Madrid.The National Police detain a fugitive wanted for raping his two 5 and 8-year-old nieces
The agents had been monitoring the farmhouse, located in the Barcelona district of
Castellví de la Marca
, in the
Alto Penedés
, since mid-2017. They were convinced that the escapee,
Ramón Morte
, 46, has been searching and capturing since 2015 by a homicide committed during a robbery in 2002 in
Tarragona
, he was inside.
What other explanation could the visits of their parents and their three children have to that secluded farmhouse?
The follow-up that
Group II
locating fugitives from the P
National Police
he had realized Morte's family had been so conscientious that they even knew of the appearance of his eldest daughter, in her twenties, on the television dating program
First date
They had the conviction that it was there but no evidence with which to support the request for an entry order.
The place was very secluded, they did not have clear observation points and the surveillance was carried out from a distance.
The device had never managed to capture Ramón Morte, neither inside nor outside the house.
"Patience is the hunter's wisdom," they say in the fugitive team. Perseverance finally paid off on December 1.
Everything seemed to align in favor of the pursuers.
Around 11 a.m., at the same time that those responsible for the group of fugitives from the National Police met with their colleagues from the
Mossos d'Esquadra
to sign a coordination agreement in the search for Ramón Morte, the
eureka
.
An agent had managed to portray the fugitive at the door of the farmhouse with a telephoto lens.
The second section of the
Provincial Court
from Tarragona, the image of Ramón Morte was shown and the fear that he might escape was transferred.
"Do not worry, in an hour he will have the entry order," the judge told them. Thus, at 5:00 p.m., the police device started, worthy of the capture of a
bin Laden
.
Some 35-40 agents, between Mossos d'Esquadra and national police, armed with assault rifles, surrounded the farmhouse while a helicopter flew over it and a drone recorded the impressive display.
They entered the house and they were very nervous.
“There was excitement until the end,” they say in Group II of Fugitives, “when we made the entrance and he was gone, they began to think of the worst.
It was a very large farmhouse, it could have a hiding place .... We were looking everywhere and nothing ».
"It's me, it's me!"
It so happened that, just when the agents entered, Ramón Morte had gone to deliver a letter to the neighbor.
The fugitive's yard was connected to the fugitive's house.
He handed him the envelope and went, with his current partner, to cut firewood in the small forest at the back of the farmhouse.
When the agents reached this point, it was only her, crouched in the brush.
The woman, a clerk in a greengrocer, assured that she had never heard the name Ramón Morte, that the man she lived with used another identity, that she was unaware that he had pending accounts with the justice, much less that it was related to a homicide.
Her daughter, aged nine or 10, only knew that her mother's boyfriend had just left, and Ramón Morte managed to walk the kilometer and a half that separated him from the town of
La Múnia
.
He went into a bar there with his dog and spent three hours drinking beer.
Already in the street, the agents who were beating the area came across him.
He was not wearing a mask and it was easy to recognize him.
They surrounded him.
He got scared.
"It's me, it's me!" He confessed instantly.
Have you got nothing else to do but come after me?
Now I am a calm person, I do not get into trouble, I am confined at home, this happened a long time ago ... ", he excused himself. The news of the arrest caused special joy in the family of
Juan Antonio Lopez
, the 32-year-old man Ramón Morte killed on July 25, 2002. That day, around 7:00 p.m., Ramón, his brother
José
and his brother-in-law
Eugene
they drove the Opel Astra that they had stolen five days earlier to the company's premises
Discoda
, dedicated to the sale of beverages and located in the Tarragona industrial
Entrevías
.
Their faces were covered with ski masks and a revolver and a shotgun, the latter in Ramón's hands.
Fingerprints
Neither the news of the time nor the sentence of the Tarragona Provincial Court, which on March 25, 2014 sentenced Ramón Morte and his cronies to three years for theft of a vehicle, five for robbery with violence, two for illegal possession of weapons and 15 for homicide -25 in total-, collect the amount that was taken.
The fact is that, when the robbers were already leaving the place with the loot, one of Discoda's employees, Juan Antonio López, pounced on Ramón Morte.
They both fell to the ground and in the struggle Juan Antonio managed to remove his ski mask.
Morte responded by aiming at the head from a distance of a meter or a meter and a half - according to the autopsy - and pulling the trigger.
He died on the spot. The police recovered the Opel Astra, abandoned in the same polygon, and extracted four fingerprints that were not of sufficient quality to conclude an identification.
It could not be known who it belonged to with the forensic technology of the time, but with the advances of a decade later.
In 2011 it was discovered that they belonged to Morte's brother-in-law and a hair from the balaclava was also collected, which allowed the DNA of whoever was wearing it to be extracted.
In April 2012, Ramón Morte, his brother José and brother-in-law Eugenio were arrested.
The investigation was closed with the resolution of the Discoda event and also made it possible to demonstrate that the criminal organization had committed another 79 robberies with a firearm and that it had participated, in November 2009 in Sant Boi de Llobregat (Barcelona), in a brawl between two gypsy clans for a wedding that ended with a Heredia and two Castros dead. The Discoda trial was held in February 2014. Ramón, who was on provisional release, did not appear.
Although he was sentenced, the sentence could not be carried out and he was searched and captured.
In mid-2017, the Tarragona Police team that had carried out the investigation requested the help of specialists in fugitives.
They managed to get the search and capture order extended, which expired last November, and they bet everything on the farmhouse with the conviction that "patience is the hunter's wisdom."
To continue reading for free
Sign inSign up
Or
subscribe to Premium
and you will have access to all the web content of El Mundo
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
Know more