The retiree’s cap and glasses appeared on a chair at his farm in Cabra (Córdoba) that afternoon. Police investigated whether a nearby fire could be related to her disappearance.
They wore blue. It was the only data that Francisco Bonilla’s neighbor could provide: “There were two people with him in his garden, talking, they were wearing blue clothes“. The data is important, because it broke his routine: “He spent the afternoons alone and sitting in the shade, under the persimmon,” says his brother Joaquín. Also because it is the last scene of him. After that meeting, Francisco Bonilla, a 68-year-old retiree, disappeared in Cabra (Córdoba) the afternoon of April 13, 2015. That day he had been eating with another brother, Vicente, with whom he lived; when he returned from work, Francisco was not at home.
“What happened? What did they do to him? Where is he? Our day to day, for seven years, has become asking questions,” laments Joaquín. They call Francisco ‘Kiki’, he had just retired for a year and he was happy. “My brother didn’t go of his own free will, he’s all I know. And We ruled out that he was disoriented or something happened to him. She didn’t have any disease.” Under the tree, they found her empty chair, her cap and her glasses. Since then, there is no more.
“Something has happened here,” is the first thing Vicente, his other brother, thought when he got home and Francisco was not there. “Like every day, they ate together, ‘Kiki’ stayed on the farm and Vicente left,” says Joaquín. “When Vicente returned home, it was already half past ten at night, because he left work at ten…”, his brother recalls. “He called my sisters: ‘no, I of’ Kiki ‘I don’t know anything & mldr;'”, he explains. “The first thing they did was call the outpatient clinic, the hospitals… There was no one with those characteristics. They went to the olive grove, in case he had fallen and something had happened to him, but nothing. They searched the area… and until today” .
fire in a fig tree
Francis’ brothers They filed a disappearance report with the National Police. The search started. The agents surrounded the area: “everything was sealed,” he recalls. “National Police, do not pass”.
The interrogations began. They tried to reconstruct the steps that Francis was able to take that afternoon. “From 2:30 p.m., when my brother left, until 10:30 p.m. we had nothing,” laments Joaquín. A neighbor affirmed that that afternoon she saw him accompanied: “Two unknown people, his glasses, his cap on the site… It wasn’t normal.”
That same afternoon there was another alert in Cabra, “a fire broke out in the same area, something strange. A fig tree had been burned…Joaquin recalls. Even today they wonder if he had a connection or not. “The police looked at it, but we had the bad luck that the next day it rained. They told us that many things had been lost in the rain.”
for weeks wells, roads were beaten; It was tracked in the vicinity of the farm, the orchard in the area of Cerrillo la Horca, in Cabra. There was no trace.
Dozens of volunteers joined, also mountain biking clubs and riders, to access more difficult areas. Dog guides, a National Police helicopter, Local Police, Civil Guard, Civil Protection, firefighters from the Provincial Consortium and volunteers participated. “There was no trace, nothing appeared.”
“They fought 8 kilometers around,” says Joaquín. “He walked a lot… what was looked at a little less was the river. They were searching with georadar, but they did not allow to clean or cut weeds. Perhaps it took away precision, but he fought,” laments Joaquín.
No data. Without news. “Seven years later there is nothing and, from the police, everything is open,” says his brother. “They investigated some peoplebut so far they have not been able to identify the two who were dressed in blue“, perhaps clues, “who were with my brother that afternoon.” They have been working on it ever since.
“Perhaps someone had an argument with my brother, he got out of hand, and they left him lying somewhere,” laments Joaquín
Agents and family try to reconstruct the previous hours. “I believe, and I am telling the police as well, that someone did something to him.” The agents do not rule it out, and it is one of their lines of investigation, which is entrenched, which does not advance. “They tell us to see if they find the end of the thread… but it doesn’t come. It’s very hard to wait.”
“Perhaps someone had an argument with my brother, he got carried away, and they left him lying somewhere,” laments Joaquín. “The other one would get scared and he went and has taken it out of the way.”
It wasn’t a robbery
There is no trace, there are no clues, there are no movements or anything that leads to Francisco. It has been proven that behind his disappearance there is no economic reason, that Francisco did not suffer a robbery. Your checking accounts are still intact, just as you left them. Nothing was missing on the farm.
“Don’t forget it,” asks Joaquín. His mind, that of the rest of the brothers, of his nephews, has not stopped since then: Who was talking to him dressed in blue? His orchard, where he was last seen, is in a very walkable area, “perhaps someone remembers something else that could be key.”
Francisco, ‘Kiki’, lover of his house, his family, his garden, his farm, his cats and the bulls. He enjoyed his quiet life; he was resting, retired, after many years of work in a local pomace factory. He was 68 years old, now he would be 73, but Francisco is not here.
Your neighbors, your family, your people await you. “There isn’t a day when you don’t think about where he will be, where he won’t be & mldr;”, laments Joaquín, “empty questions, unanswered questions”.
They seek, they do not rest. “It’s been seven years and it hurts like the first day“. They remember him, daily, in his orchard: “with the triggers that he had there, cleaning the olive trees, cutting the twigs, and planting four little things: potatoes, tomatoes to later share with the family…” Sitting at the shade of the khaki, where he was last seen, where he liked to be.