He rang the bell, when the women opened the door for him, he charged at them, hit them and tied them up. Later, she smoked a cigarette | His first victim was murdered on Good Friday.
María, 96 years old, has just been left alone at home. It is April 18, 2003, Good Friday. His son, his daughter-in-law -with whom he lives- have left around twelve to go pick up his great-granddaughter. It will go and come back. They are all going to eat together. They don’t take long, just pick it up.
Maria doesn’t see very well, but she fends for herself. She loves to go to mass, to get bread and to go for a walk. She never goes alone. Her family is always with her. Around one in the afternoon, the doorbell rings. Maria doesn’t open. They have told him not to do it, all his relatives have a key. It rings again, insistently. The old woman approaches the door, that way of calling… she could be her granddaughter.
“Police unit, tell me.” At two in the afternoon, 091 responded to the call. “‘Please come!” On the other end of the phone, in real shock, Maria’s son speaks. He just got home. His mother is lying, face up, on the floor of her bedroom. She has some bruises, she’s gagged. She is not breathing. They have killed her at her home, number 71 Ayala street, in the Salamanca neighborhood.
It would be the first, especially cruel, but It would be followed by three months of authentic terror in Madrid: two murders, three attempted murders and about twenty robberies. The author of all attacks: a 39-year-old woman, long hair, dark hair, tall, of gypsy ethnicity, stout. Her name is Encarnación Jiménez, they nicknamed her the ‘mataviejas’. She performed from Monday to Friday, always in the morning. she is doomed to 152 years in prison because he stalked old women, beat them, tied them up and even killed themin their houses.
a doll dress
When Maria (96) opened the door, she didn’t have time to defend herself. On the other side was Encarnación. The woman was murdered and robbed in less than an hour.. When her family returned home they couldn’t do anything for her. Her son, after opening with a key, found a cigarette butt on the ground and the messy entrance. In it hall, lying on the ground, the upper part of the old woman’s teeth. It had fallen from the first blow.
There was no noise, just silence. He asked his wife and granddaughter not to go forward. He found his mother gagged with a shirt. In her mouth, pressed (she moved the prosthesis towards her larynx), a doll’s dress. The autopsy says she died of suffocation.
300 euros in cash and some jewelry were missing -valued at 598 euros, according to the police report-, among others, the old woman’s wedding ring: “MI 30.5.30”, read the alliance. A neighbor told the police that minutes before, a lady with dark clothes and brown hair had been knocking on doors to sell things. “She looked like a gypsy” pointed.
“Please, I’m diabetic”
May 20th. Carmen, 81 years old, is cleaning the door of his house on Los Urquiza street (Quintana) when a dark-haired woman approaches him. She says that she is not feeling well, she has had a blackout, she needs a glass of water. Carmen wants to help her, but as soon as she turns to go into her house to get the glass, she receives a push. On the ground, she is dragged through the house. They take off her stockings and see how they tie her feet with them. They hit him, one to the head. In a matter of minutes, the woman, her attacker, would leave home with a booty of 1,413 euros (thousand in cash, the rest in jewelry). Carmen kept him away because she was going on a trip. Before she, the thief, leaves, she smokes a cigarette in her house. She left, and Carmen left her tied up.
A few days later; the scene was repeated Carpetana neighborhood. The doorbell rang at home another older woman, 88 years old. Also called Carmen. When she opened, weak (she weighed 45 kilos), her assailant did not have to invent anything. He knocked her down: “this is a robbery.”
Mercedes, 76, was visited by Mataviejas a day later, on June 7. She showed up at his door: “I have good clothes at a very good price.” A push, several blows, and again, his victim was on the ground. The criminal found just over 40 euros, and some jewelry. While she rummaged, she smoked. She heard noises, and she decided to leave. Before, he reinforced the knots with which he had tied the old woman. “Please, I’m diabetic, I have to give myself insulin, don’t tie me up.” The thief didn’t blink: “for me, as if you were dying right now.” When a neighbor helped her, it was already night, more than 12 hours had passed. Mercedes survived, luckily.
false identities
Without ceasing, without truce. The list of names, of victims, is long. The next accredited assault was three days later. It happened in Plaza Bami (El Carmen neighborhood), at the house of Eugenia, 80 years old. “There has to live a single woman.” It was a ground floor, at street level, so the thief made an excuse for me to open the door for her. He often claimed to be a social worker to which it was his turn to visit; others said that she was the cleaning lady: “My partner who always comes to her house can’t come, her father is sick, and she told me to come today, even if I don’t play”; she also pretended to be ASISPA staff, an association that helps the elderly, or that she was going to check the water meter. He told Eugenia that she had to give him some papers.
