“See you never! I’m leaving! You won’t see me again!” were his last phrases. He fulfilled it. Santiago José -Chago-, as everyone calls him- left at home phone, keys, documentation and money. She closed the door and left. He is 16 years old, lives in Tenerife and since September 6 they have been searching for him tirelessly. He is missing. “We have been searching for him tirelessly for more than a month,” laments his sister Luz, dejected. “He is a very calm, familiar child, all of this is strange from beginning to end.”
“He woke up angry, he started yelling at my mother and my sister…”, the young woman reconstructs before OPEN CASE, events and research portal of Prensa Ibérica. It also traces Chago’s last steps. They run out on a mountain. “Chago leaves the house, my little brother follows him and they arrive at this mountain. Chago says: ‘Go away, I’m going to jump!’, half laughing, but he says it.” The little boy returns and is never seen again.
The police investigation does not rule out anything, “they believe it is possible that my brother had ended his life there.” Now everything has taken a turn. Dozens of people claim to see him, “dirty, with the same clothes in which he disappeared (white t-shirt, blue jeans), in the neighborhood of Los Gladiolos (Santa Cruz de Tenerife),” says Luz. I wouldn’t be alone. “Everyone names me the same woman.”
“Your brother is there”
“We reported immediately,” explains Luz. “If my brother has ever been angry, he has come home an hour later. Chago is a very familiar person, very calm and would never do something like that.” The agents immediately activated the protocol by disappearance: Have you ever left home? Were the previous days okay? “My father died five months ago. He took his life…” explains Luz, “Chago and he didn’t speak to each other, they didn’t get along.” The minor accepted the duel in the worst way, “he carried it inside, he was overcome, he felt bad.”
The National Police took over the investigation. As the progress came in, the family went out searching. “We went all over the mountain,” there is no trace of him.
“We persisted in the mountain because, of course, taking into account his state of mind, that he did not return, and that this is not normal for him… we did not rule out that he had stayed there.” Without clues, without a trace, the spread of posters arrived. With these also came the only clues: “your brother is in Los Gladiolos, your brother is there.”
“He takes people away, including children. He gave me a glass of water and I fell asleep. I don’t remember anything. There was a big guy at the door, a bully.”
An area: Los Gladioli, and the name of a woman. Chago’s family began to receive the same coordinates over and over again. “We decided to go there,” explains Luz. The residents of the neighborhood, “quite dangerous, conflictive, somewhat shady,” refused to speak. There was a pact of silence. “We won’t give any tips.”
Then a testimony came: “I know that woman, she handles everything a little and she dedicates herself to taking people, including children.” The testimony speaks of drugs, retail and alcohol. “He gave me a glass of water and I fell asleep. I don’t remember much, a squat house, near the Zurita bridge. In the upper part of the house there were children and people detained, and at the door a big guy, a bully “.
Luz toured the neighborhood several nights. The rest of the family did it during the day too. After the constant visits and raids, people stopped seeing the minor.
“It hasn’t been one or two people. Many clues have come, to my mother, my sister, to me, from different people and they all place it there,” explains Luz. “All the clues are from people who know him, they don’t come out after seeing the poster. A cousin of mine claims that she saw him and ran away… Chago is not well.”
“It got lost”
“Chago is very homely, he barely went out on the street.” Because I was there? “As a result of the disappearance we have learned that hA few months ago a friend took him with adult people there. Apparently, the little that my brother went out, when he did, he went there,” laments his sister. “Convinced, deceived… From the beginning nothing is normal, he is not aggressive, and look how he left the house… He is extremely organized, he has to place everything, and now he could be in a house like that…” The family, again, in shock.
The police know the fact, “it is a neighborhood that does not like the police presence,” Luz laments. “We need them to look there, but really look.” Luz can’t find it alone. With the risk that entails, she keeps looking for him on those streets, but he is never there. “If no one sees him lately and before they saw him a lot. If now no one can stop him, I begin to believe that that house exists, and that my brother is being held there.”
Chago, 16 years old, the calm, slow and familiar teenager. He lost his father, and “lost” himself. “I know that everything caused him trauma. He even said that he didn’t want to be…“Laments Luz, “but we want to think that we can find him and give him the help he needs.”
Tall, thin and with rather long hair, “he walks with his shoulders pushed forward a little, in case someone sees him.” He had just enrolled in a mechanical vocational training course, “he was super excited, he bought everything new.” The course has started and he is not there.
