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Everyone ready?
Because I'll only say this once.
For a year and 11 months,
a family has been grieving the loss of this individual.
And on Saturday, you called it a soap opera.
On Sunday, you compared it to an Almodóvar movie.
This is no soap opera.
It's a trial for a 19-year-old girl.
A search is underway in Mijas, Málaga, for a 19-year-old woman.
Rocío Wanninkhof.
Everyone was covering it. The press, television, and the radio.
It was one of the most high-profile cases in recent years and of its time.
Criminology seeks to answer the question,
"Why do certain people cross that line and end up killing someone?"
I'm a lawyer and criminologist. I'd say this case is an example
for any law student.
Well, there were a lot of us at first, and Rocío was there from the start.
It's not like she was that into soccer,
but she did enjoy the fun times we had, and--
She tried it and liked it.
She was number six, the number she liked.
-Yeah, six. -We each had our own number.
Our own assigned number. We'd argue if anyone changed it.
-Our family and friends sat here. -Yeah.
Everyone came. Her mother, Rocío, Rosa, Alicia--
-Everyone came. -All the moms sat here.
When we scored our first goal, Rocío and I would do this.
This little cheer. "No, copyright."
Yeah, and then we'd copy her right away, and she'd go, "No, copyright."
-Yeah. -We were just kid--
-We were only 15 or 16 years old. -Sixteen.
We were kids.
She was so in love with her boyfriend at the time, Toni.
-So in love. -Yeah, she was crazy about him. Crazy.
-They were the best-looking couple. -He was gorgeous, and so was she.
A beautiful couple. Two attractive people.
-She was a lot of fun to be around. -A lot of fun.
-She was always smiling-- -Always.
-I never saw her get mad at anyone. -Never.
She never got mad.
-She was a fun-loving girl. -Yeah.
Always. She was always in the mood for fun.
Yeah.
I remember back then, maybe two or three years in a row,
they had a heavy metal tent at the fair.
From the entrance,
there was the area with rides for kids,
and then the area with tents, where people would go to eat and dance.
The back, right next to the river, was for young people.
They set up four shacks,
where we'd drink kalimotxo, which is what we did then.
Lots of kalimotxo, heavy metal, and rock. But it was great. All good vibes, always.
That night, we'd planned to meet there.
And I remember it was around ten o'clock at night.
A few of us from our friend group were there, waiting.
Hours went by, and Rocío still hadn't arrived.
We were waiting for her there, and she didn't show up.
She left her boyfriend's house.
It was a long walk up that hill.
It wasn't lit, and it was surrounded by fields.
So yeah, she never made it there.
My daughter didn't come home that night, so we went looking for her.
We were walking along, and I saw a pretty large bloodstain.
And I said, "Look at that big bloodstain over there."
"Looks like an animal was killed."
I got a bit closer,
and I saw my daughter's sneakers.
"Those are Rocío's sneakers."
And he said, "They can't be."
I said, "Those are my daughter's sneakers."
Well, I got hysterical, out of my mind.
I told him, "Call the police. Those are her sneakers."
LONG HAIR, BROWN EYES
MISSING PERSON REPORT
When she was reported missing,
the examining magistrate called, telling us about a possible crime scene
and asking for our forensic input.
Our first assessment was an incident had taken place there,
involving a lot of blood.
We thought that some kind of assault
involving nose or mouth injuries had occurred.
Perhaps even a stabbing.
As we moved forward, we kept finding larger, more drawn-out trails of blood.
They indicated the person had been moving much more quickly.
Running, maybe.
The trails tapered off for a bit,
until we came to an area with a much larger bloodstain,
indicating there had been significant blood loss.
More bloodstains were found
that were consistent with what we thought was a body being dragged.
They stopped in an area where, as I recall, there were tire tracks.
We attempted to identify both the tires and the type of vehicle.
We came across a bloodstained tissue,
and we found a pair of sneakers, which were identified as the victim's.
PHOTOGRAPHIC REPORT
-SAMPLES FOR ANALYSIS -BLOOD SAMPLES
-SNEAKERS -ON THE TISSUE
CIGARETTE BUTT
The cigarette butts were sent out
to see if DNA could be obtained from the saliva on them.
We collected everything we thought might provide information
about whether someone had been there who we could, at some point, identify
using those samples.
DNA OF A MALE FOUND ON THE CIGARETTE BUTT
We then began a more in-depth investigation
based on that data.
