He was traveling with the Peña Blaugrana de Sant Vicenç de Castellet (Barcelona). He separated from the group, phoned disoriented and tried to describe what he saw, without success.
“I’ve gotten lost, I don’t know how to get there…”, he warned on his first call. After this, many more would come. “I see an iron bridge, some cows… No, there aren’t any people, I can’t ask. Only a cyclist passes…. Well, let’s see if I see someone, I’ll try to get there “. He could not, he did not know. He did not return. Since last July 15 Pepe has not been here.
His name is José de Arcos, although at home, in his town -Sant Vicenç de Castellet (Barcelona)- and in his circle they call him Pepe. Retired, about to turn 75, calm, always smiling. Happy. He disappeared in Lourdes (France), the same day he arrived on an excursion he did with the Peña Blaugrana in his town. “My father got disoriented,” explains his son Marc. “He got separated from the group, he said he was going to the pharmacy for a moment and got lost.”
They know that Pepe tried to ask for help. She called his family and friends who were traveling with him to tell her how to get back. The group went to the police to find him. No one went looking for him. “It calls out to us and describes the landscape, but we don’t know where it is.” Your phone ran out of battery. They have not seen him again.
The tour
July 14, 2023. A group of just over forty people leave Sant Vicenç de Castellet (Barcelona). It was a short weekend getaway.. The plan was to go to Viella (Lérida), to visit Lourdes the next day, see the Sanctuary, eat and return to Viella again. Then return to Sant Vicenç. Pepe signed up without hesitation. He liked him a lot, he had a good time.
Friday is normal. They arrive in France on Saturday. “In Lourdes, they visit the Sanctuary,” his son Marc reconstructs his son Marc together with CASE OPEN, “and when they go to eat at the restaurant, my father, who is with another classmate, tells him to keep going, that he was going to a drugstore”. He did not explain why. “This boy offers to accompany him. My father tells him no, that he’s going.” Pepe, before separating, was fine. He took some photos with the group, filmed the Sanctuary, and split up.
“There are two exits,” describes Marc, who has walked the same path for days with the rest of the family, over and over again. “One, which is the main one, the one with the shops, where it is impossible to get lost; and another, a little higher up, where you can turn left or right”.
Pepe took the second. “If he had turned to the left, in principle, he would have found shops, people, tourism… but he had the bad luck that he turned to the right, because people pass through there too, but it leads in the direction of the forest.” According to the record of the cameras, it is the path that Pepe took. He was light, he walked fast. “From there, I think he became disoriented and there was no way to return.”
“I see a bridge, there is no one”
The clock shows 11:30 a.m. Pepe leaves the Sanctuary. He walks alone. There are no pharmacies, shops, he finds the forest. He walks some more. “He started making some calls after 2:00 p.m..” First he contacted some relatives. He called the town, they weren’t on the tour. “A little later, around 2:45 p.m. or so, he called people from the group. A few calls came through,” confirms Marc. “During the conversation Pepe said: ‘I’m here, I see an iron bridge, I see cows&mldr ;” They answered: “Look to see if you see someone who can tell you, Pepe.” But he replied: “I don’t see anyone, I only see a cyclist go by…” The calls are all registered, but they were of no use, they did not lead to anything.” Pepe was not oriented.
The man insisted, he called again. He began to describe a landscape that was not Lourdes, “he became disoriented in such a way that, in the end, he described it as if he were in a forest near Sant Viçenc”. In the group they were clear: you had to go to the police for help. It wasn’t right.
“The French police took it as a case of anyone who gets lost in Lourdes: ‘Then they show up…it’ll be found’,”
“They did nothing,” laments his son, “and the worst thing is that they could have done it.” Before the arrival of the Spanish group, the agents were immobile, denounces. “They took it as a case of any person who gets lost in Lourdes, without importance: ‘Then they appear…it will be found.’ They said that he had left only voluntarily.”
Pepe’s companions insisted. “People told him: ‘but he is calling, saying that he is lost, that he does not know how to return'”. The agents responded “that had to spend some time to start a search…’Someone will find it'”. The group insisted again: “they explained, again, that my father was disoriented and also that his battery is running out. They replied that this is not America, that they were not going to locate the phone.” The same phone, shortly after, turned off, and would not turn on again.
a blue car
Disoriented, fragile. They intuit that Pepe walked aimlessly. “He had not been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, but we had noticed many mistakes and we had started everything so that they studied him well.” The data was transmitted to the agents, who even included it in the French alert (d’Alzheimer debut), but the first police raid did not arrive until five days later.
Marc, Irma -Pepe’s children-, with their partners and some other family members, arrived in Lourdes in record time. “In the afternoon, that same Saturday, a policeman told my sister that they had gone looking for my father. When he called at dawn, a different agent picked up the phone. I didn’t know what he was talking about.” They sensed that the search was not such.
“Before arriving in Lourdes, my sister-in-law had to stop to file a complaint with the Mossos d’Esquadra,” says Montse, Pepe’s daughter-in-law -Marc’s wife-. Without reporting to the Spanish police, they were told, they would not activate anything. “If she disappeared there, it’s something we don’t quite understand.”
During days, they beat the forest alone. In one of the family searches, a blue car parked next to them. “A man arrived,” recalls Marc. He went to an area that would later be key. “A minute later he was gone, whistling.” I miss you.
Underwear
“We began on our own to beat the forest and we found, next to the river, a piece of underwear, some underpants& rdquor ;, explains his son. At the same point where the man in the blue car was. “There was an area where it looked as if someone had been lying there,” explains Montse, Marc’s wife. Said clothing has not been analyzed by the French police, but “It is very likely that it is his. He used that brand, and one of the same was missing from his luggage.”
After the discovery, and the intervention of the mayor of Sant Vicenç and the insistence of the family, the first and only official raid was organized. It was Thursday, five days had passed since he disappeared. “A hundred meters away, a shoe and a sock were found.“Again, everything points to him.”From the photo from the last day, it matched the shoe he was wearing.”. They got them to bring a tracking dog. “When he smelled the shoe, he went straight to the underpants area. Which indicates it’s from the same person.”
The forest was beaten, the river was combed. No results. After this, there were no more. “That everything that could be done had already been done. That if we wanted to make a raid, we would do it. That they couldn’t do anything else.”
Glasses, wallet and documentation
In Sant Vicenç a group with volunteers was organized that would arrive at Lourdes to comb the area between the two findings. “They drew a radius with the points of the two pieces of clothing, about 400 meters to beat, in line… and they combed the site.” Neither glasses, nor wallet nor documentation. No trace of Pepe. They found no more.
almost two months later, the search has stopped. “We don’t know what to think anymore. Nothing has been found.” Sadness, pain, resignation. Distance is added to the impotence of not knowing. “Investigations, disappearances in France are not dealt with in the same way as here.” Police action, always key, has ceased as it began. “Time goes by and you try to get used to the idea that he’s not going to be successful, which was the hope we had in the first few days, to find him.”
Smiling, talkative, joker, lover of petanque and football, chats, snacks with friends, a good conversation. Despite traveling with the Peña Blaugrana, Pepe was a merengue, from Real Madrid. He was widowed four years ago, but decided to move on, “not shut himself up.” He enjoyed his people, his children, his grandchildren. He was happy. “We are abandoned.” They beg for help. There, in Lourdes, nobody looks for him anymore, but his family, his people, his friends, yes.