Crime of Gádor

Crime of Gádor
Cortijo de San Patricio, where the murder occurred
Location of Gádor
Native nameEl crimen de Gádor
Location36°56′28″N 2°28′36″W / 36.94111°N 2.47667°W / 36.94111; -2.47667
Gadór, Andalusia, Spain
Date28 June 1910 (1910-06-28)
Attack type
Kidnapping
WeaponsKnife and stone
VictimsBernardo González Parra
Perpetrators
  • Agustina Rodríguez
  • Francisco Ortega el Moruno
  • José Hernández
  • Julio "El Tonto" Hernández
  • Francisco Leona
VerdictGuilty

The crime of Gádor is the name given to the kidnapping and subsequent murder of seven-year-old Bernardo González Parra, which took place on 28 June 1910 in Gádor, Almería, Spain. The purpose of the crime was to use the child's blood and body fat as a folk cure for a wealthy patron's tuberculosis.[1]

Background

At the time, it was believed that drinking the blood of a human child and using their body fat as cataplasm was a remedy for tuberculosis.[2][3]

Francisco Ortega, known as El Moruno (The Moor), had recently been diagnosed with tuberculosis and was desperately seeking a cure.[4] He visited the local curandera Agustina Rodríguez, who in turn sent for barber and fellow curandero Francisco Leona.[3][4] Leona, who also had a criminal record, agreed to cure Ortega in exchange for 3000 reales.[4]

Leona enlisted the help of Rodríguez's son, Julio Hernández, El Tonto (The Fool), and offered to find a child. Another son of Rodríguez, José Hernández, was to advise the client Ortega, leaving his wife Elena to make dinner.

Murder

On the evening of 27 June 1910, Francisco Leona kidnapped Bernardo González Parra, a seven-year-old from Rioja. While El Tonto Hernández distracted Bernardo, Leona covered Bernardo's mouth with a handkerchief bathed in chloroform.[5][6] After that, the two men stuffed Bernardo into a gunny sack and transported him to a cortijo.[6] Leona lay Bernardo down on a table, and held by the others, he stabbed him in the armpit while Agustina Rodríguez picked up the blood with a cooking pot and gave to Francisco Ortega.[6]

Ortega mixed Bernardo's blood with sugar and drank it.[5] After that they took the boy to a place known as Las Pocicas where Leona killed him, crushing his skull with a rock. Then he extracted fat and mesentery to make a compress to apply to Ortega's chest.

To finish the ritual, Bernardo's body was concealed in a crevice, unburied but covered with herbs and stones, located in Las Pocicas.

When distributing the actual 3000 reales Ortega paid him for his services, Leona didn't share it out equally so Julio Hernández resorted to authorities and declared the crime.[6]

Realizing Leona's intentions, Hernández told the Civil Guards who had seen the body of a child while he was chasing partridges.

Judicial and police intervention

When law enforcement officers arrived, the people of Gádor turned Leona over to them, as he was known for his illegal and occult practices.[7] During court proceedings, Leona indicted el Tonto Hernández in his testimony, who in turn did the same to Leona.[7] Finally, after multiple excuses, both confessed to the crime.[8][9]

Most of the perpetrators were executed by hanging.[5] Leona was sentenced to death by garrote, but died in prison.[10][11] The client, Ortega, and Agustina, the curandera, were both sentenced to death.[10] José Hernández, was sentenced to 17 years in prison while his wife, Elena, was acquitted. Julio el Tonto was sentenced to death, too, but received a pardon on grounds of insanity following a psychiatric report.[10][12][13]

Aftermath

This crime gave rise to the terms hombre del saco and sacamantecas,[14] because the kidnappers used a gunny sack to carry the child.[15] It was defined as "medical crime", inspired by folk beliefs about the medicinal properties of human blood and children's manteca.[16]

A TV episode named El sacamantecas was released in 1986.[17] Between 1990 and 2000 Quina Jiménez bought the cortijo and she restyled it.[18] A documentary directed by Juan Francisco Viruega and named La cicatriz was released on 21 November 2019 during the Festival de Cine de Almería.[19][20] The film The Boogeyman: The Origin of the Myth (2023), directed by Ángel Gómez Hernández, was inspired by this crime.[21]

See also

References

  1. ^ Jiménez Elizari, Iker (6 April 2006). "Jáncanas y brujas: Señoras de la magia". El paraíso maldito. EDAF. p. 199. ISBN 9788441417724.
  2. ^ Costa, Pedro (1 January 2006). Caño, Antonio (ed.). "La vampira del carrer Ponent". El País (in Spanish). Ediciones El País, S.L. ISSN 0213-4608. Retrieved 27 March 2018.
  3. ^ a b Campos Herrero 2016, p. 49.
  4. ^ a b c Sanz y Díaz, José (1984). "Etnografía negra. El crimen que dio lugar a la leyenda de "El Sacamantecas"". Revista de Folklore. 4b (47). Valladolid: 171–174. Retrieved 27 March 2018.
  5. ^ a b c Fernández Juárez 2008, p. 22.
  6. ^ a b c d Campos Herrero 2016, p. 50.
  7. ^ a b García Bautista 2015, p. 16.
  8. ^ García Bautista 2015, p. 17.
  9. ^ Soler Cervantes, Milagros. "El crimen de Gádor (Almería)". Cultura en Andalucía (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 February 2015.
  10. ^ a b c García Bautista 2015, p. 18.
  11. ^ Campos Herrero 2016, p. 51.
  12. ^ Soler Cervantes, Milagros. "El crimen de Gádor (Almería)". Cultura en Andalucía (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 February 2015.
  13. ^ Gómez Aracil, Miguel (25 November 2009). Vampiros: Mito y realidad de los no muertos. EDAF. p. 139. ISBN 9788441421622.
  14. ^ Ayala Sörense, Federico (25 September 2014). Expósiot, Ángel (ed.). "El verdadero "Hombre del Saco"". ABC (in Spanish). Diario ABC, S.L. Archived from the original on 4 April 2019. Retrieved 27 March 2018.
  15. ^ Fernández Juárez 2008, p. 61.
  16. ^ Caro Baroja, Julio (1993). "Notas de viajes por Andalucía". In Carreira, Antonio (ed.). De etnología andaluza. Diputación Provincial de Málaga. p. 179. ISBN 9788477850892.
  17. ^ "Página de sucesos - El sacamantecas". Radio Televisión Española (in Spanish). 10 January 1986. Retrieved 10 August 2018.
  18. ^ Martínez, Diego (7 November 2022). "Kina Jiménez, la gran profesora de danza que es admirada en Almería". Diario de Almería (in Spanish). Retrieved 14 January 2025.
  19. ^ "'La cicatriz' del crimen de Gádor en un documental". La Voz de Almería. 6 July 2019. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  20. ^ Pérez, R. (2 November 2019). ""El sacamantecas", un crimen aterrador después de un siglo". ABC (in Spanish). Vocento. Retrieved 21 November 2019.
  21. ^ Chico, Fran (14 August 2023). "La historia real que dio origen a 'El hombre del saco': El crimen en Gádor de Francisco Leona, el "sacamantecas"". Fotogramas (in Spanish). Retrieved 1 November 2023.

Bibliography

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