I don't remember who called me or how I found out Rocío had been missing
since the night we'd planned to meet.
I remember turning on the news in the morning and hearing on the radio
that Rocío had disappeared.
And it was a shock. I started crying. My boss asked, "What's wrong?"
I said, "That's my friend." "What happened?"
That's when I learned that, in La Cala, the local police
and medical personnel were already conducting a search.
So, I asked my boss if I could join the search party,
along with the rest of my friends.
I'm asking everyone to please bring my daughter back.
And to treat her as well as possible. Many people--
Thank you to the people who are helping us.
There are so many of them.
I have three daughters around her age.
We live nearby. We came to offer our support.
To support her mother, her father, and her whole family.
We're going to try to keep this going, and we won't stop until Rocío's found.
The search continues.
The 19-year-old who went missing on Saturday…
A week after the search, involving over 600 people, began…
Groups went with the Civil Defence and local police,
and we went out on our own, on our dirt bikes, up into the hills.
Just searching. Like looking for a needle in a haystack.
And we were on edge, thinking,
"What if something really happened and I find her?"
"Or I lift up a manhole cover and find her?"
"What if I happen to look behind that tree? What if…"
It was really tough.
I remember we went with a coworker.
We parked our van outside Alicia Hornos's house.
People were constantly coming and going.
The family kept coming out to talk to the media, who were asking for them.
If no one speaks up, if no one says anything,
then people forget.
And as you can see, the media's all here,
the press is here, all the TV stations are here.
It's the only way to keep this alive.
I want them to give her back.
Dead or alive, I just want her back.
Three weeks had gone by,
and, of course, there were lots of tears and anxiety over her disappearance,
a lot of crying.
And that feeling spread.
It wasn't just the family, who was the most affected, who felt it.
The volunteers, her friends from school, and her neighborhood friends felt it too.
That was basically the whole mood.
A mood of pervasive sadness.
We're about to bring you news that we hoped never to have to share.
A body has been found that may be that of Rocío Wanninkhof,
25 days after she went missing.
The body was found hidden in some hedges separating a housing development,
just 200 meters away from the highway to Marbella,
along a path where hardly any vehicle could fit.
When authorities arrived on the scene to remove the body,
they found little was left but a skeleton.
It looked like a body that had been there for much longer.
While collecting samples,
they found some bags, big black garbage bags,
with clothes in them,
mostly T-shirts.
Based on those T-shirts, we began to feel reasonably confident
that the body might be that of the girl, Rocío Wanninkhof.
You know what? I pass by there every day.
And I remember, every day. I turn my head and look, out of habit.
On the way there and back.
And I think, "We were looking here, and she was found 20 kilometers away."
When we planned the autopsy, the five medical examiners present--
I mean, six of us--
we actually did it almost in secret
because we knew it was a media circus.
So we conducted the autopsy and took our time with it.
We worked into the night, trying to use all our know-how
because we knew it would be all over the media.
The body we had to work with was going to provide us with
much less information than it would have had it decomposed at a normal rate.
But under certain conditions of humidity, rain, and heat,
decomposition occurs much more quickly.
There were no organs left. In other words, all we found were bones.
So we had to find something else
that might tell us how the alleged attack could have occurred.
Multiple, closely-spaced wounds were present,
primarily on the back of the corpse.
I believe there were eight very repetitive stab wounds,
delivered by some kind of single-edged bladed weapon.
Conclusions?
Well, this attack was really very vicious and repetitive.
The assailant apparently carried it out very quickly
because the victim was either totally restrained
or didn't have enough time to move.
I have no doubt that, right now, you must be feeling heartbroken.
My heart and thoughts go out to them,
but especially to you, her parents and siblings.
-Stop that, please. -Come on.
-Viva Rocío! -Viva!
Out of the way. Show some respect, please. Out of the way. Come on.
-Come on, now. -Viva!
Make room.
-Just a little. -Let them through.
-We'll lower her and put her in. -Okay.
-Come on. -Let's move forward.
-Let's move forward a bit. Come on. -Goodbye, beautiful. Goodbye.
Come on. A little more. A little further. Push. Come on.
-Give them a moment alone. -Come on. It's her mother. Just a moment.
At that point, obviously,
everyone close to Rocío, and even everyone in her town, was living in fear.
This fear was fueled, in part, by the panic stirred up by the press,
especially the television programs talking about the case.
Ultimately, that led to the involvement of the elite Civil Guard squad
that had played an active role in the Alcàsser investigation.
