No resident of Hinojal knows where Vicente Sánchez is.
Vicente, whom everyone calls
Tete,
79 years old,
He disappeared on January 27.
Three days later, a sister who lives in Madrid filed a complaint after not having heard from him.
The Civil Guard has been dealing with a case for a month that has turned this town of just over 400 residents upside down, especially in what surrounds Tete
,
which won the lottery with nearly 300,000 euros eight years ago in a Bonoloto.
The hypothesis that this is the reason for his disappearance is on the table, but it is not the only one, according to sources from the Government Delegation.
This Thursday, around eight in the morning and as the mayor of the town, Blanca Vivas, tells us by phone, several Civil Guard cars appeared on the streets of the municipality.
The agents entered the house of the town's sheriff, José María Lindo, and took him into custody.
Lindo, 55 years old, according to the mayor, has been an official in the Hinojal City Council for 32 years.
“It's a very hard time for the people,” he says.
“Because if Vicente's disappearance was hard, this is even harder.
There is a link with
Tete
because perhaps he [Lindo, the sheriff] was the last one to contact him.
I don't know much more."
The newspaper
Hoy Extremadura
points out that the sheriff had taken
Tete
in his car in recent months, especially to Cáceres, to run errands for him.
“In the capital of Cáceres,” notes the regional newspaper, “he usually went to the Ruta de la Plata shopping center and some bars.
According to his nephew, he also took the opportunity to play the pool and returned on the same bus or with someone from the town because he does not have a driving license.
According to
El Periódico de Extremadura
, Lindo participated in the search for
Tete
in the town and assured the Civil Guard that the missing neighbor gave him “a lot of money to take him to the bulls.”
What's more, according to this newspaper, the detainee had even speculated about the reasons for his disappearance with a neighbor:
―He went on the regular bus and they did something to him because he always had a lot of money in his wallet.
This is the main hypothesis of the family, who in statements to the newspaper
Hoy
nine days after his disappearance, warned of the financial amount available to him.
“We believe they took him for money,” explained his sister and his nephew.
Another sister from Madrid also traveled to Hinojal, who currently prefers not to make statements.
The Civil Guard operation this Thursday also focused on searching the homes of
Tete
's brothers in the town and their properties.
The detainee, according to the mayor, is married and has a son who is studying at the University.
“I'm shocked.
"I can't believe it had anything to do with the disappearance."
The mayor defines
Tete
as a very orderly person with fixed habits.
When they entered her house, the bed was unmade, the cell phone, and the two corral doors were open.
“My grandmother and her mother are first cousins,” says the mayor.
“He didn't work, he dedicated himself to doing labor.
Then, when he retired, it was she who won the lottery.”
She says that
Tete
, precisely, boasted about that luck.
“Here we said how lucky Vicente is.”
Some neighbors warned him that he had to be careful, but no one had ever robbed him.
“Therefore, this has caught us unexpectedly.
The people think that he has to do with people from outside.
Maybe because he went to Cáceres a lot.”
This Thursday nothing else is talked about in the town's houses.
“We don't know if Jose Mari is a suspect or not, because he cannot be judged without knowing.
I don't know.
This is a small town of 400 residents.
“It’s the topic of everyone’s conversation.”
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