There is no precedent in the history of the black chronicle of Valladolid for a deployment of police means such as the one currently mobilized to try to find Esther López de la Rosa from January 17, when her parents reported her disappearance, which occurred in the morning from 12 to 13 (four days before), which was initially considered “low risk”. What did she change just a day later so that she was already openly listed as “high risk”? That’s where the statements made in those first hours by one of the friends, Óscar, who spent that night with her and who, initially, contributed that he had left her around half past two in the morning, already the day 13, between La Maña restaurant and the path that leads to Bodega Vizar, a service road that runs parallel to the Soria highway. That first testimony suggested that Esther herself had asked her to get out of her car, when, in theory, she was returning to her home in the urban area, with the intention of leaving for Valladolid with someone who was going to look for her.
That clue led the agents to comb the capital, at different points where Traspinedo’s neighbor could have been. But that search led, at least then, nowhere. That happened on the 18th. At that time, a second revelation would come from the same witness, which would suggest that she said to leave her there to go to the house of another mutual friend, Carlos, located just behind the La Maña restaurant, with the that both had previously been. At some point in the multiple statements (before the Civil Guard) of the two, the name of a third neighbor, Ramón, El Manitas, must have come to light later, living in a chalet located at the end of the path of the Bodega Vizar, a few meters Of the same.
The investigation, from that day on, turned back to Traspinedo in order to try to unravel the last hours in which the two friends saw Esther. And there, eighteen days after the complaint, the bulk of the unprecedented search device on the ground continues to be deployed to the 35-year-old woman. The agents, from the first hours of the investigation, placed the end of Esther’s trail, according to friends, around half past two in the morning of February 13 in the aforementioned area of the La Maña intersection, on the edge from the Soria highway and the road that leads to the urban center of Traspinedo, where the woman lives, four kilometers away.
The statements of the friends have some contradictions as to whether Esther was exactly at one of the points where they placed her prior to her disappearance (two bars in town, the house of a third friend, the cellars… ), but they seem to agree that the last person who saw her, Óscar, left her near the intersection of La Maña. The investigators verified from the beginning that the woman’s cell phone placed her, at least, in that environment and that the early morning advanced, around three hours later, her signal disappeared.
Research Timeline
January 12 to 13: Esther López de la Rosa goes out with some friends from Traspinedo to watch the Madrid Barcelona game in a bar (James Dean), then they stop at a friend’s house (Luis), return to another bar (El Castillo), although she could be absent from there, and with two friends (Carlos and Óscar) they apparently make a stop at the wineries and drive in Óscar’s car towards La Maña and El Romeral, where Carlos and Óscar reside. The second affirms that he leaves her between La Maña and the road to the Vizar winery between 2:30 and 3:00. Her mobile goes off that morning, about three hours later.
January 17: The family denounces his disappearance after not returning over the weekend in the belief that he might have left with a party friend.
January 18: First raid of the neighbors for the municipality.
January 19: The Civil Guard incorporates trained dogs in the search.
January 20: Second search for the municipality, always around the intersection of La Maña.
January 22: Third round.
January 23: The Civil Guard detains Ramón El Manitas and searches his house, located next to the Vizar winery, near La Maña.
January 24: Divers begin to inspect the Duero with dogs trained in underwater searches and drones.
January 28: The judge releases Ramón El Manitas.
January 29: Fourth round.
January 30: Concentration in Traspinedo to support the family.
February 3: The search continues in the Duero and in the wells of Traspinedo. Volunteers with metal detectors inspect the land near La Maña.
The testimonies compiled by the agents, not only from their two friends (Carlos and Óscar) but from a much wider circle around them, led them to Ramón’s chalet, El Manitas, which they decided to arrest on January 23 to start a meticulous search of his home and his car (a BMW), as well as the movements of his mobile, in order to try to verify if he was with Esther at dawn on the 13th and if she was able to set foot in his house. The case is that the only one arrested to date was released, although with the obligation to appear daily and not leave Valladolid, six days after his arrest, after an unusual decision by the judge instructing the case to extend his arrest for 72 hours once the first 72 had elapsed. He only acknowledged that he did know Esther, something that his family did not know, but he flatly denied that he was with her that morning or stopped by her home. His judicial situation, for now, has not changed while waiting to see if, as it seems, the evidence collected by the agents does not place Esther López with him.
The only detainee, about whom they maintain the obligation to appear daily, has always denied that he saw Esther
The two friends of the woman, meanwhile, continued to testify before the agents, but not before the judge, although they could be assisted in some of their appearances by a lawyer. Óscar, apparently, maintained his initial version that he left her on the La Maña service road that morning at her request after they could have a brief discussion in his car about this situation. Different versions, apparently, but that lead to the same point of disappearance.
The agents, today, already have Esther’s cloned mobile, which will allow them to know her movements, perhaps physical, with more precision and also calls and activations of her applications. Esther’s own friends would have collaborated in this sense with the agents regarding access to their terminals or the inspection of her vehicles and properties. But the truth is that nothing has yet transpired about what could have happened in that interval of more than three hours in which Esther, in theory, was alone around the intersection of the Soria highway and where she was when her phone turned off before six in the morning of the 13th. And even less, of course, about what could happen later.
What does seem more or less clear, and not entirely, is what happened in the hours prior to the disappearance according to the different testimonies of friends and other witnesses who saw her, first, in a bar (the James Dean) in Traspinedo, where he would have been watching Madrid Barcelona in the Super Cup; then in the house of a third friend (Luis), and later in a second bar (El Castillo), where there is contradictory information about the presence there or not, at least for a period of time, of Esther, although it does seem that the who were there were his two friends (Carlos and Óscar). Afterwards, it seems, the three had been in the municipal warehouses and, finally, they would have left in Óscar’s car for La Maña, where Carlos lives, and the El Romeral urbanization, located opposite, on the other side of the highway. Soria, where Oscar lives. The first would have gone first to her home and the second, in the end, would have left her at the aforementioned point near the path that leads to the Vizar winery and near La Maña.
“All lines of investigation remain open” and no one dares to “rule anything out”
“Enough of the lies!” Esther’s relatives cried out this Thursday before pointing out that it is already “22 days, 22 days (if they are counted from January 12), dying” and claiming: “Give us back Esther !” Said message, spread by a cousin, is accompanied by a video, presumably from last Christmas, in which a smiling Esther is seen with her father, Miguel, the man who in recent days, since denouncing the disappearance of his daughter, has put a face to the pain of a family that wants to put an end to their anguish.
And so, between lies or half-truths, with a case hidden under the strictest of summary secrecy, and with an almost deafening media noise, the official investigation continues, with hardly any gaps about its evolution, and in which the most visible reveals the efforts of the agents to track the Duero and its surroundings, in the triangle formed by the homes of Esther’s and El Manitas’ friends, and the urban area; as well as dozens of wells scattered throughout a town in which the neighbors point out that there may be up to three hundred existing ones. “It’s about ruling out scenarios,” research sources laconically point out.
The search for Esther López de la Fuente, a 35-year-old woman, 1.65 meters tall, with straight brown hair and brown eyes, continues, apparently, focused on Traspinedo and her closest environment, although they remain open « all lines of investigation”, also outside of there, without today anyone daring to “rule out anything”.