So they were greeted with open arms.
The investigators found some fingerprints
on the plastic bags at the last crime scene.
They analyzed the tire tracks found in the vacant lot.
And they found two textile fibers on Rocío Wanninkhof's body.
At that point, the investigations were still not leading up
to anyone's arrest.
But there were already certain pieces of information, evidence, and speculations
that the Civil Guard were exploring.
As this remains an open case, we're all asking,
"Who is the culprit? When will they be caught?"
The investigators needed to find something.
They were under enormous pressure from the public.
And they had nothing.
The fact that Rocío's body was found in such poor condition
made it impossible to confirm basic details.
Like, for example, whether Rocío had been sexually assaulted.
VISUAL INSPECTION REPORT
THE NAKED CORPSE
What happened?
Well, one of the theories and conclusions the investigators came to
upon seeing that the body's legs were spread--
since they were spread so wide apart, they believed it had been staged.
In other words, the perpetrator had tampered with the crime scene
to make it look like a sexual assault.
So they ruled out sexual assault
and focused on the motive of hatred and revenge.
-Could this be a crime of passion? -Someone very close to the family.
Very passionate and very resentful.
-Very close to them. -Margarita Landi's opinion.
Which I partly agree with.
So they began questioning the people closest to Rocío Wanninkhof.
WE ARE HEREBY TAKING A STATEMENT FROM
Even her boyfriend was questioned,
as was Rocío's family.
And everyone had an alibi.
Can we ask you just one question?
It's been almost a year since Rocío's death.
For now, the Civil Guard has narrowed down the number of prime suspects to three.
Two men and a woman.
Near the end of the year, they identified a suspect
that signs supposedly pointed to.
SIGNS
In the end, what aroused suspicion was someone reported having seen a woman
stabbing Rocío's photo.
It seems police are getting closer to finding Rocío Wanninkhof's killer.
Not only did news come out about there being a suspect,
but the suspect's full name was released.
Dolores Vázquez.
There she is, Loli Vázquez.
TELEDIARIO
In the early hours of October 9 last year, Rocío Wanninkhof was killed,
stabbed ten times in the back.
Her body was found after a long search.
Today, a friend of the woman's mother spent five hours before the judge,
accused of that murder.
Come on. Everyone out of the way!
The police called to say
that they had arrested María Dolores Vázquez. Loli.
I was stunned. She's the last person I'd have suspected.
She was good to me during the separation. She helped with the kids.
Getting them from school, giving them rides, baths, making dinner.
She helped out a lot.
Where are you taking her?
Murderer!
María Dolores Vázquez, a close friend of the girl's mother.
Dolores is Alicia's close friend.
Their close friend.
Dolores Vázquez, a family friend.
Accused of killing the daughter of Alicia Hornos, her former close friend.
She was Rocío's mother's best friend.
She watched her grow up. She helped raise her like a second mother.
They bought this house in Mijas and started a new life together,
with Alicia's three children.
The victim's mother, Alicia, had three children.
She'd separated from her husband, who lived in the Netherlands,
and gotten involved with someone.
She began a relationship with Dolores Vázquez.
They were romantically involved for almost 11 years.
She'd helped raise Alicia's daughters.
But, at the time of the crime,
their relationship had already been over for four years.
I loved her more than I've ever loved anyone.
Truly.
She gave me affection and support.
She comforted me.
And I loved her so much.
My daughter lived with them for many years when she was studying in Málaga.
And she was with her aunt Loli, Alicia, and Rocío then.
They're all lovely girls.
Alicia, too. So, to us, it was all perfectly normal.
JUDGE SENDS WANNINKHOF'S ALLEGED KILLER TO JAIL
The investigation began to center on Vázquez.
And there was the motive, one of the motives that any jury
or court could begin to consider,
which is that the girl was an obstacle, or was against,
or was somehow, a problem
for Dolores's relationship with the girl's mother.
So we had the motive.
Loli said if it weren't for Rocío, I'd have gotten back with her.
That's why my daughter was killed.
If she hadn't been so jealous
and felt I was with someone else, maybe my daughter would still be alive.
So she did it out of revenge because I didn't want to go back to her.
Dolores Vázquez, in the eyes of the media and the public, was guilty
from the moment she was arrested.
What do you think? What does your heart tell you?
I have to say that she seems guilty to me.
ARRESTED
Though she hasn't confessed, La Cala residents are convinced.
