Paloma H. MatellanoSpecial envoy Toledo
Special Envoy Toledo
Updated Thursday, March 21, 2024-02:01
Toledo Neighbors of the house where the four bodies were found noticed "a strange smell" a few days ago
Events Carbon monoxide poisoning, possible cause of death of the 4 deceased people found in a home in Toledo
The poor combustion of a
butane stove
caused the death of the four people whose bodies were found last Tuesday in a home in Toledo.
This is confirmed by the autopsy of two of them, which concludes that they died from
carbon monoxide poisoning
.
The deceased - three men and a woman - did not share family ties, as they lived in a
shared apartment
, a detail that was deduced because each of the rooms in the house had an interior lock.
The four deceased people are a Spanish man and a woman aged
56 and 46
, respectively, a Romanian man aged
64 and a
58-year-old
man
born in the United Kingdom who had Spanish nationality.
Their bodies are at the
Forensic Anatomical Institute
of Toledo, waiting for the remaining autopsies to be performed, and their identities have not yet been revealed.
Some of them were known to the neighbors, who indicated that they had not seen them since last
Friday, March 15
.
The deceased were distributed among the three rooms of the home and, in a first inspection, the agents located a small butane stove in the room located at the back of the house.
The device
still had the ignition switch activated
, although it was no longer emitting a flame because the gas had been consumed.
It was precisely in this room where the body was found, which was in a more advanced state of decomposition, as confirmed yesterday in a press conference by the Government delegate in Castilla-La Mancha,
Milagros Tolón
.
The first hypotheses already pointed to gas poisoning as the cause of death, after the agents
did not detect signs of violence
during the inspection of the home or on the bodies of the deceased - waiting, Tolón pointed out, for the autopsies confirmed it.
Furthermore, the senior chief of the Castilla-La Mancha Police,
Javier Pérez
, reinforced the main thesis and clarified that butane gas "is susceptible to transferring from one room to another."
The state of decomposition in which the bodies were found and the temporal distance from the last time these citizens were seen suggests that the death could have occurred several days ago.
A neighbor, whose window overlooks the interior patio from which the deceased's home is accessed, already noticed a "
strange smell
" last Sunday.
According to what she stated in statements to EL MUNDO, three days ago she noticed an "unpleasant" stench, like a "dead animal", while she was hanging clothes on that patio.
On the contrary, the neighbor who lives in the house located just above that of the deceased did not notice anything until the agents arrived on Tuesday afternoon, when, she notes, the stench was already "unbearable."
This newspaper was able to access her home and the common areas - indoors and outdoors - where the entrances to the home where the bodies were found are located, and the smell is still intense.
The house is a low house that is accessed directly from the street, although it shares an interior patio with the adjacent block.
It is located on the
Cuesta de Santa Leocadia
, a narrow alley located in the historic center of Toledo.
Local Police, National Police and members of the fire department went to the home this Tuesday alerted by a woman who called 112 around seven in the afternoon because she
had not located
one of the residents in the house for days.
After verifying the lack of response, the agents entered the house through the interior patio and found the four bodies.
It was then that a broad operation was deployed, which included units of the Judicial Police, Scientific Police and a Judicial Commission made up of forensic experts, judges and lawyers.
The house was sealed off and the street was closed to traffic until after midnight.
The mayor of Toledo,
Carlos Velázquez
, went to the scene of the events on Tuesday to show his "dismay."