The disappearance of a boy from Somosierra

Juan Pedro was born on January 1, 1976, at the time of his disappearance, his height was 1.55 meters, weight - 65 kilograms, he had dark eyes and black hair ^[9] .

Juan Pedro's father, Andres Martínez Navarro ( Spanish Andres Martínez Navarro ) from the city of Fuente Alamo de Murcia in southern Spain, was a driver and owner of a truck Volvo F-12 . In June 1986, he was supposed to transport 20 thousand liters of sulfuric acid (according to another version - even 25 000 ^[10] liters) of 98% concentration from the Murcia region to the city of Bilbao in the province of Bizkaia for a local petrochemical company ^[9] . The media emphasized that, unlike the truck that belonged to the driver himself, Andres did not own the acid tank he was supposed to deliver ^[11] .

On June 24, 1986, at about 7 o’clock in the evening, he drove out of the city of Cartagena by truck ^[1] . With the driver were a wife, Carmen Gomez Legas ( Spanish: Carmen Gómez Legaz ), and a ten-year-old son, Juan Pedro. The boy finished the school year with good grades, for this his father promised to take him with him on a trip. The wife had to look after her son. In addition, June 24, 1986 was also the day of the patron saint of the boy, the trip was a gift to him on his name day . The first stop was made after refueling at the Venta del Olivo cafe, a few kilometers from Cieza . The second stop was at 0:12 in the city of Las Pedronieras , where the truck was parked in a recreation area ^[9] . Gas station workers saw Andres Martinez and his companions immediately after midnight. After some time, the truck resumed its movement along National Highway No. 301 . There were few cars on the highway, so he soon reached Madrid . At almost 3 a.m., the truck arrived at the Los Angeles gas station at the entrance to the Spanish capital ^[9] . The last time the family was seen in the El Magni roadside bar was at about 5:30 on June 25, 1986 at the Aragon Hotel ^[9] . Andres and Carmen ordered coffee for themselves, while Juan Pedro ordered milk with cookies. There were no signs of anxiety or grief on the faces of family members. The waiter (Felipe Alhambra ^[12] ) saw their truck leave the parking lot ^[1] . The waiter remembered the boy well and described it to the policemen very clearly, explaining that he was surprised at how a child of this age agreed to wear a sweater at such a warm time, as well as noting the boy’s red trousers and clothes that seemed strange to him ^[9] .

At 6 o’clock, a truck drove up to Somosierra, a mountain pass located north of Madrid ^[1] . Andres's car suddenly rushed at a speed of 140 kilometers per hour along the National Highway I mountain road (sometimes called speed 120 kilometers per hour, while the speed limit was only 90 ^[10] ). At 95 km, Gomez’s car turned over (in total, four trucks were damaged in the accident ^[10] ). In the rear compartment of the tank, where there was a warning about the presence of a flammable liquid, there was serious damage and a wide stream of colorless liquid flowed out. Sulfuric acid spilled on the sidelines, in contact with dew, a large amount of heat was released. Arriving rescuers had to first neutralize the acid so that it did not get into the nearby Duraton River. For this, 15,000 kilograms of lime were delivered. News of the accident was regularly broadcast on Spanish television ( TVE channel). After clearing the territory, two corpses were found in the wrecked truck - Andres and Carmen. Shortly afterwards, a call was received from the driver’s mother, informing that the truck driver’s son was also driving in the car (the police were shocked to hear from their grandmother through tears: “Please tell me that at least my grandson is healthy!” ^[11] ). Investigators examined the cabin, but there was no child. In confirmation of his presence, a cassette with children's songs and children's clothes were found in the cabin. The body of Juan Pedro was not discovered ^[1] .

There are a large number of versions that are trying to give an answer about the fate of Juan Pedro.

