A vampire from Barcelona - this is the nickname this monster woman, recognized as the most terrible criminal in Spain, received. The exact number of her victims is still unknown.
It was definitely confirmed that this nightmare lady killed at least 12 children, however, all things considered, it is safe to say that in fact, several dozen minors became victims of the Barcelona vampire.
BUSINESS PLAN
Enriqueta Marti was born in Sant Feliu de Llobregat (a small town near Barcelona) in 1868. As a very young girl, she moved to Barcelona and at first worked as a nanny in wealthy families.
Such earnings cannot be called easy, and soon Enriqueta, realizing that with her youth and beauty, she could earn much more in another field, joined the ranks of the workers of the ancient profession, where she succeeded a lot. In 1895, she even married an attractive client. The artist Joan Pujalo became her husband. But the marriage turned out to be short-lived - they broke up with Joan after six months of marriage, without having time to have children.
Enriqueta returned to her newly found profession as a panel girl. Here she learned a lot about her clientele. She discovered the darkest and dirtiest, usually hidden even from the closest side of the human soul and the perverse desires of some people. And Enriketa realized that these desires can make good money.
Having saved enough money to rent suitable premises, she decided in 1909 to open a brothel. But not an ordinary brothel, but with children and adolescents, who had to please some very rich, but free from all morality, Barcelona men.
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The age of those whom Enriqueta kept as sex slaves in order to satisfy the customers of her establishment ranged from 3 to 14 years! She picked up some of the children among homeless teenagers, and the smallest were kidnapped on the streets of Barcelona from gaping mothers.
RAVAL BABIES
One day, her business was covered by the police. But the case never came to court: one of the very influential clients, fearing unnecessary publicity, managed to get the case to be put on hold and then completely closed. It was then, having lost a business that brought good income, Enriqueta and started her new, much more terrible bloody business.
Now Enriqueta in Barcelona's poverty quarter of Raval was engaged in kidnapping children 3-10 years old. But if earlier she did this solely for the purpose of debauchery, now the woman had other plans.
For the first time they were born after her little boy died in a brothel. Enriketa puzzled over what benefit could be derived even from this, but she did not come up with anything. But now she already clearly knew how to make money on dead children.
The remains of children found in her apartment
In those days, there was a popular belief that tuberculosis could be cured with the blood of babies. And Enriqueta began to prepare the appropriate potion from children's blood.
But this seemed to her not enough. Further, to create all kinds of elixirs, creams, powder, etc., she began to use not only blood, but also bones, fat, bile of murdered children.
Enriqueta supplied her medicines to a select group of ladies from the high society of Barcelona. These ladies firmly believed that the blood of babies prolongs youth, and their fat is excellent for keeping the skin fresh, and pretended not to know about the origin of the “product”.
Enriketa herself, meanwhile, led a double, rather strange life. In the daytime, dressed in rags, she begged for alms and came to distribute free meals to beggars at the Santa Creu hospital, although she clearly did not feel the need for money. In her opinion, it was a good camouflage method so as not to arouse suspicion when looking for potential victims among the children of the quarter.
And at night, a carriage called for her, in which, putting on her luxurious toilets, the woman went to high society. She looked for clients and clients among the visitors of the Liceo Theater - the most secular place in Barcelona. Children were offered to cavaliers as sexual objects, to ladies - as cosmetics.
FACE IN THE WINDOW
When the disappearance of children became more frequent, and they disappeared mainly in the same area of the poor Raval, the people became agitated. In the city, rumors spread that children were being stolen and killed. They even reached the city hall, but they were not taken seriously there. At the end of 1911, the mayor of Barcelona officially announced that there were no grounds for the rumors circulating in the city. Alas, in fact, the rumors turned out to be a terrible truth.
The last straw was the disappearance of five-year-old Teresita Guitart in February 1912. The crumb for a moment let go of her mother's hand, who was chatting with her friend, when some senora beckoned her, promising candy.
On the seventh day of the search, a certain Elias, a neighbor of Enriqueta, accidentally saw in her window a child who looked like a missing girl, albeit with a haircut. Elias shared her suspicions with a friend, who reported to the police. The next day, Enriquete was searched.
Police with a live witness Teresita Guitart
In the apartment, the guards found two girls - Teresa Guitart and another one who called herself Angelita, and Enriqueta called her mother. Other finds included bloodstained children's clothing alongside Enriqueta's chic outfits, a blood-stained knife, and the remains of children's corpses.
Angelita later tells the police that her little brother, Pepito, lived with her before Teresa came, and she saw her mother kill him on the kitchen table.
Angelita did not remember her real parents, and the detainee passed her off as her own daughter, allegedly born in marriage. However, Joan said that he and Enriqueta never had children in common. After that, the woman admitted that she had kidnapped Angelita as a baby from her sister-in-law.
Among other finds, two things stood out: a book of ancient recipes for drugs and a notebook with an impressive list of men and women, among which were the names of many influential people in Barcelona.
It remains unknown whether these persons were actually clients of Enriqueta's criminal business. In order not to unnecessarily worry the people, the newspapers reported that the names of people from whom the criminal begged were supposedly included in the terrible list. But hardly anyone believed it.
END
At the age of 43, Enriqueta Martí, who had not yet lost her former beauty, ended up in prison. The death penalty in Spain had not yet been abolished at that time. And the people waited and demanded a death sentence. But for some reason they were in no hurry with the trial of the "vampire".
The chief inspector of the police said that first we need to extract the whole truth about the clients from her. However, this was not done. Once in a prison cell, Enriqueta immediately made two unsuccessful suicide attempts.
After that, she was under round-the-clock surveillance of the guards and the supervision of her cellmates, who made sure that Enriqueta could not hang herself at night, cut her veins with a wooden knife or bite them with her teeth, as she had already tried to do. With interrogations, they decided to wait.
But before the interrogations and trial of Enriqueta Marty did not live: despite supposedly round-the-clock surveillance, one morning she was found dead. The administration of the prison said that Enriqueta was lynched by the inmates who hated her.
A version immediately arose that the murder of Enriqueta was ordered by those who did not want their names to surface at the trial. Be that as it may, due to the lack of evidence of the killer herself, both the true number of her victims and the names of those who used her services remained unknown.
The most brutal serial killer in the history of Spain was buried in a mass grave in the Montjuïc cemetery. Over the past 100 years, her name has been overgrown with speculation and legends, books have been written about her.
But the worst thing, as noted by journalists and forensic experts, is that the Barcelona "vampire" was not a psychopath like Jack the Ripper or Norman Bates.
She was a completely sane and intelligent woman, but devoid of any moral principles. Enriqueta's crimes of unprecedented cruelty were just business for her.