There were rumors. Things were already being said about her.
From the beginning, the family and police believed the attacker knew Rocío.
Misleading clues, allegedly planted by Dolores,
hindered the investigation.
This crime, this event,
provided material for TV shows.
One of the first in the sense that, altogether, the elements
really represented a lot of underlying social issues.
Primarily homophobia toward lesbians.
The family says Dolores is a hard woman who is aggressive and very possessive.
She's highly vindictive, and she's very tough.
How can Alicia Hornos say such outrageous things
and spread so many slanderous lies about my sister,
knowing that my sister helped her raise those three kids?
Spiteful, aggressive, calculating.
Very cold and calculating. Totally.
A character was taking shape.
An evil woman, a cold woman.
A woman who had laid in wait four years
and devised a plan to kill Rocío Wanninkhof because she hated her.
ALICIA HORNOS CLAIMS DOLORES KILLED HER DAUGHTER AS REVENGE
I can still remember the lines at the door
because the whole thing had become something like a soap opera.
People wanted to follow the trial, and they didn't miss a minute of it.
They'd wait for four, five hours
to get into the courtroom and see what would happen.
I think that's the most unsettling memory I have.
I'll be following the trial. I'm retired. I've got nothing better to do.
Well, I'm siding with the dead girl's mother.
She lost her daughter.
She must be suffering. I know. I'm a mother too.
And that's huge.
And that other woman,
she seems very cold, very controlling to me.
The odds were stacked against Dolores
because she was Dolores, someone who wasn't likable.
She wasn't nice or friendly.
She was a lesbian in 1999
and could be sentenced to 15 years in prison.
During this trial, we really had to fight a battle on the streets,
as well as in the courtroom.
And that information combined
with all that media hype really has an impact when it's a trial by jury.
Members of the press, please wrap it up.
Witness questioning is ongoing. It will take a long time.
Over 50 people have been summoned to testify.
This morning, a video from Informe Semanal was shown in court.
It shows a member of the Civil Guard
stating there was no direct evidence against Dolores Vázquez.
We'll let the investigation carry on, taking whatever steps necessary
to find conclusive evidence that will clarify what happened.
Because, for now, the truth is that we don't know anything for sure,
not even how or--
We have our theories, but we don't know what actually happened.
Given the lack of physical evidence, the Civil Guard issued a report
that contained signs
pointing to Dolores Vázquez, as well as a psychological profile.
The main piece of evidence
was the hatred Dolores Vázquez felt toward Rocío.
You have testified
that you often clashed because you were so alike.
You were both very stubborn, and you both liked to have it your way.
Yes, sir, but that doesn't mean we clashed
in the sense that Rocío and I didn't love each other,
or that we argued.
I had a good relationship with Rocío, more so than her mother
and the family think.
A domestic worker, a Russian woman, if memory serves,
gave an account of a very significant event,
much like something out of a movie, which is that--
As everyone will remember, photos of her were posted all over town.
She took a kitchen knife and started stabbing one of those photos.
While she did that with the knife, she said, "This is my problem!"
She explained, "I was at home, crying at the sight of Rocío's picture."
"Because my housekeeper barely understands any Spanish,
I picked up a knife to show that Rocío had been murdered."
ORAL HEARING PROCEEDINGS
What did Dolores have going for her?
She wasn't seen at the crime scene,
the tire tracks didn't match any of the cars she owned,
and the textile fibers found didn't match Dolores's clothing.
It was shown that the fingerprints found on the garbage bags
did not match those of Dolores Vázquez.
And she had an alibi.
She said she'd been watching a great-niece of hers that day,
but it wasn't taken into account.
One comment that kept coming up, because you'd hear people saying it, was,
"She's not speaking up. It had to be her because…"
She didn't show any remorse.
She didn't give off a sense of injustice.
And that always really influences a jury.
The fact that Dolores Vázquez was a lesbian
was used during the trial almost as a way to attack her.
REPRESSED HOMOSEXUALS EXHIBIT
MORE EXCESSIVE VIOLENCE
It was a way of showing that Dolores Vázquez fit the profile
and was capable of murdering Rocío Wanninkhof.
AS THE VICTIM IS ON HER RIGHT SIDE
SUGGESTS HOMOSEXUAL ASSAULT
THE HOMOSEXUAL
CAUSES OUTBURSTS OF VIOLENCE
When we had visitors or someone came over,
she'd introduce me as her sister
because she was ashamed of our relationship.
