An absurd crime, with no apparent motive, against an 11-year-old boy; an extremist horde ready to take advantage of him and a stunned country. The murder, last Sunday, of the boy Mateo in Mocejón (Toledo), stabbed while playing football with his friends, has caused a shock that has lasted a week. The campaign of hoaxes orchestrated by elements of the extreme right and which blamed immigrants for the crime, put a social and media pressure cooker on high heat. The speed of the investigation by the Civil Guard – and the calls for calm from the victim’s family – prevented it from leading to the violent outburst against foreigners that the ultras seemed to be seeking.
How could it be explained that an 11-year-old boy from a beloved family in the village had been attacked in this way by a young man with his face covered? Rumours immediately arose, some of them helpful, but also malicious comments. Investigators received “a torrent of information” from people who warned of suspicious cars in Seville, Cadiz or Madrid, or of knives located 200 kilometres from the investigation area. There was talk of jihadism, of Latin gangs. There was talk of a grey Ford Mondeo in which the perpetrator supposedly fled. None of that happened. The perpetrator ran out of the premises, through the back, where there is a fence with several holes.
Just three hours after the incident, the far-right MEP Alvise Pérez linked it on his Telegram channel, with almost 700,000 followers, to the stabbing of a 16-year-old boy in Madrid, supposedly by “five menas”, in reference to unaccompanied foreign minors. Five hours later, this time on social network X, he linked it to the arrival of 50 African migrants at a hotel in the town, whose name he provided. These comments and others of the same nature on some accounts that regularly spread far-right hoaxes were later replicated by others, generally anonymous, who even called for “killing” foreigners.
The first hours of the investigation were taking place in the midst of this cauldron, reminiscent of the racist riots in the United Kingdom at the beginning of the month. “We are required to respond immediately, and to do everything quickly and well,” summarises Captain Valentín Martínez-Reche, head of the judicial police of the Guardia Civil in Toledo. “They have said outrageous things, (…) but we have to focus on our work,” he adds. All the personnel of the unit, even if they were on holiday or on leave, got to work. A team of about 20 people was formed to take on the bulk of the investigation, but in total between 50 and 100 agents were able to participate, counting on other units of the command and specialised groups sent from Madrid.
The City Council gave investigators the facilities of the Ángel Tardío sports centre, where Mateo was attacked at 10:00 on Sunday. There, under the covered area of the swimming pool, they organised the teams that took statements from witnesses and worked on collecting images from security cameras in the area, something that was not easy on an August holiday. On the same Sunday afternoon, underwater activities specialists examined every inch of a concrete ditch about two metres deep with muddy water, looking for the weapon.
At that time, the investigators had not yet given the name and surname of the aggressor, but they had indications that he had fled along the canal route and they already had some images and a physical description: a thin, white-skinned young man. “Nobody was able to tell us who he was,” recalls the head of the investigation, who is keeping the details of how they managed to put that piece together to themselves. The most relevant testimonies were those of the children who witnessed the events, but also of other neighbours who had seen him walking. “The citizens of Mocejón can be proud because they have collaborated in an important way,” adds Captain Martínez-Reche, who emphasises that it has been a collective effort and extends his thanks to the Mocejón Town Hall and the Toledo Provincial Council.
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In the midst of the investigation, Asell Sánchez, cousin and spokesman for Mateo’s family, asked for the “criminalisation” of migrants to stop. The victim’s family, who run a bakery in the village, were informed of who the suspect was, but could not reveal it, as their spokesman later explained. Thirty hours after the investigation began, the agents had identified him: Juan PC, a 20-year-old Spaniard with an intellectual disability. The agents rang the bell of the single-family house on Calle Dalí on Monday at 3:10 p.m. and his father, Fernando, opened the door. The man, who had left his security guard uniform lying on the living room table, was trying to take a nap. Father and son had eaten as usual at his grandmother’s house, before returning together to their own. Juan, who was upstairs, went down to listen to the guards, as his father had asked him to. The questions were so precise that Fernando soon abandoned the idea that it could be a mistake. The house was turned upside down after the police search. From there his son left, handcuffed, on his way to his grandmother’s house for a new inspection.
