20 years since the first murder solved in Madrid with CSI techniques: "With the luminol, the fluorescent liquid, the blood stains emerged"

The Police began by specifying that the body found in the Casa de Campo

.

And that portrays, above all, the purpose that the murderer wanted to give to his crime when, at night, on October 19, 2001, he threw the body of his ex-partner, still his employee, in a clothing boutique in Cuatro Caminos, to a ditch in the Cerro de Garabitas.

She was found by a cyclist the next morning. The young woman kept her jewelry and her cell phone in her purse.

. Although barefoot, her red socks immaculate with mud, on rainy days and in an unpaved area, ruled out that she was any of the women who live in the open. The murderer had stripped it of documentation,

, no less than six, with an iron bar. The family had to give it a name, due to a scar on her back: Susana Valdivia Hernández, 27, a native of Móstoles, the older of two brothers, a victim of gender violence 15 months before the official count of those cases began. Nobody called them that; the media, this one, also

, also

They spoke of

.

Nothing is more important than her in this story, an attempt to remember her 20 years later, although journalism imposes that retrospective is only legitimized if it is accompanied by novelty.

There he goes: the murderer, Julián García Bouix, 36 years old at the time, nine years older than his victim,

, that product that brings out the remains of blood even on the best cleaned surface.

A substance whose effects are famous thanks to the CSI series.

But when it was used for the first time in Madrid - perhaps a milestone also in Spain, although it is not possible to affirm it - it was a year before Telecinco premiered the first chapter here.

In tragic hours, García Bouix coldly maintained his routine.

The murder occurred between 7:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. on Friday, but he waited for night to fall to bring a vehicle to the door of the clothing store and

.

After ditching him, she went out for drinks with a friend, her alibi.

The Elite boutique opened on Saturday, but after the Casa de Campo woman was identified as her ex-partner, she was arrested on Monday.

Although the Homicide Group had him as the main and only suspect, he

and in the first inspection no evidence was found either in the store they shared or in his vehicle.

Of course, too clean.

"Stains everywhere"

"He

" says José Luis Soriano, his lawyer. In his memory, after two decades, a scene emerges clearly: "The police took him to the back of the premises. We were there and they told us: 'We are going to use a substance that acts as a fluorescent and we are going to dim the lights.' They began to spray and stains appeared everywhere. The researchers, emphasizing a lot, shouted: 'That's it'; 'we have it'; 'here you can see the blood'; 'there is no doubt' ... And he fell apart .

. This man had thoroughly cleaned the store, but when sprayed with the liquid .... " Four days of falsehoods were broken and

,the first day of 16 years.

Esmeraldo Rapino, then head of Homicide, was not present.

Discover now that part of the story, although it is

.

A boy, Martín, just out of the Academy, had just joined his team, in practice, up-to-date in methods.

Luminol, with sodium / potassium hydroxide and hydrogen peroxide, in contact with the iron in hemoglobin, reveals traces of blood invisible to the eye.

He spoke of luminol -in the United States it has only been used since 1998- and

Madrid

.

They did not use it, "because they said that it gave false positives," says Rapino, who completes: "But some tests had been done and had to be tried before the time of preventive detention expired. We then spoke with the Central, the General Police Station of Scientific Police, and they were the ones who came ".

Due to luminol, in the back room, traces of blood appeared on two shelves, on the floor,

... Traces of blows, with an iron bar, on the head, a mortal one at the base of the skull, after a discussion, according to the defendant, about the professional capacities of both for that business.

The breakdown of the relationship

They had lived together in an apartment at number 26 Jaén street, owned by his family, in a portal attached to the store, located at 22.

, and Susana ruled out reconciliation.

The last link was professional, expiring on December 31.

She even pretended to anticipate it: she was going on interviews looking for another job.

"I do not remember that luminol was discussed at the trial, although it had been the key. After the scene in the store, he no longer changed the version and then I did not see any reason to question whether or not that substance was reliable. Once he confesses , I told him: 'I am not going to defend an acquittal for you.

in the event, but ...'. He accepted, "recalls José Luis Soriano.

Rapino, head of the Homicide Group in 2001.A.

NAVARRETE

In his conclusions, he described what happened as homicide (a crime punishable by 10-15 years in prison). Specifically,

The Prosecutor's Office and the private prosecution, on behalf of Susana Valdivia's parents, classified the crime as murder (15-25 years). And that is how the jury would also understand it, unanimously, and the judge, Arturo Beltrán Núñez, when addressing the aggravation of treachery: "The form of attack was not accidental but rather sought, the aggressor had to take

and from that moment on he was aware of his absolute advantage, without the victim having any possibility of defense ". They did not take "as credited the disparagements and humiliations" that the accused denounced, they denied "who suffers from an impulse control disorder ”and ruled out

Murder, not murder.

