Aguilar de Campoo case
Virginia Guerrero and Manuela Torres | |
|---|---|
| Born | Aguilar de Campoo, Spain |
| Disappeared | Reinosa, Spain |
| Status | Missing for 32 years, 6 months and 10 days |
| Nationality | Spaniard (Guerrero) and French (Torres) |
| Known for | Missing persons |
Virginia Guerrero Espejo and Manuela Torres Bouggefa went missing on 23 April 1992 in Reinosa, Spain. Guerrero, then 14, and Torres, then 13, were last seen hitchhiking from Reinosa to their hometown of Aguilar de Campoo, Palencia, when they disappeared. Their case remains unsolved.[1] The case is often linked to that of the Alcàsser Girls, who received significantly more media attention after their bodies were found, and is commonly called the Alcàsser case of Palencia.[2][3]
Last known activities
Manuela Torres was born in Aix-en-Provence, France, to a Parisian mother of Palencian origin, Karima Bougeffa, and José Torres, who was from Málaga of North African or gypsy descent. She and her mother had only recently moved to Spain after her parents' separation. In Spain, she became "inseparable" from Virginia Guerrero, a native of Aguilar de Campoo.[2]
On the afternoon of 23 April 1992, Virginia Guerrero had asked her mother, Trinidad Espejo Muñoz, for money to buy a cake for a birthday party she was going to attend. Instead, the two girls apparently took a train to Reinosa (a small town located 32 kilometres (20 miles) north of Aguilar de Campoo) to go to a nightclub, without telling their families.[2] When the party was over, it is believed that they decided to hitch-hike home because no trains were running at night. The last person known to have seen the girls was a woman from Aguilar de Campoo, who was leaving Reinosa in her car to return home when she saw the girls get into a white car on the main street in Reinosa.[1][4]
Investigation
Police followed leads in both Spain and France, but were unable to break the case. Torres' father resided in Marseille, but no connection could be found to his daughter's disappearance.[2]
On 9 October 1994, two bags containing human bones were found in the countryside near the Requejada dam (a few kilometres north-west of Aguilar de Campóo), but forensic investigations ruled out the possibility of them belonging to the girls: instead, they belonged to unknown victims of the Spanish Civil War, which was waged between 1936 and 1939. Similarly, two skulls found in 2001 were linked to the case by the media but were determined to be from the Civil War.[3]
In 2018, a human jaw found in a reservoir in Cantabria was determined to be unrelated to the case.[5]
See also
References
- ^ a b Luis Miguel Montero (29 July 2016). "Desaparecieron haciendo autostop". Interviú (in Spanish). Retrieved 21 June 2017.
- ^ a b c d "Manuela y Virginia, las dos niñas desaparecidas en Palencia que Alcàsser sepultó". El Español (in European Spanish). 24 September 2017. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
- ^ a b "Reportaje | El 'caso Alcàsser' de Palencia". El País (in Spanish). 29 October 2006. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
- ^ "Desaparecen dos muchachas tras hacer auto-stop en Reinosa (Two girls disappear after doing auto-stop in Reinosa)". hemeroteca.abc.es (in Spanish). 29 April 1992. p. 73. Retrieved 20 June 2017.
- ^ "La mandíbula encontrada en el pantano del Ebro no es de las niñas de Aguilar". El País (in Spanish). 1 February 2018. Retrieved 1 July 2019.