During these actions, carried out throughout the afternoon on Monday, the investigators located the young man’s clothes and shoes. Dylan, The Civil Guard dog, specialized in detecting human biological remains, marked the results as positive. Now it will be up to the Civil Guard’s forensic laboratory services to determine whether these remains belong to the victim.
The young man arrested admitted the facts to the agents, according to several sources. Once at the police station, and with a public defender, he claimed his right not to testify. Juan is the son and grandson of Mocejón residents, although since his parents separated nine years ago he has lived in Madrid with his mother. According to his father, he was always considered “the odd one out in the village”. “They have not treated him with love”, he declared. Fernando explained to EL PAÍS on Tuesday that the young man has a disability that he did not specify, but which he defined as 70% or 75%. Juan, in Fernando’s words, “needed the countryside to be well”. The victim and the detainee had no relationship, explains Juan’s entourage, beyond having occasionally crossed paths in the streets of Mocejón.
After the identity of the alleged murderer became known, the far-right rumours subsided, but did not disappear entirely, this time in the form of new conspiracy theories that denied the validity of the police version. The family spokesman, who runs a programme on 13TV, a channel owned by the Episcopal Conference, in which he reports on the work of Catholic missionaries around the world, broke down in tears on Monday night before the microphones of Cope when describing the harassment and threats he was suffering for asking for the rumours fanned by far-right groups to stop.
On Tuesday, the day after the arrest, the Public Prosecutor’s Office announced that it was studying the “criminal legal significance” of several messages spread mainly through social networks, in which foreigners are “generally criminalised” with “false messages”. The mere announcement of this investigation by the public prosecutor for hate crimes caused many of those who spread these racist messages to delete them or even close their accounts.
In parallel to the arrest, work continued to search for the weapon, for which they cleared around 15 metres on each side of the suspect’s alleged escape route so that specialist personnel from Madrid, at 40 degrees in the shade, could pass highly specialised metal detectors. They also continued to examine the sludge in the canal.
A municipal cleaning worker found a knife on a vacant lot near the suspect’s father’s house on Wednesday shortly before 10:00 a.m. and alerted investigators. The knife, with a sharp point and brown handle, like those used to cut steaks, was examined by the dog. Dylan and also identified it as having human biological remains. In addition, its characteristics coincided with the descriptions given by the children who witnessed the crime. The agents have “significant indications” that it could be the murder weapon. It has been sent for studies and to search for DNA remains. The device was lifted considering that they had already gathered “solid evidence” to present to the judge.
This Thursday, when the 20-year-old was brought before the court in Toledo, the investigating judge ordered his imprisonment and requested that a forensic report be made on his responsibility, to determine whether he can answer for his actions or not. “It is important that an early assessment of the detainee is carried out, so that it can be used for subsequent expert reports and also to request documentation from other centres where he has been treated,” stresses the lawyer Carlos Sardinero, who has participated in many cases in which mental illness has played a leading role, something that has not yet been determined in the case of Mocejón, since it has only been proven that he suffers from an intellectual disability. If the forensic reports determine that at that time he was not responsible for his actions, a total or partial exonerating circumstance could be applied that would reduce or even avoid a conviction.
On Friday, one day after Mateo’s burial, the family spokesperson published a new statement on Instagram. “Hopefully this situation will serve to make us as a society think again, to take proper care of the health of our mentally ill patients and to put an end to hatred, xenophobia, homophobia and any type of violence. Let no family have to go through what we are going through,” he asked.
The reason for the crime, the question that everyone is asking, remains up in the air. “We don’t know and I don’t know if we will ever know,” admits Captain Martínez-Reche.
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