Would you say she never accepted her sexual orientation?
I think she had issues with it.
I did not kill Rocío. I did not see Rocío.
All I ask of you, of Spain, of all of Spain,
because a lot has been said about me,
is that you look for whoever did this, because it wasn't me.
Whoever did this is out there.
Maybe even in this courtroom.
There was never any evidence against me.
There never will be, because I'm innocent.
Do you see any proof?
You're in there, too. Do you see any conclusive evidence?
Anything that could send my sister to prison?
I mean, you're journalists, aren't you?
I want her to get at least 20 years.
Because in 20 years, will I get my daughter back?
That won't happen in 14 years or even in 30. Not ever.
The top story this afternoon is the verdict that will be handed down
at the Provincial Court of Málaga.
You can see how many members of the press and cameramen are outside the courtroom.
We the jury, by majority verdict, find the accused,
Ms. Dolores Vázquez Mosquera…
guilty on the count of murder.
I said to my sister, "Jose, we're going to win."
"Well, this isn't a win, but justice will be done."
And she said, "I'm not so sure."
And I said, "Justice will be done."
And it was. Thank God.
I can see the prosecutor for this very complex case is here.
Maybe we can talk.
How do you feel about the sentence? Your first impression.
I recommended 15 years, so 15 years and one day isn't bad.
Murderer!
I remember everything about that day.
Exactly as it happened.
I got up in the morning, and I went to her room, and she wasn't there.
I called her friends, and her friends didn't--
They told me they'd walked her to the door.
I said, "Well, she isn't here."
So I looked out,
and three doors down from my house,
well, next to the tree was
her shoe,
her purse,
her phone, on the ground.
My husband's car had blood on it, and our neighbor's car did too.
It was August 14, the last day of the fair,
and at around four, I got a call from a reporter with Cadena SER,
asking what I knew about a girl who had gone missing from the Coín fair.
I told him that I didn't have any information about that
and that no girl had been reported missing in Coín.
He assured me one had.
I started seeing vehicles and media broadcast trucks.
That put me on my guard, and I naturally started feeling uneasy.
I asked to speak to the police chief.
That's when he told me Sonia had disappeared early that morning,
that her parents had reported her missing, and that they were investigating
and making initial inquiries.
-Here, or down there? -A little closer.
-A little closer, please. -Sure.
Here, stand together. Too close?
-It's fine. -Just moving the mic closer.
-We'll stay put. -All set.
-Okay. -We still don't know anything yet.
All I'm saying is, if someone knows anything at all--
a friend, because one of her friends must have seen or heard something or--
Please say something and let her go.
Let her go because we've had enough of all this.
Because this is a lot. This is too much.
-Thank you. -Thank you very much.
-Thanks, you guys. -Thank you.
-Is this okay? -Yeah. Great.
Now point it over there. Down there, towards Lucerne.
Slowly.
-The lake. -The lake, right?
The boats.
Well, we got married in Coín.
And my husband had a job in Switzerland,
so I went with him.
And my three kids were born there.
The two older ones first, and then my Sonia.
That's enough!
Enough!
That's enough!
Come on, say something.
Hello.
We had jobs there, and…
-Is it recording? -Yeah.
…we lived there for 26 years.
It's a quarter to eight.
Let's go. Let's get going, everybody.
And when the older two had finished school,
Sonia wanted to move to Spain.
And, well, we did too.
And so we came back here in 2000, 2001.
And she adjusted well.
Of course, she had friends here from when we used to come on vacation.
She had her cousins. She had--
she planned to continue high school
and get her diploma or…
But that wasn't to be.
As the hours go by, despair is setting in for the family
of the 17-year-old girl who went missing in Coín, Málaga, yesterday.
A thorough search of the area is still on,
but her belongings do not bode well, since some were found stained with blood.
I remember there was a light cover in the Sonia Carabantes case.
I know for a fact that Civil Guard officers were sent
to make inquiries at every mechanic in Málaga
to see if a car matching the description had been taken to get a light cover fixed.
We launched several lines of investigation,
such as one into a series of sexual assaults committed
near Torremolinos and Benalmádena.
We also linked it to the disappearance of a girl in Motril
because the girls had a fairly similar profile.
So, considering that they went missing while a fair was going on,
we started looking into
all the fair workers who had been in Motril or Coín.
Go up. Report if you see anything.
If you do, treat it as important, even if you think it isn't.
