“They told us that he couldn’t be at home,” starts Ana, José’s youngest daughter. “It was not safe for him… We spoke with the doctors and with the social worker and we decided that the best thing was for my father to enter a residence.” His name is José Molina, but everyone knows him as ‘Mr. José’. Retired, a lover of the countryside, with a quiet life, he dedicated most of his life to the public bus service in Barcelona. The forgetfulness worsened, the diagnosis arrived: senile dementia.
“For some time now, my father had a tendency to leave, to go out,” his daughter recalls before CASO ABIERTO, the portal for events and investigation by Prensa Ibérica. “After one of his outings, they recommended the residence to us. The last ten years my father lived with me, since my mother died, but before his escapes I couldn’t control him and the only option for him not to come out was to have him tied up if I wasn’t home… I wasn’t going to tie him up. So that he would be protected, so that he would not get lost… we assumed that hospitalizing him was the best “. José He entered the center on a Wednesday. Thursday He disappeared. Ana has been searching for answers for twelve years. Looking for her father. They do not arrive, she is not there.
“On October 18, 2011, Wednesday, at one in the afternoon, we took my father by ambulance to the residence.” The center: Llar Sant Jordi, in Gélida (Barcelona), in the middle of the mountains, surrounded by vegetation. “There was only one place left and they gave it to us“, recalls the woman. The first month they would pay 1,600 euros, then it would be transformed into a public square. “It was about 20 minutes by car from home”, in Sant Esteve Sesrovires, near Martorell (Barcelona). “It was the closest, for geolocation, the best”.
“That Wednesday, after admitting him, we were with him all afternoon,” recalls Ana, “and we agreed to return the next day to finish the paperwork.”
José settled in, oblivious to everything. “He was 85 years old and diagnosed with senile dementia. Over time, my father it deteriorated and his obsession was to leave home. In his mind, he believed that he was going to work, to pick olives… He was not aware of reality “Ana, his daughter, the social worker and the medical report, reported his escapades to the director of the center. He needed control.” They told us he would be fine.”
“The last time I saw my father was on a stone path, near the residence. He was with a girl who took him for a walk”
On Thursday, October 19, Ana and her husband returned to the center. Jose had spent the night well. “The last time I saw my father was on a stone path, near the residence. He was with a girl who took him for a walk. I went to talk to the director and when I finished it was time for lunch, just before two. Since I had to come back in the afternoon, I thought it best not to disturb him. I thought: then I’ll be with him. ” She did not see him again.
“Your father is gone, he is not here”
“At five in the afternoon, just when I was leaving to go back there, the director called me. She told me that my father had left, that he was not there.” They conveyed a certain calm, despite the message. “I thought: well, he must have tried to leave, as he did lately.” Ana hung up and went there. “When I arrived, the firefighters and the police were already looking for him. Apparently, they told me at five, but my father disappeared at three.”
Male, 85 years old. Height: 1.58, bald and some gray hair. He suffers from senile dementia. Eight units of the Bombers together with the Mossos d’Esquadra deployed for days in the area. “This residence is in the middle of a forest. They were looking for the mountain, for the town…”. Nothing carried to him. “I could not believe it. It was three in the afternoon when, presumably, my father came out and no one had seen him…“Explains his daughter. No trace. No clues. “They were on the ground for a week. In the end they ended the search and until now. There hasn’t been anything else.”
The open door
The investigations began. When, how, why. At the same time, the beats followed one another. “The police asked if anyone had left at that time. It was learned that the hairdresser had left in his car, no one else.”
Access to or exit from the center, at that time, always worked the same: “the door was one of these old ones with a bell and an intercom, without a camera. You press and they open the door for you from inside. You say: ‘Family of such…’, they They don’t see you and you don’t see them. They open the door for you and you walk in… When the hairdresser left the center, I imagine that my father took advantage and went after“.
The alert, Ana deduces for obvious reasons, jumped late. “My father walked very slowly. He didn’t run. That dirt road, when he left, a normal person will do it in about ten minutes, my father would take longer… And then you come to a road that goes to the town.” When they went out looking for him, there was no sign of him.
“I am almost sure that my father was not monitored well,” laments Ana. “There are few staff in the residence. The older ones, after eating, They go out into a courtyard that is not watched and they are left alone.. My father’s thing was to leave … we warned him, because he left “.
Hikers and boletaires
No one in the area, frequently visited by hikers and boletaires -mushroom hunters- has ever found anything that leads to José. “No clothes, no trace or anything.” The posters, with which they papered nearby corners, They have not provided their location either..
“I remember that we put a lot. The RENFE goes through there, we put it in all the stations, in Barcelona, in the town, in the closest towns….” Only one woman contacted the police“It was in that first week. He said he had seen my father or someone who looked like him.” The mossos went to check it out. He was not him. “It was the only call. We haven’t received any more.”
The residence completely dissociated itself, denounces Ana: “the truth is that at no time did they help. They did not offer anything or ask how I was… A month after he disappeared, they called me to tell me that my father’s position was going to be occupied, since he was not there. They have not called me back. At this point, with the time that has passed, I don’t expect anything anymore.”
Settled in Barcelona, originally from Malaga, José lived practically all his life in Catalonia. His hobby was the field. “He had a house with land, and his greatest joy was his garden.” Linda, an Andalusian hound, was her inseparable companion. “We took the dog to see if we could locate it. She got nervous at her scent, but she didn’t go any further than her room.”
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The search ended up going down in intensity, but she’s still alive. “Every six months a mossa calls me, who is a psychologist. She asks me how I am, tells me about the investigation. There is nothing new, but it is still open. I know that my father is not alive, but finding some remains would comfort me. Alive I know I’m not going to have it…”.
They called him Mr. Jose. Sociable, well-liked, talkative, his change was gradual. First there were forgetfulness, schedule changes, then came the losses, the disorientation. “And that,” laments Ana, “is the story… the sad story of my father,” her daughter closes. “We took him to the residence so he wouldn’t get lost and after 24 hours he disappeared.”