Versions of a boy killed in an accident

• There was no convincing evidence that at the time of the accident the boy was in the truck. The truck was transported to the Madrid municipality of Colmenar Viejo , where the investigation began. After a new detailed inspection of the cab for several hours, only one of a pair of rubber sneakers was found. In search of the remains, sand and lime were checked under a truck, which neutralized the acid ^[1] . One version, trying to explain the lack of a body and at the same time insisting on the death of Juan Pedro, says that the boy's body could completely decompose under the influence of acid. This version was defended, in particular, by an unnamed expert in the media from the chemistry department of the Institute of the Higher Council for Scientific Research ( Spanish Instituto del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas ) ^[11] . Other chemists (for example, the famous chemical scientist Alberto Borras ^[13] ) denied this version, since hair and nails could not be exposed to acid, and it takes two weeks to disintegrate the body. To confirm the expert’s opinion, a large piece of meat with bones was placed in sulfuric acid. Only five days later, the bones began to decompose. This confirmed the impossibility of decomposition of the boy’s body for a short period of time before the arrival of the police ^[1] .

• Another expert told El Caso weekly that the child’s semi-decomposed body was probably buried under a layer of earth whose movement was caused by the overturning of the truck. Dogs, in his opinion, could not detect the remains due to asphyxiating environmental pollution. An excavator in the presence of the Civil Guard removed a whole layer of land in search of organic remains. This version has also not been confirmed ^[1] .

Criminal

• Examining the truck, the police concluded that the brakes were working. This raised the question of why then the truck was moving at high speed. The tachograph noted that Andres stopped his truck 12 times during those 20 minutes while he was climbing the mountain (16 kilometers ^[14] ). Other truck drivers argued that there was no need to stop at a mountain pass, not only twelve, but even once. The stops were made for about ten to fifteen seconds, which could not be used to satisfy any physiological needs, and even more so to repair some mechanical damage to the truck ^[1] . The last stop was the longest, as much as half a minute, and it was after this that Andres accelerated the movement of the truck and lost control of it. According to this theory, in these 30 seconds the child was stolen, so he was not in the truck during the accident ^[11] . One of the versions trying to explain the mysterious stops claims that Juan Pedro was abducted and his father pursued his son’s abductors, according to another version, he himself avoided the persecution by unknown people whose purpose was to pick up the boy from his parents. The persecutor in the latter case probably kidnapped Juan Pedro after the accident, but even before the police arrived ^[1] .

• Some drivers who witnessed the accident spoke of the mysterious white van Nissan Vanette . His presence was also confirmed by two shepherds who were in that place at the time of the accident. They told the police that they saw foreigners sitting in it. They were a man with a mustache and long hair and a tall woman with blond hair, similar to a resident of Scandinavia , who arrived in this white van (some claimed that another woman was sitting in the car - an elderly woman who did not leave him ^[11] ). The woman with blond hair, according to witnesses, was a nurse (according to one version, she introduced herself as a nurse to be allowed to go to the truck ^[15] , according to another - those in a white van were dressed as orderlies ^[16] ). The man and his blonde companion climbed into the cab of the truck and took something from there. Perhaps these were the personal belongings of the parents or Juan Pedro. In another interpretation of this version, Juan Pedro could survive the accident and get out of the truck himself. In search of help, he could meet a foreigner and a fair-haired woman. The couple tried to take him to the hospital, but on the way there the boy died. Foreigners, not wanting to get involved in the complexity of relations with the Spanish police, hid the body ^[1] . The police found and interviewed all the owners of white van brand Nissan Vanette , but this did not bring any result ^[17] .

• One year after the start of the investigation, a change of judge took place. Maria Riera was replaced by Maria Dolores Ruiz Ramos. She gave the order to search the tank again. In 1987, the media reported that in a tank in one of the three compartments with sulfuric acid a packet of heroin was found, two of the compartments at the time of the accident were filled with sulfuric acid, and one was empty ^[14] . The Civil Guard discovered a hidden drug in a bag wrapped in white canvas and in plastic packaging. In the 1980s, there were criminal organizations in Spain that used the transport of dangerous goods to transport drugs from points on the Mediterranean coast of the southeast of the country to other areas of the peninsula. There were persistent rumors that Andres was involved in drug smuggling. The family tried to stop the spread of such rumors, arguing that: “Andres was not voluntarily involved in the mentioned business.” Relatives, however, admitted that this could happen under the influence of the financial situation in the family. Andres Martinez Navarro purchased a used truck for five million pesetas, which he planned to pay in installments. Two months before the accident, he had to repair the gearbox and brakes, which cost him another 700,000 pesetas. Significant debt formed, which had to be paid. For this reason, there was the possibility that people who knew the critical financial situation of the family took advantage of it by suggesting the transportation of drugs. At one of the strange stops on the way that Andres made, he may have been forced to hand over his son as a guarantee that he would deliver a packet of heroin to its final destination ^[1] .

