“The phone was switched off and we hadn’t heard from him for a couple of days,” recalls Adriana. The alarm for his brother soon went on: “There was no way to contact.” Is named Raúl Sanz, today he is 39 years old and has been missing from home for almost 15. “He disappeared at 24″, laments Selina, his mother, “since then I haven’t heard from him”.
Born in Saragossa, Raúl decided to try his luck in the south and in October 2007 heand moved to Granada. Several unanswered calls triggered the alert. The registry of the computer of his threw a data: the young had traveled to the Canary Islands. I wasn’t having a good time: had anxiety, cyclothymia, depression. They filed a complaint for disappearance. “The police informed us, a month later, that he had been identified on the street.” He was not taken to a police station. His trail was lost. They did not see him again.
He moved to Grenada
Active, dynamic, lover of sports, nature, theater, music, the yembé (percussion instrument). At the end of September 2007, three months before he disappeared, Raúl turned on the computer and wrote to a friend. He had just signed the settlement with which he ended his life in Zaragoza, where he was born, he wanted to change. He left his job as a gardener behind, “he loved it, he did a medium degree of FP”, remembers his sister Adriana. “My journey through Granada begins”, wrote in an email. “I hope they clear my head and allow me to change my life.”
He rented a room until June 30 of that year, according to the real estate months later to the police. He didn’t use it that long. On January 15, 2008 he left Granada, he did not return.
Lucia’s godfather: goodbye
“He left Zaragoza in October,” recalls his mother. “In Granada he found a job as a waiter, although we later learned that he had not been registered with social security.” Despite the distance, contact was close. “In 2008 my granddaughter, Lucía, was born on January 10, and Raúl came home. He wanted to meet the girl, he was her godfather,” the woman reconstructs.
“He was at my house for several days,” adds Adriana. “She was sad, she didn’t say why, just that they were her things…”, remembers her sister. “Two days later he said goodbyeHe said he had to go. We kept in touch by phone for a couple of days. He disconnected his mobile and there was no more.
Cyclothymia, depression
Diapers, bottles and new schedules. Little Lucia captured all eyes during the first hours. In Zaragoza everything was new. From Granada, Raúl gave no sign, so his family reported his disappearance to the National Police.
“If we know something, we will contact you. He is of legal age,” the agents replied. Adriana and Selina gave their description: long, brown hair… and they expanded on a fact: Raúl was not well.
“He had phases of depression, he recovered, then he relapsed…”, says his sister. “She decided to move in just for a change of scenery, but she wasn’t doing well either.” Raul youHe was on prescribed medication and was fighting against the most powerful pain: mental pain. It started gradually. “When I was 14 years old, anxiety came,” recalls her sister. “It was mild, as time went on, it got worse.”
The disease was in progression. “I took him to a psychologist, to a psychiatrist,” recalls Selina. “The information was scarce, as an adult he had to authorize it, the toilets told me that it was confidential.” He was isolated. He became reserved. “Perhaps we did not know the extent of all that he was suffering“, regrets his sister. “I think he tried to go a little alone. Disappear, I think, with the intention of not hurting others.” On January 16, 2008, he arrived in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, they would find out later.
worried about his illness
After filing the complaint, the police investigation drew only one hypothesis: voluntary absence, was of legal age. At the same time, the family started a personal investigation. “I went into her email,” Adriana remembers, “her Gmail was open on the family computer.” In her mind, the last few days with her brother, “it wasn’t right.” He found a one-way ticket, dated January 16, bound for Las Palmas.
Adriana investigated further, they learned that the last few months Raul had been looking for a job, became interested in learning “juggling and percussion”, and some sessions of “invisible theater”. He was part of a theater group. She left it. “He sent emails to some associations worried about his illnesscyclothymia, asking for help for her problems,” adds her mother.
He stayed in a pension in La Palma from January 17 to 21, 2008. “He was locked up for three days, without leaving the room”
They transferred everything to the National Police. The agents completed their steps. It was confirmed: after three and a half months in Granada, the young man decided to go to the Canary Islands. “It is a site that he knew because he was a children’s monitor in 2016,” recalls his mother.
