The 18 days without Esther break Traspinedo

Green, red and orange uniforms comb the coppery soils of the Traspinedo pine forests (Valladolid, 1,100 inhabitants). The colors of the Civil Guard, the Red Cross and Civil Protection stand out among those vast lands where they aspire to find, with more faith than trust, some minimal evidence, any clue that leads to Esther López, 35, who has been missing since 12 from January. Another 600 people, volunteers in heterogeneous clothing, have also come to try to find the woman and help put an end to the mystery of what happened to her after that Wednesday night. The investigations have identified two residents of Traspinedo: Ramón

an acquaintance of the disappeared woman and who has spent six days in detention before being released on parole; and Carlos LG, nicknamed

investigated since last Thursday and who was with her that night that is analyzed to the millimeter.

The nightmare for that quiet town and that discreet family from Traspinedo began in a warehouse.

There she met the missing person with several friends to watch a soccer game and spend the afternoon.

Later, sources in the case explain that she got down from there by car with her colleagues and they argued because she wanted to prolong the night and they preferred to pick her up.

Thus, she asked them to leave her in front of the La Maña restaurant, next to the roundabout that leads to the municipality and near Los Romerales, an urbanization of single-family houses in which few people know what is going on in the house next door.

In one of them resides Ramón, about 40 years old and of whom some neighbors assure that he has a conflictive character and that he has starred in violent episodes.

A year ago, according to the account of several residents,

Sources from the Civil Guard assure that they arrested him because, when López was already missing and without a telephone line, he told another person that he had spoken with her, a probably false confidence that made the agents suspicious.

The searches with dogs, drones or divers both in his house and in the nearby pine forests or the Duero river have not revealed anything significant.

The man, who carried out a brief hunger strike for feeling unfairly treated, was released on Friday after six days in detention, since the judge extended the initial three days that the law establishes as a maximum of one detention for another three days.

The Handyman has recognized that the woman visited her home —now with the windows boarded up by the investigators to act calmly— on the day of the disappearance,

Ramón was already free when the authorities pointed to another name, another nickname: Carlos, El Carolo, about 40 years old. In those towns near Traspinedo, structured around the national N-122, everyone knows each other, even more so those who have controversial life histories. He participated in the first popular raids that were looking for his friend and has also declared before the investigators in those first days that they were trying to connect the dots.

The lack of certainty leads Traspinedo and his entourage to doubt whether these people, whom more or less everyone knew at least by sight, are involved in what is considered a "forced disappearance" with an as yet unknown result. The hypothesis of the agents has been turning with the passing of the dates, since the father did not report the absence until January 17, after five days without knowing about it, because on several occasions his daughter had been absent from home, without notifying , during several days. This delay has delayed the search, in which hundreds of people have turned. Pessimism reigns among the inhabitants of the area, who request anonymity to sympathize with the "pain and horror" of the family of Esther López,“who has grown up here” and whom everyone recognized for her good humor and her smile both on the streets and in a bar in the town where she worked. Time continues to pass without resolving the agony of knowing what has become of her neighbor.

600 people participate in the macro-search search

Some 600 people, with 450 volunteers, have participated this Saturday in the search for Esther López.

This Sunday a rally is planned at the Traspinedo City Hall in support of the relatives of the woman who has disappeared since January 12.

The search devices, to which the help of a local biker club has been added to cover more, have extended the search space to nearby Villabáñez.

A neighbor of the town, who knows the missing woman, assures that the problem is not so much in threshing the pine forests in search of clues, because "sooner or later you end up", but in the mighty Duero, whose margins, in many cases almost inaccessible and even dangerous, they are also being reviewed to the millimeter.

The vegetation zones of the riverbank and the cold of the water, at about six degrees,

they fear that the keys to the case may be submerged.

The searches of volunteers were decisive in solving similar disappearances such as those of Laura Luelmo from Zamora in Huelva in 2018 or in finding the shirt that led to Ana Julia Quezada as the confessed murderer of the child Gabriel in Almería in 2019. The lieutenant colonel of the Civil Guard , Javier Peña, has assured that they continue to collect testimonies and that there are many lines open to try to clarify the case: "We are leaving our souls to find Esther."

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