Spanish people, Antonio was once again in the news when in 1978, he was involved with 15 other inmates in a daring prisoner escape. Between them, the prisoners had managed to dig a tunnel to freedom. However, they were caught again soon after.
Tragically, the life of Señora Andreas Martinez de la Aguila and his wife Antonia continued to be blighted. They were rejected by society and left with an internal void after the loss of five of their children and the terrible crimes of Piedad. Antonio and Manuel. Andres lost his job but managed to find work as a refuse collector. However, he went blind and plunged his family into poverty. He sadly died a few years later. The details of Piedad's life after her internment is somewhat unclear. Some accounts suggest she embraced religious life, while others indicate that she returned to the streets and concealed her identity. The truth regarding her whereabouts and actions remained elusive as she attempted to conceal her past.
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Hello everyone, and thank you so much for listening. As usual, please leave any comments or feedback you may have, and I hope to see you all again in the next brief case.