Miriam, Antonia & Desiree Garcia - killed by Miguel Ricart

Thursday, 02 July 2009 08:50

Lives cut short

http://www.euroweeklynews.com/columnists/lost-in-translation/lives-cut-short.html
ON January 27, 1993, the gruesome discovery of the dead bodies of three young girls in Alcasser, Valencia, shook the whole of Spain. Fernando Garcia, the father of one of the girls, Miriam, has searched incessantly for the truth. He was recently sentenced to pay 14,634 euros for alleged slander against the public prosecutor, forensic specialists and four police officers during a Canal 9 programme, which aired in 2007, while the hearing against one of the suspects was in progress.

Criminologist Juan Ignacio Blanco, who wrote a book on the case, which was withdrawn by the justice system, has also been sentenced to two years in prison and a fine of 7,920 euros; while Canal 9 has been charged with civil liability.

The girls, aged between 14 and 15, disappeared on November 13, 1992, near a disco in Picassent. When their bodies were found by two beekeepers in an area known as Partida La Romana, near the Pantano de Tous, two months later, it was obvious that they had been kidnapped, raped, beaten, savagely tortured and murdered. Their names were Miriam, Antonia and Desiree; in the media they were known as ‘Las niñas de Alcasser’. The girls were not great friends and had very different backgrounds, but had been spending the previous months together, like many teenagers, living ‘dangerously’ and hitchhiking to get to discos.

On the day they disappeared, Miriam asked her father to take them by car to the disco, but he had flu and declined. They hitched a lift with a local man who left them at a petrol station in Picassent where they were seen getting into a white car with a Valencia registration. At the disco they had some drinks with a male friend. But what happened later remains a mystery.

After several days searching a 20km radius, people were desperate and with ‘psychics’ speaking of the girls being retained against their will in nearby chalets, doors were bashed down and property was damaged. Soon, the media became involved and the search went nationwide. Miriam’s father, always the most involved with the media, left his business and dedicated all his time and effort to finding the girls. It was winter, and the rains and winds moved the earth from which a hand and a white watch appeared.

The remains of three bodies were unearthed and identified as the girls’. Autopsies revealed that they had been shot. The descriptions of the mutilation they suffered were horrifying. Near the bodies, police found a document with the name Enrique Angles Martins, a paranoid schizophrenic, leading them to his home where they arrested all his family and another man, named Miguel Ricart.

The main suspect, Antonio Angles, had an arrest warrant against him, as he had escaped while on leave from prison in March 1993. Although some believe Antonio Angles and Miguel Ricart are just common criminals, others suspect dark motives such as snuff movies. Ricart was sentenced to 170 years in prison. Angles is still missing. He is said to have reached Lisbon and snuck aboard a ship called the City of Plymouth, bound for the UK, on March 18, 1993, and jumped overboard near Ireland, although this has not been proven. Ricart always claimed Angles was responsible for the deaths, and that he had just watched.

People still visit Alcasser just to see the cemetery and take photos of the statue erected in memory of the girls. The town is slowly getting over it, but the memory of the tragic end of three young lives is still present in daily life. The mere name of the town still strikes fear and curiosity into those who hear it. Yet, life goes on, but not for Miriam, Antonia and Desiree.

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What a sad sad story