It was learned that, upon his arrival, he stayed in a pension on the island of La Palma. He would stay until January 21, 2008. “The owner told us that he stayed locked up for three days, he didn’t leave the room, and it seemed strange to them,” says Adriana. He visited Fuerteventura. She moved between islands.
“Years ago he was at Chichester College, a school in England to learn English, and he met an old man, a gardener, who was a nomad. Maybe he followed him…”
When he left the pension, probably due to lack of money (he had not yet received what he received from unemployment and his account was overdrawn), he slept in the street. “They told us that they had seen him, also on La Palma, at the astronomical observatory and that he stayed around one day sleeping. From the description, for the days that were, it could be him,” Selina expands.
All fades to black until jan 31, ten days later, when the police, alerted by the Granada agents, identify him in Tenerife. The family found out a month later.
“We saw it a month ago”
Wandering, aimlessly, and without medication (he was taking three different medications), Raúl landed in the Canary Islands. Selina, her mother, took a plane to Las Palmas shortly after. “The tickets that she had taken out, that we saw on the computer, pointed there,” her mother recalls. She distributed images of her son, “I took photographs to the Department of Health, so they could distribute them in hospitals,” she recalls. “I contacted the College of Pharmacists… doctors, police and pharmacies. In those three places I left information.
Selina got in touch with all the Canarian municipalities, “I wrote to all the municipalities and sent them her photo too”. With the woman in Las Palmas, the news arrived: “She called me my daughter, they had seen Raúl in Tenerife.” Within seconds she imagined herself flying there. “Mom, it’s been a month,” her daughter explained. It was a hard blow. “I returned to Zaragoza with all the pain and disenchantment in the world. Why did they notify me a month later? There was nothing to do there.”
voluntary absence
“Raúl Sanz has been identified in San Cristóbal de la Laguna, Tenerife, at 11:52 am and 12:27 pm, on January 31, 2008,” an agent said by phone. “A month ago? I answered,” recalls Adriana. “I never got it.”
As stated in the documentation to which CASE OPEN has had access, Raúl was identified, but he was not taken to a police station. “Call your house that they are looking for you, they told him something like that,” laments Selina. She did not do it. He did not contact. “They considered that his absence was voluntary, that he was of legal age.”
The protocol for the search for disappeared persons of the Ministry of the Interior establishes that involuntary disappearances include those people who have mental health problems. Problems with cognitive impairment, mental disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, people with disabilities, etc. The search for the missing person is generated for reasons of their own safety or at the request of relatives or close associates, and for social interest.
It was the last time they heard from him. During years, fought to keep the investigation open. They requested the opening of new legal proceedings. They provided medical and psychiatric reports. Everything was denied by the competent court considering that “Raúl was an adult and autonomous person.”
Before the judicial bolt, the family continued fighting. “It’s almost fifteen years in which I’ve done everything,” confesses Selina, weary. “Experts, gurus, seers…”. A member of a manic-depressive association, upon payment, said they would search. “We trust,” she says. Nothing was found. “The reality is that it did not work, whether they did something or notThey hired “very serious” detectives, but they did not find Raúl. Selina knocked on all the doors, including that of Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba -already deceased- at that time Minister of the Interior: “they answered me, and they put in my case son to a police unit”. There was no more.
In communes, without medication
“The police think he’s not alive,” laments Selina. “There are no bank movements, nor has he renewed his documentation.” She lives with absence and uncertainty. “Years ago he was at Chichester College, a school in England to learn English, and he met an old man, a gardener, who was a nomad. He liked him. Maybe he followed him…”
Adriana draws another option: “that he be in a cave, in a commune. I have always thought that if he found help there, it would be from people with an alternative life. Because of his aesthetics, his philosophy, he was able to integrate into such a community.”
Smiling, cheerful, joking, Raúl is not there. He no longer only has his niece Lucia, now he has three. Selina, his mother, looks at his picture every day. He has it on the bedside table. “Every day I give him a kiss and try to get ahead.” He fills every minute with activity to fool the void. He lives waiting: “waiting to see you, waiting for answers, waiting… I don’t know.”