Everything is important. Clothing, a shoe, anything at all.
Call me, and I'll run down.
People stepped up.
I mean, they, the public as a whole,
were clear about saying,
"This is a local girl, and this is a family who needs our help."
And they began to get involved and donate not just their time,
but everything that might be needed for the search.
When you watched from the upstairs window, or as the day went by, it was moving.
And I still find it moving.
The fact was that a girl had gone missing
and we had to find her.
I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart
for everything you're doing, from the youngest to the oldest.
You're making an incredible effort.
And I don't know how to thank you because that's all I can think to say.
Apart from that, the Civil Guard continued their inquiries and investigations.
But the most important thing was finding her alive.
Did they find her?
People from Madrid said she was found, but it hasn't been confirmed yet.
But she's been found. Yeah.
-But where? -They don't know.
We need to run over there. They called from Madrid.
Today at noon, the body of a young woman was found near Coín.
Turn it up!
Reports have not been confirmed, but they fear it may be Sonia Carabantes,
the 17-year-old who went missing on Thursday.
A woman's body has been found.
We fear the worst, but we're still awaiting confirmation.
The judge just arrived. The judicial police are investigating.
I've been in contact with the government subdelegate.
He told me that, as soon as he heard the news,
he sent a forensic unit here
and he'll be there for whatever the family or I need.
There they go.
It was near Monda, the town next to ours.
And they found her in a stream with--
Rocks had been put on top of her, and--
Well, it had rained a bit the night before,
and a lot had been washed away,
but the dogs had--
they'd already searched there, but--
but that day, well, they found her there under the rocks.
The victim had been at the Coín fair that day.
She said goodbye to her friends just meters from her house,
and she was attacked by the perpetrator.
He struck her, leaving her partially unconscious.
She couldn't have been fully alert because this was a brutal attack.
She tried to defend herself. He put her in the car.
And he took her at least some 11.5 kilometers away
to a secluded location.
There, we know he inflicted both internal and external injuries
and strangled her with a T-shirt, which, ultimately, was the cause of death.
Everyone was shocked.
It was a situation where everyone was on edge.
Girls wouldn't go to the fair, to parties, or even out of their homes.
There was a sense of fear,
an ongoing sense of fear, but not just in Coín,
in the neighboring towns as well.
Not good because I have two nieces and a daughter, and--
Yeah. I'm a bit concerned.
They say it must be someone close to her because she was found not far from Coín.
We don't know who this man is.
He's still out there, and the girls--
I have a 15-year-old daughter too.
I'm pretty worried.
The fact that Sonia was found quickly
meant it was possible to obtain, examine, and analyze the forensic evidence.
At a meeting we held at the government subdelegation office,
Colonel Paco Gabella told us
that some trace evidence had been found on Sonia Carabantes's hands.
This biological material was analyzed right away,
and it was entered into the criminal DNA database.
And it was compared.
With what?
Another genetic profile on file, obtained from the cigarette butt
found 2.5 meters from the bloodstain
in the vacant lot from the Rocío Wanninkhof case.
When they compared the two genetic profiles,
they found they were a perfect match.
DNA OF A MALE
The person in that vacant lot in 1999
was the same one who had attacked and killed Sonia Carabantes.
I believe we were the first ones to report that there was a DNA match.
That--
Well, that was a bombshell.
Things are coming to light.
An English cigarette butt, traces of skin under Sonia Carabantes's nails.
The DNA obtained from both belongs to the same person.
There was something to connect the disappearances.
Something
so serious, so painful…
and something so awful as well.
All the more so for the person who had spent 17 months in prison.
And from that point forward, things started moving at a dizzying pace.
GUILTY
15 YEARS FOR MURDER
I hope that whoever is guilty pays for this
and serves the full sentence.
During the 14-day trial, the cigarette butt never came up.
A lot of nonsense did, but not that.
The question is whether emerging evidence
will exonerate the accused, Dolores Vázquez.
When faced with that impasse in the investigation,
we got a call from the police station in Fuengirola,
asking if I could please head over there
since there was a Chilean-born British woman
who wanted to speak with us to give us some information.
Cecilia King, a little anxious and nervous about what she was going to tell us,
recalled that,
when her ex-husband had come to pick up or drop off her daughter,
she had seen a scar or injury on the back of his left hand.
Once we had taken Cecilia's statement,
I spoke to a British colleague, John O'Neill, who was at the embassy,
and I asked him about Tony Alexander King.
