On the afternoon of September 4, César arrived nervous, with a story full of inconsistencies, which did not go unnoticed by the agents who were attending to him at the Civil Guard barracks in Villalbilla. The 65-year-old man had just reported the disappearance of his wife, Raquel BL, 54, whom he had not seen since the early hours of August 31. There was no point in explaining to him that the last time he had heard from her, she was physically leaving with her vehicle, a dark blue Toyota, to visit her mother in Griñón. From that moment on, he became the main suspect in this strange absence, regardless of the location of the missing person.
While César returned home, a single-family chalet located at number 15 of Avenida del Romero (in an area known as the second phase of Robledal), the case was assigned to the Paracuellos del Jarama judicial police team. The investigators reviewed the history drawn up: at 9:30 a.m., the complainant saw Raquel leave the house; at 11:30 a.m., it was she who contacted him by phone to tell him that she was already in the municipality of Toledo and that she had left her cell phone charger, which is why her husband urged her to turn off her cell phone so that it would not run out of battery. After that, nothing. No calls or messages, just an additional connection to WhatsApp 24 hours after that last conversation.
But the pieces hardly fit together, which led the agents to establish two lines of work in parallel. On the one hand, several search devices were set up around Villalbilla, involving citizen security patrols, agents of the canine service with several tracking dogs, specialists from Seprona, Team Roca, Usesic, drones and Civil Protection. It was during one of these operations that the missing woman’s car was found, parked a few streets from the couple’s residence. The second element of the equation revolved around Cesar himself, observed from a distance and then oblivious to the shadow of suspicion.
Whether or not what was reported was true, the agents were quick to wonder why the man had taken up to four days to file a complaint. As the pieces of the set became clearer, the investigations focused on the geolocation of Raquel’s terminal, whose most recent connections revealed a key circumstance: the woman’s phone was in the house, a fact incompatible with the hypothetical lack of battery of the owner upon his arrival. Griñón. Thus, without raising the issue completely, they asked the husband to authorize a voluntary registration, which he refused.
The next step was to request the corresponding judicial authorization, which came into force on Sunday afternoon, September 8. The investigators went to the house, accompanied by dogs from the canine service, to examine all the rooms. In a sort of cellar, which is accessed through a small hole at ground level, they found Raquel’s lifeless body. It was lying on a bed, next to several packets of pills and a small altar as an offering. Cesar himself had stated that he and his wife sympathized with spiritual movements such as Hare Krishna, so he could have entered the cabin voluntarily to pray, and that he had already tried to commit suicide with medication twice.
The entrance to the cellar where Raquel’s lifeless body was located
In fact, the man in these circles was called Ramaathis Mam, a pseudonym under which he had signed many books related to this field. According to a brief biography published online, “at the age of 10, he was so depressed because of his bad grades that he seriously considered suicide,” but beings appeared to him. The same beings who, at the age of 27, returned to tell him that he should travel to India for his spiritual development. There, he spent the next 11 years, “in a temple under the training of a spiritual master who said he was waiting for his arrival.”
Back at the scene of the incident, the deceased’s husband, who was not in the chalet at the time, tried to escape when he returned and noticed the police presence. It was in vain. Although the stench before crossing the threshold of the front door was unbearable, he assured those present that he had not smelled anything strange because he had a sinus infection. The couple, without children together, had no previous complaints of gender violence or restraining orders, reported yesterday the government delegate in Madrid, Francisco Martín.
Although the preliminary autopsy report determined that the body showed no signs of violence, the agents are awaiting the toxicology analysis, which could reveal a drug overdose. After being arraigned yesterday afternoon, Cesar, who will be investigated for the alleged commission of a crime of homicide or incitement to suicide, denied being the author of the acts. However, the judge sent him to provisional prison yesterday without bail.
