The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Who is the girl who died 60 years ago found in a 180-meter chasm?

2021-07-10T05:34:05.243Z


A report details a "unique case" in forensic investigation: the body of a girl who died in the 1950s found by accident while looking for a post-war reprisal in Cantabria


Some Valencian cavers set out in the summer of 2018 to explore the Torca Topinoria, a 180-meter deep chasm whose entrance is in the Cantabrian part of the Picos de Europa. When they reached the bottom they came across the remains of a corpse. The main hypothesis led them to think that it was Eloy Campillo, who was a forester and mayor of Sotres (Asturias), the closest town. It is believed that on April 24, 1945, the anti-Franco guerrilla Juan Fernández Ayala, alias

Juanín

, shot him in the neck and threw him into the well. Mercedes Campillo, 78, had been trying to find her father's body for a long time.

A few days after the discovery, the Civil Guard rescued more bones and when they began to rebuild the body, the enigma arose.

There were not only remains of a man, but also of a girl between 12 and 14 years old who had died some 15 years later.

No one in the surrounding towns could say who he was, nor does there be any report of his disappearance.

The complete analysis of these remains, which has just been published as part of the book

The recovery and identification of the remains of Eloy Campillo

, published by the Ministry of the Presidency, opens a huge unknown.

"This is a unique case from start to finish", acknowledges Fernando Serrulla, head of the Forensic Anthropology Unit of the Institute of Legal Medicine of Galicia. Serrulla has worked on very difficult cases, including the analysis of Diana Quer's corpse or the DNA identification of dozens of Argentine soldiers buried in nameless graves during the Falklands War. In 2019 he had collaborated in the reconstruction of the face of Catalina Muñoz, the mother shot in 1936 with the rattle of her eight-month-old son.

In the summer of 2019, Serrulla coordinated a campaign by the Aranzadi Science Society to return to the Topinoria chasm and search for more remains.

They had to act before the first snow fell.

The cavers arrived at the chasm in October and spent two days putting up to 27 rope anchors on the chasm wall.

When they went down they came across a ledge 120 meters away where they collected bones.

The bottom, 180 meters deep, was a chamber about six meters in diameter where there were more human remains mixed with other animals that were probably precipitous.

After five hours of work they returned to the surface with a sack full of bones which they arranged on a white sheet.

Two cavers descend to the Topinoria chasm (Cantabria) .Ángel García

The girl's lower jaw was so well preserved that you could see the two wisdom teeth that were barely showing.

Part of the skull, ribs and bones of both legs were also found;

in total 18% of the skeleton.

The recovered skull fragments show marks of severe trauma.

It could be due to the fortuitous fall into the chasm, but it is just as likely that it is a homicide, explains Serrulla.

"One of the things that do not fit is that the girl does not have broken limbs, something that we do see in the body of Eloy Campillo and that is what should be expected after a fall of at least 120 meters," he highlights.

The environment of the chasm is an isolated place.

The mouth is narrow and can turn into a death trap if it has snowed and is driven over it.

The researchers sent one of the girl's teeth to Miami (USA), where the ICA company tested her for carbon 14. The results show that she died between 1950 and 1960. DNA analysis reveals that she was of European origin and who probably had brown hair, green eyes, and white skin. Carbon and nitrogen isotopes from bones and teeth reveal a diet rich in fish, typical of coastal people. The femurs have spongy-looking lesions known as porotic hyperostosis that may be due to malnutrition typical of poor people. The girl's genetic profile does not match that of anyone registered in any DNA database.

“Data on diet and origin are very rare.

In the 1950s, getting to this place from the coast was very difficult ”, adds Serrulla.

“We really ruled out that it is a shepherdess who fell into the chasm, because then someone would remember her story.

We asked all the elders of Sotres and Bejes and none of them remembered anything like that, ”argues the coroner.

Mandible of the girl found in the Topinoria chasm (Cantabria) .Aranzadi Society of Sciences

The report ventures a possibility for accidental death.

In the mines of Ándara, near the chasm, there were immigrant families who lived in isolated barracks in the towns.

It is possible that a girl disappeared among them and that no one in the town found out, especially if it was a homicide.

Beyond the bottom of the chasm the cavity continues to a large cave of great dimensions. The water may have washed away more of the girl's bones. But now that Eloy Campillo's body has been recovered and that in any case a possible crime has prescribed, the judicial investigation is closed. The Aranzadi Society has no plans to go down again, as it would be too much work to dig for more remains, explains Serrulla. The only possibility now, he adds, is that some historian finds in the newspaper archives or archives data on a missing person that matches the mysterious profile of the girl found at the bottom of the Topinoria chasm.

"We are facing a case of democratic memory that has been happily resolved, but in my head the question of who was this girl and what happened to her does not stop resounding," acknowledges Antonio Alonso, director of the National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences, institution that participated in the genetic analysis of the remains. “We are left with the hope that the case will not be forgotten and that one day it can be resolved. Probably the way is the investigation of police files, since DNA can no longer tell us anything else. In any case, the genetic data of this girl have remained in the database in case in the future a relative - father, mother or siblings - wants to donate their DNA to try to identify them ”, he adds. The remains of the teenager have been buried with those of Eloy Campillo this Thursday in Sotres."His family says that if they have been together in the chasm all this time they will not separate them now," explains Serrulla.

The case leaves another question unanswered.

DNA analysis showed that the male remains were from Mercedes' father with 99.99998% reliability.

But who shot him?

Portrait of Eloy Campillo, mayor of Sotres (Asturias) assassinated in 1945. Campillo family

According to the report, a few days before April 24, 1945, the anti-Franco guerrillas ambushed in Picos de Europa and inhabitants of the nearby towns met to eat to celebrate that Berlin was going to fall into the hands of the Army of the USSR. Someone betrayed them and there was a shootout with the Civil Guard in which two agents and a guerrilla were killed. The maquis put townspeople in a cave and interrogated them. Eloy Campillo admitted that he had told another guardian about the food, who probably gave them away. While they were walking back to Bejes,

Juanín

allegedly shot Campillo and threw him into the chasm. Those responsible for the investigation found a nine-length pistol casing near the mouth of the abyss and the bones of the former mayor have marks of a shot on the nape of the neck.

Juanín

was known as the last Spanish maquis;

that is to say, the last member of the anti-Franco guerrilla that moved through the forested areas

(maquis

in French) during the postwar period.

In the spring of 1957 he was walking along a path near Potes when he was discovered by the Civil Guard, who shot him dead.

His Astra 400 pistol is preserved today in the Toledo Army Museum.

In the fall of 2020, the Serrulla team asked this institution for permission to fire an empty cartridge with it and thus know if it is the same pistol with which Campillo was killed.

But the museum denied the request, as it could damage the weapon, which is already considered an Asset of Cultural Interest.

Mercedes Campillo, at the mouth of the Topinoria chasm.JM Fernández

You can write to

us

at

nuno@esmateria.com

, follow

MATERIA

on

Facebook

,

Twitter

and

Instagram

, or sign up here to receive

our weekly newsletter

.



Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-07-10

You may like

News/Politics 2024-02-29T07:43:46.735Z

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-28T06:04:53.137Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.