He told me that they knew Tony by the name of Tony Bromwich
and that he'd committed sexual assaults in London.
This made us all the more certain that we were on the right track.
We found out he worked at a pub
and he lived with a Spanish girl in Alhaurín el Grande.
We set up surveillance at the pub.
We saw him go to work, and, when he finished his shift,
we were surprised to see he went to a school.
There was a house at the school, which is where he lived.
He had a car on the grounds.
It was a Mazda with British plates
and a broken light cover.
-I can't talk. -You can't talk?
So we were sure that he was the one behind those two disappearances and deaths.
When King was arrested,
Dolores had already been released, awaiting retrial
because the High Court of Justice of Andalusia had overturned the verdict.
Why?
Because the jury only had circumstantial evidence.
But what's more, they didn't state what had actually convinced them
to declare Dolores Vázquez guilty.
I wouldn't wish prison on anyone. I've been through some terrible times.
Many months. I'd rather not talk about it.
HOME OF DOLORES VÁZQUEZ
I spent two months, three months in solitary confinement.
What else is there to say?
I'm not saying that I was wrongfully arrested.
Anyone, if I were one of the suspects--
I had nothing to hide, just like I have nothing to hide today.
I went in for questioning, and they began interrogating me
and saying, "It was you."
It was very intensive brainwashing.
They described the process I'd go through.
They said they'd make me infamous and that no one would believe me.
They'd take me to court. A quick five- or six-month trial,
and I'd be found guilty by a jury.
Well, that's how it happened.
I feel that the verdict,
aside from having a clear lack of sufficient grounds,
was not impartial.
To put it another way, just think of how many TV programs
directly accused Dolores Vázquez without any evidence.
All this information, all that public opinion
that the press and TV put out there
was read, seen, and heard
by the members of the jury and the judge every day.
When the real killer was found and it was clear Dolores wasn't involved,
I started to think, and I realized
how I had internalized all the homophobia
that the media and others had been spewing.
How I had believed information
that wasn't information, just prejudice, you know?
So I began researching what had been said in the media,
and I was a bit shocked.
And I decided to write a book.
TRIAL IN THE STREET
Over time, Dolores Vázquez was being attributed
qualities that were perceived as masculine.
Some were totally ridiculous.
Some of the things they said, if you look at them--
for example, they pointed out she did karate, as if it was a bad thing.
Or that she worked out.
That she had a raspy voice, was commanding, and had authority.
With all this together, they tried to paint a picture of a masculine woman,
with the negative connotations that could have.
They called her barren, jealous of a woman who gave birth and could be a mother.
They said they were unhealthy couples that had
unhealthy relationships that can lead to murder.
All that outrage actually stemmed
from a social climate that couldn't accept that type of relationship.
Is it possible that the relationship between Rocío and Dolores Vázquez
was rocky because, deep down, your daughter didn't accept
you being romantically involved with another woman?
We were shocked.
If you're accusing the wrong person,
if you don't have enough evidence,
at least don't accuse someone else, right?
Because if they had made that known,
or investigated further and not focused on just one person,
they'd have found him.
Then, what happened to my daughter would've been avoided.
When they finally arrested
that criminal,
there started to be talk
that Interpol had asked Spain about his whereabouts.
When we heard here in Spain that there had been a report,
naturally, it gave rise to a certain level of fear.
The case was used for political ends
by both the party in power and the opposition party,
through a parliamentary inquiry to Minister of the Interior, Ángel Acebes,
on this case and why they had not intervened.
The King case was discussed in the Chamber of Deputies.
Yes, Ángel Acebes appeared before Parliament on his own initiative
to explain the investigation into the murders
of Rocío Wanninkhof and Sonia Carabantes.
The minister explained that British police had sent a memo
requesting confirmation that he was living in Spain
and mentioning crimes of which he was accused.
But since British police had classified it
as a low-level matter and hadn't requested extradition,
it was considered resolved once King's address was confirmed.
Mr. Minister, on September 15, 1998, Scotland Yard
located Anthony Alexander King in Mijas through you.
You were notified as to who he was
and of his conviction and the danger he posed.
The British police also said, "He's a potential threat to women in Spain."
But what doesn't add up is the enormity of the fact
that a dangerous criminal was identified
but it wasn't registered or reported correctly.
A memo from Interpol cannot be handled
how it was by the police under your leadership.