When the woman opened the door, again, push, and violence. “She dragged me into the room,” she would later testify to the police. He managed to survive. “He took the mattress off the bed, grabbed the box spring and threw it on top of me. Then he climbed on top of the box spring and started jumping… I was screaming a lot, it hurt me a lot.” You heist what he had and fractured his left tibia. A week later, he repeated it in another house. His 83-year-old victim survived his beatings, but later suffered a heart attack..
The police officers issued a circular: “special care with the elderly, there is a robber of old women”
April, May, and June. In three months, dozens of women had been robbed and assaulted. The agents of the National Police launched a circular: older, special care. Neighbors, victims, doormen of buildings, they all agreed: minutes before the attacks, the robberies, the aggressions, he had wandered around around the building, around the neighborhooda stout, dark-haired woman.
All with a common pattern, same modus operandi: a ring to the doorbell, a violent, unexpected push that knocked the old woman over. Once on the floor, she led them to the room farthest from the door. Tied up, gagged with clothes that she found at home, that is when the delinquent ransacked the rooms. She would collect everything that she considered of value, she would smoke a cigarette and leave. He brutally assaulted many of his victims and even put a knife to their necks. In addition, he told them phrases like: “if you move, I’ll kill you”, “either you tell me where the money is or I’ll cut your throat”.
barefaced
The announcements followed. They didn’t stop. Consecutive, in different points of Madrid and, sometimes, several in the same day. Agents of National Police They set themselves a single objective: to hunt him down.
They tried to trace their route: robbery, assault and murder in the center, attempted murder in Carabanchel, Ventas, Ciudad Lineal, Quintana, Tetuán… They came to the conclusion that the old mat used two subway lines: green and gray, 5 and 6.
With the help of the victims, they managed to draw it: a woman of the gypsy race, although she does not appear so due to her fair complexion. Stocky build, between 40 and 45 years old; 1.60m tall, big black eyes, wide hips; sometimes she wears makeup, black hair, somewhat wavy, she can wear it loose or tied up in a ponytail. She carries a bag, also black, on her shoulder strap. Fortuna smokes, leaves cigarette butts in the house; she does not wear gloves (she leaves footprints) and acts barefaced.
Encarna continued to attack. On July 1, he performed on Barquillo Street, on Reina Victoria Avenue on the 3rd, on Pedroñeras Street on the 4th, on García Llamas Street on the 7th, on Camarena Street on the 8th, on Lusitana Street on the 9th, on the 10th on the Maldonado street… Always the same procedure, always the same violence.
Black Friday
He looked at the mailboxes to know the names of the old women. If she got confused and it wasn’t an older person who answered the door, he would say that he had jewelry (stolen in previous coups) and try to sell it. If he was right, the farce began: “Dolores, open me up, it’s me…”. Dolores would open it and in a few seconds she was bound and gagged with a stocking or any piece of cloth.
On Friday, July 11, he committed three attacks in one day. Started in Pacífico, continued in Las Musas. The first two victims came from shopping and he had found them at the door. He knocked them to the ground and ripped off their collars with the teleassistance device. One of them, he put a pillow on her face, her dog saved her, he would tell the police officers when they entered her house. Encarna was increasingly violent.
The next one was lethal. The agents found the lifeless body of a 64-year-old woman in her house in Villaverde. Her name was Luisa, she lived alone and was tied hand and foot. the house was messed up. She was suffocated with pajamas. Neighbors confirmed that a woman had tried to enter up to ten homes a few minutes before. She sold jewelry, she said, to whom they answered from behind the door.
“We have her”
Annunciation (88 years old) was one of his last victims. When she opened the door, they pushed her angrily. she screamed, at home was his granddaughter. The murderer fled, headed for San Blas, and attacked another woman, who was able to describe the clothes she was wearing when she was helped: “pink shirt, black pants, and shoulder bag.” She was arrested in Usera, shortly after, when a patrol saw her hanging around different portals.
“We have it,” the agents celebrated. Encarnación Jiménez, born in Seville on March 20, 1965. She was then 38 years old and the mother of five children. Married to a bricklayer, she is a housewife, but she brought the money.
He denied the facts: “I’m just selling.” She was transferred to the cells of the Tetuán police station. The fingerprints (in drawers, closets of the victims’ apartments…), the DNA of the cigarette butts, and the yes -without a doubt- of each of the victims who recognized her closed the case. She was sentenced to 152 years in prison for murder, attempted murder, battery, robbery and trespassing. He never asked for forgiveness, he did not regret it.
Money and a multitude of stolen items were found at his home. At the bottom of a vase, wrapped in parchment paper, was the wedding ring of María, the 96-year-old woman, his first victim, whom he killed that Good Friday.