The story of Miguel Morales, the man who died twice and disappeared many more | Spain

Miguel Morales Molina had disappeared many times from his house in Dúrcal (Granada) before that summer of 1984 when he definitely left. His escapes went from one day to several months, like that period that happened in Palma de Mallorca, in which he sent postcards to his family to inform how and where he was. Miguel and María Montserrat married at the end of the seventies and leaks, violence and ill -treatmentin addition to their problems with drugs, they led the wife to request divorce. He never found out and may never knew. A first of August 1984, in the middle of the process, left forever. A judicial sentence was taken for dead on August 1, 1994. However, it was alive. He died from the heavy rains caused by The Dana that ravaged Valencia on October 29. Paradoxically, his death has served to resurrect him in the life of his family, who knew nothing of him for four decades.

Last November, the Civil Guard contacted Jessica, one of Miguel's two daughters. They had found the body of a man in a field of orange in Quart de Poblet. It was not from there, but it was dragged from another place, sources from that City Council confirm. The only thing that the family intuits is that “he lived under a bridge, in the Barranco del Poyo, For eight or nine years. ” Little more knows the family of this man who left his identity and passport card abandoned at home when he escaped and never tried to renew his documentation or create a new one under another name. Miguel had, when he left Dúrcal, 34 years old and has died with 72.

Sara was a couple of years when he disappeared and Jéssica, five. Sara doesn't remember it. He does know a fact that was definitive for his mother to ask for divorce. One day, when she was in her mother's lap, Miguel tried to stab her. María Montserrat turned on time and saved the little girl, but took the stab. There he made the decision to leave the husband, something that for the background was not difficult. « When my mother, who worked cleaning at the town hall, arrived with her salary home, who paid her in cash, he took the money and put fire so she didn't buy food for us, » says Sara, « and then she went to the neighbor's house to ask for a plate of food because we didn't stop crying for hunger. » It also tells another story of ill -treatment to the mother: « He made her sleep on the stairs of the street, while he stayed inside the house when we were babies. » Therefore, says Sara, « I've never wanted to look for him. » Nor did he want, in the first instance, to pay the expenses of the transfer of Miguel's body from Valencia to Granada, where they reside now. Finally, he has consented. Miguel's incinerated remains are now with Jéssica, the eldest daughter.

Beyond that approximate decade in which he has been living under a bridge, nothing has been rebuilt from Miguel's life. The divorce was granted by the judge in absence. Notifications came to his parents' house, where he was registered, but he never came to appear in court. « We don't know if I wasn't because he was in one of his getaways or because he didn't want to go, » says Sara. The fact is that, he continues, the judge « granted him the separation and divorce at the same time. » Nor did he know, he remembers his daughter, who died his mother and his brother. He was also unaware that, judicially, he was also dead.

Sara no, but Jessica, the older sister, has always had an interest in knowing what had been of her father. Therefore, between 2009 or 2010, he does not remember exactly, the two sisters began a legal procedure to declare their father's death. According to his lawyer, who prefers to maintain anonymity, “it is a fairly usual procedure. It is a voluntary act that relatives urge and that, in this case, it required that at least 10 years had passed since Miguel's disappearance. ” The judicial tour, which ended needing six years, begins with a judicial requirement to the police to investigate in all administrations, hospitals included, if something is known about the missing. Given the negative response, the daughters had to put an advertisement in a national newspaper, in this case, in the country, and two ads in a local newspaper claiming data to those who had them. No one responded. All this with the corresponding time margins of several months. The last step was to ask direct relatives. Two cousins ​​appeared before the judge to say that they didn't know anything about him either.

Years later, on December 12, 2016, a judge declared him deceased dated August 1, 1994, 10 years after fleding. Now, another certificate says that, according to the fingerprint of the right index finger, Miguel Morales died on October 29 or 30, 2024 for « mechanical asphyxiation due to submersion in the lodose medium. » The lawyer acknowledges that it is a bit weird. “On the date we did these procedures, there were already computer and technological means capable of finding the disappeared. No years ago, but then. Who knows what happened. ” Sara, on the other hand, never had much faith in the sentence that gave him dead, beyond needing a role like this: “We, somehow, we have always thought he would be alive. Even when the judge gave him the deceased. ” The Dana, with all her pain, has closed all doubts.