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Victoria is 21 years old, two younger siblings, Juan and Marieta, and is studying the last year of Psychology at the Francisco de Vitoria University, located in Pozuelo, near her family's Madrid villa in Somosaguas. She was educated at Mater Salvatoris, an elite girls' school and at the age of 11, she moved with her parents to Panama, where she was a student at the Inter-American Academy. A lover of acting, he took a film and theater course, and has also collaborated with the Altius Foundation, an NGO that facilitates labor insertion. Very discreet, few of her colleagues know that she is the heir to an important title on which weighs a tragic legend: the marquisate of Urquijo with greatness. Granted in 1871 by Amadeo of Savoy to Estanislao de Urquijo Landaluce, a Basque who would form one of the most important financial sagas in the country, Alfonso XIII granted greatness to his descendants. As published by the BOE on July 27, Victoria Urquijo Caruncho requested it a year after the death of her father, Juan Manuel Urquijo de la Sierra, who died on July 5, 2022 at the age of 63 due to bronchopneumonia derived from Covid, after being diagnosed with cancer. Her eldest daughter has also applied for the marquisate of Loriana, which was also held by her father, granted by Philip III in 1599.

This past August 1, marked the 43rd anniversary of an event that shocked Spain for its cruelty: the shooting murder while sleeping in their mansion in Somosaguas of the marquises of Urquijo, Manuel de la Sierra and Lourdes Urquijo Morenés, great-grandparents of Victoria and owners of the legendary Urquijo bank, then in the process of merging with the Hispanoamericano. A crime never fully clarified that made rivers of ink flow, for which the ex-husband of Miryam, firstborn of the marriage, was sentenced to 53 years in prison "alone or in the company of others". Javier Anastasio, accused of co-authorship, fled to Brazil and the late Mauricio López Roberts was also convicted of accessory. The morbidity multiplied when in 1988 Escobedo appeared hanged in his cell, claiming suicide, although it seems that cyanide was found in his lungs. The skein of suspicion splashed even the children of the marquises, Myriam, who was 24 years old and Juan, Rafi's intimate, 22, who have carried this sambenito for life.

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Crime.

Marquesses of Urquijo, 42 years of crime and the most mysterious botched

  • Writing: LUIS FERNANDO ROMO

Marquesses of Urquijo, 42 years of crime and the most mysterious botched

The truth is that the aristocratic home where both grew up had little fairy tale: his mother María Lourdes, Marchioness of Urquijo, Loriana and Villar del Águila, was an only child. Her parents, owners of the Urquijo bank, accumulated fortunes, titles and palaces but she, introverted, extremely religious and in fragile health, was educated alone with German friareins in the family mansion of Castellana. He married in the Church of Santa Barbara in December of 54 with a childhood friend, Manuel de la Sierra, despite his father's opposition. He was a Catalan lawyer son of a general but without titles or fortune, so his father-in-law vetoed him in the Urquijo bank until he died.

Myriam and Juan grew up with two nannies because their mother suffered frequent headaches that prevented her from even speaking, although she turned to providing them with an exquisite education. They attended elite bilingual schools, learned five languages and even picked Miryam up at school bringing her a tupperware of food so she would not miss music classes at the conservatory.

In their twenties, despite the family fortune, they barely received money for their expenses. Miryam was a source of displeasure for her parents, refusing to study a career and marrying Rafi Escobedo, handsome but without "trade or benefit", from whom she separated after six months and would be convicted of the murder of the marquises. Her second husband was an American, Richard Dennis Rew, father of her sons Alejandro and Borja, and her current partner is Pakistani businessman Banks Bokhara.

The existence of Juan, Marquis of Urquijo since 1981, was not fortunate either. They say that the complicated relationship with his father pushed him to leave for London, where he lived when he was killed. Graduated in law and business, he began professionally in the family bank, Urquijo. Unlike his sister, more media, after the murder of his parents, he disappeared from the public spotlight. In the distribution of the inheritance he obtained the mansion of Somosaguas, which his sister did not want to step on ("the smell of blood took over me") leaving Miryam the properties of Sotogrande and Banyeres. In October 2000, he married Rocío Caruncho Fontela in Los Jerónimos, mother of his three children, with whom he lived in the "cursed" mansion of Somosaguas, which he never managed to sell. He spent long periods in Panama, where he did thriving business at the head of the agency Pacific Credit, Energy or the real estate agency San Felipe. In 2017 it transpired that he had separated from Rocío, although they continued to maintain a good relationship, even when he came to Spain he resided with his ex and his children in Somosaguas. The last time he was seen publicly before his death was in 2016 at the wedding of his nephew Alejandro, Myriam's firstborn, with Rebeca Selma held in Pastrana.