In Villafranca de los Barros, where one of the minors of Badajoz crime grew: “His father had already warned that he could not with him»

It is a strange environment. The silence reigns, but it is enough to have coffee in one of the local centrals of Villafranca de los Barros, to understand that at each table, in each bar bar, the conversations point in only one direction: the murder of the social educator in a protected floor of Badajoz. In a municipality of just over 12,000 inhabitants, there is no person who does not know who JJG, 15, one of the minors accused of the violent death of Belén Cortés. The vast majority of neighbors refuse to talk about it. Those who dare, agree that “the people are dismayed.”

The streets that surround the Plaza de España, which is the heart of Villafranca, are the same for which JJG was running, near his father’s old store, the renowned Extremaduran chef Antonio Granero, and next to the place where his father taught a hospitality course: “He was already seeing his brothers always in the park, playing, running,” says a neighbor. As a child, he was a “nervous, naughty boy …”, as several of the people who have coincided with his father.

The general feeling is that, indeed, this child grew in an “unstructured family”, in a complicated environment, where drugs occupied a hollow capital: “That boy has lived very ugly things.” After having three children together, their parents separated. It was a traumatic divorce, very complicated, where “neither was fine.” At first, the mother was custody, until after several years, Granero managed to recover her. He has publicly assured that those years were decisive for his child, with numerous lack of assistance at the San José school, where he studied.

“A piece”, “bad ideas” …

As it grew, things got complicated. There are those who say it was “a piece.” Others go something further and talk about “bad ideas,” but in which the majority coincide is that, until relatively little, the magnitude that their problems had. Last summer there were rumors about several “vehicle robberies”, but no one could imagine that “these limits.”

Sebastián – fictional name – is a very close friend of Antonio Granero, who has “seen growing”, both to him and his children. He says that the group of friends “is shattered, very sorry,” after having known the news. He says that a week before the crime of Bethlehem, the father already told him that he had problems with the young man: “He told me that he had escaped several times and that he could not with him.”

On barn, he acknowledges that “as a young man was a little crazy,” but that “he has fought for his children” and that it is “who has raised them.” Other neighbors who also know the chef ensure that he has fought for their children. They speak of a “worker”, of an “artist in his own.” It is, in fact, the most famous cook in all of Extremadura, where he ended up being the leader and candidate of the Regionalist Party Together X Extremadura with whom he got almost 16,000 votes in the last regional. In Villafranca it was the third most voted force.

His mother, from the beautiful town to drugs

This newspaper has also been able to talk to Ana (fictional name). He shared class with the child’s mother in the Carmelitas of Villafranca, where “he already caught his attention.” This woman is 40 years old. In his youth, he was “one of the most beautiful women” of the entire town. She was a waitress, but ended up falling into drugs, a situation well known by all the people. Ana says she has had a “without control” life and is now very deteriorated: “It is not that she is dragging down the street, but you recognize her just because she knows she is,” he says.

They are not just people’s talk. The family of the other of the three minors accused of the violent death of Belén Cortés denounced this woman for having facilitated cocaine and heroin to the two minors and even “consume them with them”, in one of the leaks of the protected floor.

In the town another neighbor claims to have seen the mother of the child “recently” with JJG in a well -known town bar. No one knows very well where he lives, if in a “corralón”, in a “caravan” or in a house in very bad condition. Not even what happened these days after the crime seems to affect it. One of the neighbors claims to have seen her this week, after knowing the facts, and would have been “impassive.”

In a child psychiatric

The closest environment defends him because they believe it was manifest the need to take other measures with the minor. “His father could no longer with him and warned,” says Sebastián. In fact, as a barn said these days, the recommendation they had on the table was to intern the young man into a child psychiatric. However, both he and DGP – 14 years old – returned to the protected floor and stayed alone with their social educator. Despite the notices, to the warnings and the problems that had been previously. In fact, JJG had tried to escape up to nine times, according to his father. That desire for escape could be, perhaps, thinks, the mobile of the crime.

Be that as it may, the reality is that the streets of Villafranca de los Barros, despite being almost silent, say a lot. It is a dismayed town: “Here we are humble, workers, we would never expect something like that,” one of the neighbors visibly lamented.