“María del Mar has left home. We have argued, she has slammed the door, and she is not there.” At the door of Rosa’s apartment, the mother of María del Mar, the man added little more. It was the last clue they had of herIt was the last contact they had with him. On April 30, 2001, María del Mar Fusté He disappeared. He left home, according to his partner at the time, with what he was wearing. She had no money, clothes, or documentation. She did so by yelling and banging on the door. She didn’t know more. They have been looking for her ever since. They are waiting for her. Maria del Mar is not here.
“He arrived at my mother’s house, he said that they had argued, that my sister had left and we lost all contact with him,” recalls Sandra, the sister of the disappeared woman.
Maria del Mar Fuste. 31 years. For almost two years she had been working at the pastry shop ‘Las Tres Torres’ in Granollers (Barcelona). With an active life, a wide circle of friends, he lived with his partner in La Garriga (Barcelona).. She had met him at work, at the bakery, they had become engaged months before. He was a builder.
“They had been dating for a little over a year,” recalls Sandra, her sister, to CASO ABIERTO, the Events and Investigation portal of Prensa Ibérica. April 30, 2001 would be the last time she would hear from her sister. She disappeared. He evaporated.
“This man came to my mother’s house, told that María del Mar had left and we lost all contact with him”. She had left without clothes, without money, without warning. Nothing fit. The passing of days and the absence of news ended with the family of María del Mar in the Civil Guard barracks. “It was very strange… My sister left with nothing?” The investigation was exhausted soon: “Everything stopped. There were no indications or proofs or threads to pull from.”
Jealousy, blows and an argument
That day, the last, “my sister worked in the bakery making ‘monas’ (a typical Easter sweet). She finished, closed and went to have a drink with some friends“, says Sandra. It is one of the little that they have been able to rebuild.
After that, María del Mar returned home. “When she does it,” she backs off, “her partner of hers and she began to argue: where was she, who with…”. According to his version, the discussion escalated. The screams came. María del Mar, he assures, left the apartment slamming the door. She did not say where she was going. He never heard from her again. “The next day, he went to my mother’s house, she told him that my sister had left. She spent a day & mldr; and we went to report it. We never saw her again. We don’t know anything, until today.”
One day before she disappeared, María del Mar had gone to the hospital. She had bruises on her face and a broken nasal septum.
No trace, no news. Without explanation. The family contacted colleagues and friends of the woman. It was when they discovered “fights”, “jealousy” and “mistreatment”. “Apparently, he followed her, hit her… he was very jealous and controlling.“, laments Sandra today.
Those around María del Mar spoke of marks on her body, of beatings. The last, as they describe, the morning of the same day of the disappearance. “As we learned later,” recalls Sandra, “from the hospital registry, María del Mar had gone to get cured. She had bruises on her face and a broken nasal septum.”
Under the police gaze, he denied everything. He alluded to the fact that María del Mar had psychological problems – she took medication. He denied the blows. He acknowledged the argument. Nothing else. “At my mother’s house he appeared with his face scratched, I suppose my sister defended herself.”
The investigators paralyzed a work that was being built, temporarily, “according to my mother told us, they searched for a couple of days, but they did not see anything,” laments Sandra. She is still surprised that she never collaborated in the search: “She’s gone and I don’t know anymore, she was the only thing she kept.”
The investigation hit a wall. The hypotheses, all on the table, were changing: the idea of homicide, criminal action, lost strength; it became strong that María del Mar would have disappeared of her own free will. Searches have been exhausted. A few days later, her boyfriend canceled the bank account they shared.
He didn’t make it to his operation
Few data and many questions. “The last person who was with María del Mar was him and his answer was that he didn’t know anything.” His companions, his circle, did not notice anything strange that made them think that the woman wanted to disappear. “At the bakery they were surprised when, the next day, she did not go to work.”
Clinging to hope – to unreason – they decided to believe that perhaps it was something temporary. “Overwhelmed”, overcome, perhaps María del Mar would have “fled” for a few days. “It was strange, very strange, but I don’t know…”, laments her sister. She repeats and still finds it hard to believe: “leaves home with what is on. No one had seen her and she never came back to work… but since sometimes he did things that surprised…”.
They left a space of time. María del Mar had to return yes or yes weeks later: “in July she had to be operated on for some nodes in her neck.” It didn’t come. “Another reason to rule out that he left voluntarily. María del Mar did not appear.”
your things to church
“I was taking medication for anxiety and depression…” and it was not going through the best moment of it. He didn’t have an easy life, but he struggled with it, he wanted to be happy. “Maybe that’s why they signed up for the voluntary march,” Sandra tries to understand. “I find it hard to believe that my sister left without saying anything to anyone,” says the woman. “The truth is that at that time we were somewhat distant. I argued with her because of him. He didn’t want her to have anything to do with his family.” Sadly, Sandra describes an isolated María del Mar: “he wanted her to relate only to him”.
The days turned into months. María del Mar did not return and he never came back. “He stayed in the house where they lived. I don’t know what he would do with it, if he sold it or not,” Sandra thinks aloud. The family of María del Mar collected her belongings months later. “We went with a lawyer to the floor and removed everything. My sister hadn’t taken anything from there.“. After a lapse of time, having those clothes hurt: “my mother donated them to the Church, to help.”
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They lived through the first years pending the telephone: it did not ring. There were no bank, medical or legal movements. Everything faded to black, but they never stop waiting. 22 years have passed. “Every day is harder than the last. I remember her at every moment,” laments Sandra.
“She sometimes told me that she was not well… but I thought that if it was serious, I would not be with him. Now I understand: she was afraid, maybe that’s why she didn’t leave.” His intuition only leads him one way: “they did something to my sister. Did her boyfriend kill her? She was very skinny, maybe she accidentally hit him… “. She tries to find answers, they don’t come. Return to the starting point: “No clothes, no money… He leaves work. He comes home. They argue. He said he left, he left, he left… and that’s it.”