“The search for Lourdes García continues, the 34-year-old woman He disappeared this Saturday after finishing his work shift at 3:00 p.m. at a gas station in Roquetas de Mar (Almería). His car, found yesterday -two days after he disappeared- with the keys on and the doors open, will be tested. It can be key in the investigation”. a woman had disappeared.
The shock settled in his house, the pain camped in the Almeria town of Gérgal, where he was born. Friendly, funny, smiling. There was no trace of Lourdes García Carreño since the afternoon of that Saturday in October 2009. Nobody saw or heard anything. Almost Thirteen years later, Lourdes is still missing.
“You live as best you can, with the thorn stuck and with the hope that one day something will happen… and we will know something”. The one who speaks is Silvia, his sister. Since that October 3, they have been looking for Lourdes, looking for answers, guilty, knowledge. They don’t rest. Neither does the Civil Guard. “They continue to investigate, we know, but so many years have passed that they are already working with another intensity.” In command of the investigation, the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard. Try to put the puzzle back together, “but the piece, the key, is not there”.
your last picture
Saturday, October 3, 2009. Roquetas is celebrating, those of the Virgen del Rosario. Lourdes has had morning shift. Although she studied teaching, she has worked at the town’s Cepsa gas station since 2006. He loves children, teaching, but there is not much supply and at the gas station it is fine. That Saturday he has entered at 6:30 am, so at noon he will go home, rest, and then go out for a walk. He has stayed with a colleague to disconnect.
She hasn’t been having a good time lately, she has broken up with her boyfriend and is starting over. He does not say that he suffers, but at home they notice it. He has lost some weight. His smile is less wide, but he tries, walks and goes on. “On Sunday we’re going to your house and we’ll stay with you for a few days,” her parents told her. But on Sunday there was no reunion. Lourdes was no longer there.
The Civil Guard found the remains of a woman in a greenhouse area and thought they could be from Lourdes, but it was another person
“My sister He leaves work at three in the afternoon on that Saturday. At the very door of the gas station he loses his trail”, laments Silvia. “We don’t know if he takes the car, if not, yes someone picks it up… the cameras say no more“There are countless times that you have viewed the video from the gas station’s security cameras, to which you have had access to OPEN CASE, an Iberian Press event and investigation portal. Eighteen seconds. The last ones her family sees her.
Lourdes’s parents were finalizing the four things they were going to take to their daughter’s house when the phone rang. It was the boss of Lourdes: she had not gone to work. “The alarm went off at that moment.” Orderly, methodical, responsible, organized, “my sister had not gone and had not warned, it was not normal”. Silvia remembers nerves, fear, shock: “No one knew where he was.” They called and the phone was paid. They didn’t let time pass They went to the Civil Guard barracks.
How much weight had he lost? It was wrong? The first minutes drew a range of hypotheses, although the family ruled out from the start that the march was of their own free will. Cruel reality set in 48 hours later: The woman’s car appeared near the area, next to the bullring, with the keys in the ignition and the doors open. “It was scratched, scratched.” Something was wrong.
The street where the vehicle appeared had been beaten the previous days by the family. In the mind, a thought: someone parked it afterwards. The Court of Instruction number 1 of Roquetas de Mar dictated the secrecy of the proceedings. The hypothesis was already one: forced disappearance. criminal action.
sand in the vehicle
Without indications, without answers and without movements on the part of the woman, during the first month the The Civil Guard questioned his immediate surroundings and registered the addresses of his relatives. Under suspicion a list of names. All feasible, none proven.
The beats were constant. They combed the municipality, the search spread throughout almost all of Almería, from the area of Las Salinas to the neighboring municipality of El Ejido, and from Castell del Rey to the capital. Nothing led to Lourdes.
The analysis of his vehicle did not give conclusive clues, not the expected ones (DNA, traces…) but yes sand was found that led to the search of eight hectares in the Mohuyo area, located between Felix and Enix (Almería). “Years later, with new technology, investigators re-analyzed the car, but found nothing else.”
The secrecy of the Civil Guard, logically, marked the mood of the family. They lost hope of finding her alive: “We think they killed her shortly after she disappeared,” said Antonio, Lourdes’s father. He died looking for her. Broken. Her mother still hopes to find her. Know what, where and who.
The ‘200 homes’
Lourdes’ family only has a certainty: Lourdes did not leave. “There were no movements in his bank accounts, no activity on his phone…” Silvia recalls. She questioned her ex-partner, but nothing was found. The Civil Guard came to carry out two searches at his home.
Four years later, a UCO report presents a new name: a habitual delinquent in the ‘200 Viviendas’ neighborhood of Roquetas de Mar. The suspect had a history of homicide and, therefore, was serving ten years in prison. The judge decreed the secrecy of the summary again. “They worked very hard to find something. The investigators visited him in jail and tried to get him to talk.” It was 2012, he didn’t speak.
Again, silence. The summary, which already exceeded twelve volumes, was made public again. The press forgot about the case until 2016, when they began to echo the appearance of some Bone remains wrapped in plastic in a greenhouse area in El Ejido (Almería). In many headlines, the name of Lourdes was included. “She gave us a turn to the heart”, remembers Silvia.
The Civil Guard confirmed the finding, but asked for caution. “Some skeletal remains have been found, but they must be analyzed“. They expanded: could belong to one woman between 25 and 35 years old, whose death would have occurred between five and seven years ago.Bone remains
“After eternal months of waiting, they confirmed that they were not hers.” The analysis of the clothes that appeared next to the remains did not match the work uniform at the gas station. Since then there is no more.
There isn’t a day that doesn’t hurt, but, as Lourdes would do, they try to smile. Her house is intact. Her clothes, the ones she had prepared to go out that Saturday, are still on her bed. Where is Lourdes? They learned, forced, to live without her, but they don’t want to die without her.