• The drug version has another option. Andres's family reported that for several weeks, Andres received threats from unidentified people who required him to work for them as a drug carrier. In this case, the fact that the child accompanied his parents (nothing like this had ever happened before) would be interpreted as an attempt to protect him by taking him on a trip, where he will be under the constant supervision of his parents ^[11] . Drug dealers demanded that Andres carry the goods, and when he refused, they kidnapped Juan Pedro on the road to force his father to fulfill the order. “From the very beginning, it was completely clear to us that the boy did not travel in the truck, the child was in another vehicle, since the drug dealers took him as a guarantee against his father’s will," said Civil Guard General Jose Luis Pardos, who led the operation to save and search the boy. The family members of the disappeared boy insisted on the same version, her spokeswoman said: “They took the baby hostage ... Near the scene of the accident there was a police checkpoint. It’s clear that drug dealers were forced to stop the truck and took the child hostage to force his father to transport drugs. ” Then an accident occurred, for a while she saved the boy’s life, but he remained in the hands of a group of drug dealers and was an uncomfortable witness, which could soon be easily and imperceptibly eliminated. The maternal grandmother of the child, Maria Legas, was suspicious of this version. She said: “I don’t know. My son-in-law, even if a pistol was aimed at him, would prefer to be killed and not give his adored child ” ^[1] .

Versions about saving the boy

• It has been suggested that on the way the parents left the boy with their relatives, whom they visited along the way. This version, however, has not received confirmation. Parents of the boy did not have relatives or close friends in this area ^[17] .
• One version of this theory suggests that Juan Pedro received acid burns and went to the river to rinse the burned areas of the body. If he lost consciousness and died along the way, then he would have been easily found. With the help of the Red Cross , searches were conducted in the vicinity of the accident site. More than ten thousand people took part in combing the entire territory adjacent to the scene. In the light of the lanterns, bushes, ravines, embankments, streams within a radius of 30 kilometers were carefully studied, the authorities connected helicopters and trained dogs to the search. Since the boy’s body was not found, this gave rise to the hope that the boy was alive ^[1] . Two years later, a child who looked like Juan Pedro Martinez Gomez and even dressed in the same clothes that was on him during the accident, was seen in the vicinity of Badajoz . Since then, the police received several reports that a teenager dressed in red clothes appeared along the road on the outskirts of different towns. All of them are near Somosierra ^[9] . The police were very interested in the testimony of a village girl who lived near Alburkerke , who claimed that she had accidentally met a boy who was hiding on the outskirts of the city from those around him at the age of about ten years. She claimed that she had maintained a relationship with him for three days and brought him food. According to her, the boy was hungry and dirty. The interrogations of the girl showed that the story is completely fictitious and has no real basis ^[18] .

The owner of a driving school in the center of Madrid in 1987 told police that an elderly blind Iranian woman went to his workshop to find out the whereabouts of the US embassy. She was accompanied as a guide by a boy of ten or eleven years old, who spoke with an accent reminiscent of Andalusian , and seemed, in his words, "a little out of sorts." The witness stated that this teenager looked like Juan Pedro, and that a blind Iranian may be an elderly woman sitting in a Nissan Vanette , whom witnesses saw at the scene ^[11] .

Immediately after the boy disappeared, his grandparents started a broad search campaign on the part of their father and mother. In a short time they spent two million pesetas on his wanted list throughout the country. They placed 85,000 posters on the streets and primarily on the facades of schools, city services and post offices. Они также наняли известного в Испании частного детектива Хорхе Коломара , который специализировался на поисках исчезнувших людей, но результатов это не принесло ^{[1] [19]} . Известно, что родственники получали телефонные звонки, неизвестные на другом конце телефонной линии настойчиво требовали прекратить поиски. Судьба мальчика до настоящего времени неизвестна ^[15] .

• Исчезновение Давида Герреро Гевары
• Исчезновение Питера Уинстона
• Исчезновение Николь Морен
• Исчезновение Агаты Энн Каннингем

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