"But I think I remember that

," says the defense attorney.

Indeed, the 16-year sentence was in the lower part of the possible range and that leads to a second element, a question, which justifies this look at the past: What would have happened today?

"Kinship aggravation"

With the current Penal Code, which includes the aggravating factor of gender, he would

and the present would save the image of seeing him smile in a Facebook image. But beyond the textuality of the laws, the murder of Susana Valdivia serves as an example of the change in mentality. "I think they could have

" says Susana Gisbert, a prosecutor specializing in gender violence and former spokesperson for the Valencia Provincial Prosecutor's Office.

His colleague, in fact, requested it at trial. He asked for 19 years in prison, alluding to the "aggravating kinship or analogous affective relationship." However, neither the jury nor the judge understood it the same, curiously, using the words of the victim's mother: intimacy "had been broken a

." No one doubted that the break was crucial in the murder and the media spoke of a "crime of passion", however, as there was no coexistence, neither jury nor judge valued the "kinship".

If it had occurred three years later, with the gender violence law in force, "the sensitivity would have been different and it would have been looked at differently," says Gisbert, who clears up a common misunderstanding: the 2004 rule only

, "the kind of giving a black eye, but not murder or rape." Of course, it introduced specific courts of gender violence, "where everyone who intervenes is a specialist." However, "16 years is a lot," he contextualizes. "Even with kinship, he could have gone 17 or 18 years", therefore, García Bouix would also be free today.

The change for him and others came in 2015, with the modification of the Penal Code that, along with aggravating factors such as homophobia or racism, includes gender violence.

"At the beginning, it was not easy to apply it either, but

", illustrates Gisbert, revealing the jump in two decades, of that jury that understood that without a shared house there is no "affective relationship" and the judge that today he doesn't even think about it.

"With gender violence,

I

, and the court would probably have to have been located at the top of the criminal range (20-25 years).

That is to say, García Bouix would continue in prison and outside, the broken, which is not a little, the third and last reason for this trip in time.

Nothing lasts longer than death

From the certainty that nothing lasts longer than death, the

is discovered

, a title that Miguel Ángel Hernández gave to a book from 2018, an editorial phenomenon that year, where he

.

December 23, 2021. Where the Elite boutique was, at 22 Calle Jaén, today the film production company Nadie Films has its headquarters.

On the 26th, the arrival of the postman makes it easier to cross the door of the portal and a tremor accompanies the discovery, in the mailbox, of the surnames García and Bouix, parents and children of the murderer.

Because before Susana Valdivia, Julián had another partner;

No one answers on the third landing.

But in the street, a neighbor finally agrees to speak, after negotiating for 200 meters on the way to the clinic.

"How can I forget, if they continue to live there."

Parents?

"No, they are in the mailbox because it was always like this. The mother would say that she comes sometimes, but the father I think died. The problem is the daughter, who

. She is on drugs and there are many problems" .

Her father's crime caught her in her early teens.

The neighborhood and the memory

The pain of others.

For no one but family members.

The attempt to contact them was unsuccessful, but it is not difficult to intuit the wound when

This was a somewhat festive building, with three floors, on the first two floors, inhabited by university students. Nostalgia could be limited to trifles. José Ángel, Miguel and Ángel, from the 2nd year, would continue to regret that "Lali always refused to paint the floor" and would proudly regret: "We have killed too many neurons to remember much more." Eva, from the 1st, doubts if her landlord was called "Fermín or Jacinto", but she is aware that "with his little mustache, the Goya always appeared in the first rows at the Gala." And David, Estíbaliz and Fiona, from the other 2nd

, would talk about how "the judge never wanted to change the mattresses." On a floor with

, where it was enough for one to shout "Lady Di is dead" for it to radiate to the entire plant, even some mistreatment, of which it was not heard, could be remembered as passengers, as

writes of that New York block where she woke up to the life. His book,

, is crossed by another greater bitterness, as it happens with this report.

Fiona: "20 years have passed and I have not forgotten her face, nor his. They were nice; he, too much, of this that makes you distrust. She was a tall, blonde girl,

".

And in his story an insult escapes when he knows "that someone who does something like that has posted a photo on his profile with another girl, coincidentally, on March 8".

There is not much more information than: "

"

Not hardly any activity, not even with his sister.

Only two unanswered messages from a former prisonmate: "We were together in Soto and Aranjuez."

And then: "Why don't you answer?"

No friends to show.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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