The Aquiles heel of Dolores Vázquez was not like.She was not a nice or sweet woman, she had a strange look and did not get hysterical when they stopped her.Not even during the trial shouted impotence.That "not only must be, but seem" it sentenced this woman 20 years ago, who spent 519 days in prison for a crime he did not commit.
How could something like this happen?The film that Netflix premieres this week, "The Wanninkhof-Farabantes case," directed by the Catalan writer and filmmaker Tània Balleó, intends to reflect on the role of each one in a case that shook Spanish society and that could be repeated?For the author, «judicial errors, failed investigations and media circuses have continued to occur all this time.
The system fails but I think there are more and more mechanisms to prevent it from happening and I want to think that with the theme of lesbophobia something we have evolved ».Because, in order not to be hypocrites, it is important.He had met Alicia Hornos when she separated from her husband and both began a love story.They shared home in Mijas (Málaga) for almost eleven years with the three children of Alicia, including Rocío Wanninkhof, 19 when he disappeared.
Suspicious
It was on October 9, 1999 and that same morning his mother already found in an open.25 days later they found their skeletonized body near a highway 20 kilometers from Mijas.The autopsy could determine that it was stabbed in the back seven times and the frantic search for the author of the facts began.It was published that there were three suspects: two men and one woman and on September 7, 2000 Dolores Vázquez was arrested at home.The television cameras waited at the door before the arrest took place.«We did not see her again until the day of the trial, a year later, but in all that time we had already formed an idea of her.How did we know that we fell bad if we hadn't even heard it?It is curious, ”says Balló.Soon the crime of "passionate" was labeled: the "perverse" and "scoring" lesbian who hated the daughter of her ex -girlfriend and that's why she killed her.Even its homosexuality was used to point out that it was a "repressed" collective and that is why they used "excessive" violence.
Delete your femininity
«Everything that was told about it was erasing any hint of femininity: it was not counted, for example, that it was caregiver - with the children of Alicia Hornos and with her own mother, prevented - not many symbols that are associated with the feminine butYes, the worst version of masculinity stood out, ”says the director.His documentary collects how the press of the time warned about his "hoarse" voice, which was practiced and weeled with weight or directed the Sultan Hotel in Marbella."You have to analyze everything with perspective and from the sensitivity of that moment, it is very important to contextualize and be realistic with the society of the time," recalls Balló.But, regardless of whether we all believed in Vázquez's guilt and this influenced the popular jury, how could the Civil Guard, the Prosecutor's Office and the magistrate who wrote the sentence "buy" this theory?It seems that today, 20 years later, there is no logical response to this and hence the director's invitation to a "deep reflection" of all intervening actors.Also the politicians, who tried to get revenue (in that we have not advanced) about a tragedy when questioning, the documentary recalls, if the crime that seconded that of Wanninkhof could have avoided.«It is a value to be aware of when the system fails.What happened in this case is paradigmatic because it is not a mistake, it is a cluster of many errors and many social agents ».
Condemned
Because the trial arrived and Dolores was sentenced to 15 years by homicide.The film rescues an oral view session where the prosecutor Francisco Montijano reminds the defendant how much he "collided" his personality with that of the victim.Dolores answered very serenely: «Yes, yes, Lord prosecutor, but that we crash does not mean that I don't want Rocío.He had a good relationship with me, more than his mother believes ».Dolores had a alibi: he had been taking care of the daughter of a niece, the rolles of the car were not his, the two tissue fibers found in the victim's body did not correspond to her clothes or her traces were in some bags with clothesfound in the place.All that did not matter: the popular jury, contaminated by everything that was said about it, issued a guilt verdict (received with applause) and the magistrate wrote the sentence shortly after: 15 years in jail for homicide.
The same DNA
Dolores had a very bad prison.Not only for being innocent, but because the rest of the inmates wanted to lynch and had to spend a lot of isolation.Meanwhile, Rocío Wanninkhof's true murderer was on the street (as Dolores herself pointed out in her final allegation in the trial) and it would soon act again.It was in Coín, another Malaga town 25 kilometers inside Mijas.On August 14, 2003, another young woman, Sonia Carabantes, was approached by the same individual when she returned to the house of the town fair.The next morning, according to his mother, Encarna Guzmán, in the documentary, found a few meters from the door of his house the sandals, the bag and mobile of his daughter lying on the ground between remains of blood.The investigators, in this case National Police, collected from the place pieces of the lighthouse of a car.All the workshops in the area were looked at in case a car had gone to repair and all possible efforts were made to find the author, without success.Five days they found Sonia's body near a stream.He presented relatively good condition and his study could be more thorough.Hence, DNA could be extracted from the aggressor under his nails: he had defended himself from the attack.The researchers introduced the profile into the database and it was when the "bomb" jumped: it coincided with the genetic profile of the button found on the scenario of Rocío Wanninkhof crime four years before.The person who was on that esplanade was the same one who murdered Sonia.From there, everything happened very fast.
Background
Months before, the TSJ of Andalusia had just annulled the sentence against Dolores Vázquez for not being motivated and ordered to repeat the trial.But a woman appeared at the Fuengirola police station to give information to the Police: it was Cecilia King, Tony King's ex -wife, an English marriage that arrived in Spain in 97.They had long separated but provided data on their suspicions regarding the participation of their ex in these crimes.Police consulted their identity with their British counterparts and confirmed the worst suspicions: he had a history of sexual assaults in London.King was arrested and sentenced to 53 years in prison.Meanwhile, Dolores Vázquez was released but continued suffering the looks and elbows when he saw her pass.After a "self -exam" in England, he returned to his native Galicia.He was never compensated or ever asked for forgiveness.