It's true that we received a fax from Interpol, out of London,
informing us that Tony Alexander King-- not to arrest him but to look into him.
We didn't hear back from them.
But that's normal because we get lots of faxes coming in from Interpol
about all sorts of people being on the Costa del Sol.
Not just those involved in sex crimes, but also drug trafficking,
homicide, fraud, all sorts of crimes.
These were blameworthy acts
that have brought suffering, especially to the families
of Rocío Wanninkhof and Sonia Carabantes,
and also another individual, Dolores Vázquez,
who has probably been to hell and back.
If we apply the standard premises for any investigation
to the Rocío Wanninkhof case,
we can conclude that the Civil Guard
steered the investigation to focus on Dolores Vázquez,
who seemed to fit the most plausible criminal profile.
The authorities have never apologized to me,
nor has Minister Acebes, who thinks he knows everything.
They haven't contacted me at all.
Did I have to lose my daughter
so they could finally catch that killer?
I mean, they caught him because my daughter defended herself.
I'm telling you, I didn't send María Dolores Vázquez to prison.
The police told me they were going to lock up Dolores Vázquez.
That she was the suspect.
That she was Rocío's killer.
So, if anyone owes that lady an apology, it's the police.
I don't owe anybody an apology. I didn't lock anyone up.
Be strong!
I'm innocent!
It was a disturbing trial
because it's not something you see every day, fortunately.
It was a very serious matter
since it seemed the victim was chosen at random.
Which means this happened to this person due to pure chance, right?
And that impacts you on every level,
as a judge and as a human being.
I believe the evidence was so solid that he ended up incriminating himself.
Maybe because he felt like the center of attention.
I remember seeing him on TV,
addressing the media while being transferred into a police van.
But it was out of a desire for attention,
rather than a sense of remorse or because he felt he'd done wrong.
I've spent seven years, two months, and 12 days wondering who killed my daughter.
-What do you want from this trial? -Justice.
Justice for my daughter, once and for all.
In one of Tony King's statements to investigators,
he tried to incriminate Dolores Vázquez
and drag her back into these judicial proceedings.
I don't know anything about this man. I don't know anything.
All I know is that I was lynched once,
and I'm scared to death it'll happen again.
I am innocent!
I want the court to recognize my innocence.
I shouldn't have to be here, explaining myself!
I shouldn't have to explain anything!
But public opinion and Spanish society demand,
that, on top of everything else, I prove my innocence.
For my Rocío, poor Sonia, and so many other women.
No. He acted on his own. Always.
He acted on his own. Every time he went out, he went alone.
And he captured those girls, assaulted them, and killed them.
Dolores Vázquez had very bad but also very good luck.
She could still be in jail or have been released just recently.
A retrial was ordered. Who knows what the outcome would've been.
But if the true culprit hadn't been found, we don't know what would've happened.
Today, the Court of Málaga exonerated Dolores Vázquez
of the murder of Rocío Wanninkhof.
This is the end of a four-year ordeal for Dolores Vázquez.
I'll bet anyone, we can settle it in the newspaper archive, that Dolores's arrest
takes up many more pages than her acquittal.
The journalists who had written just offensive, horrible things about her
didn't say, "We were wrong. How awful. How could we get so carried away?"
Which is what I, or those in the movement, might say.
"How awful. We were so wrong. How could even we get swept up in it all?"
No one really said that.
It was like, "Let's move on. We found the killer."
"Forget that lady. Let's move on."
And yeah, that's terrible too.
The one who causes harm should be the first to apologize.
And the system obviously caused the harm.
As far as I know, the state hasn't given her compensation.
I think that's a huge mistake.
I talk to this photo a lot.
Since she's always laughing, I say, "You're always laughing at your mom."
I tell her, "You look so gorgeous, honey."
"You're so pretty. How sad you're not here with me."
And she seems to smile and understand.
She was a joy,
and she was always giving me kisses and hugs and saying, "You're so pretty."
That was her.
And now, well, I'm alone, without my little girl.
People say, "You're strong. So is your husband."
It's not that I'm strong. I just have no choice but to keep going.
My fight isn't over.
It's not about financial compensation.
It's more about showing Spanish society
that I am totally innocent and always have been.
So when I walk down the street, people won't give each other nudges.
Or if I go to try on shoes at El Corte Inglés,
just to name a store,
and within 20 minutes, I'm surrounded by women.
"Look who it is."
I'm still waiting for someone to ask for my forgiveness.
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