Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Manky Listener discretion advised. On the
Speaker 1: morning of August one, nineteen eighty, a Spanish nobleman and
Speaker 1: his wife, the Marquis and Marchioness of Arquillo, had just
Speaker 1: moved into their summer chalet in Soto Grande, right outside
Speaker 1: of Madrid, where they would spend the entire month of August.
Speaker 1: But neither of them, Maria lords or Quillo nor Manuel
Speaker 1: de la Sierre Torres, her husband, came down for breakfast
Speaker 1: that morning. When the Marquis's driver arrived at the chalet,
Speaker 1: he told the cook how strange it was that they
Speaker 1: had slept in so late. They called them on the
Speaker 1: internal line in the house and no one answered. When
Speaker 1: they went up to the Marquis's room, they found that
Speaker 1: Maria lords or Quillo and Manuel de la Sierre Torres
Speaker 1: had been murdered. Aside from the cook, there hadn't been
Speaker 1: any other domestic workers in the house. Maria and Manuel
Speaker 1: had encouraged them to take the previous afternoon and evening off.
Speaker 1: The cook would later tell the police that she hadn't
Speaker 1: heard anything. Even more inexplicable was that Bully, the marquess's
Speaker 1: famously loud poodle, didn't bark even once that night. It
Speaker 1: seemed like whoever had carried out the murders knew the
Speaker 1: house well. The killer got in through the indoor pool,
Speaker 1: using a blow torch to activate the latch and get
Speaker 1: into the main house. Even though they broke through the
Speaker 1: glass door in the back of the house, no glass
Speaker 1: shattered to the ground. They knew where the alarm was
Speaker 1: and switched it off. Nothing was stolen. There was no
Speaker 1: clear suspect. Initially, Maria and Manuel's children, Miriam and Juan,
Speaker 1: were considered. After all, the nobles had forty three million
Speaker 1: pesitas that their children could have inherited upon their parents' deaths,
Speaker 1: but both had alibis. Miriam was with her lover, Richard Rue,
Speaker 1: a coworker from her office whom the press nicknamed Dick
Speaker 1: the American, and Juan was in London getting a master's
Speaker 1: degree in finance. When the police finally did arrive at
Speaker 1: the scene, they discovered one even stranger detail. Someone had
Speaker 1: already washed the blood off of Maria and Manuel's bodies.
Speaker 1: I'm Danish Schwartz and this is noble blood with no
Speaker 1: suspect in sight. The investigator on the case declared, quote,
Speaker 1: this case is inexplicable. After spending a few hours at
Speaker 1: the crime scene. The case would remain inexplicable four months.
Speaker 1: The police couldn't find any solid evidence that could pin
Speaker 1: anyone to the murders. There was no murder weapon, no DNA,
Speaker 1: just a few bullet casings at the marquess's summer house.
Speaker 1: This didn't stop the press from speculating about the culprit
Speaker 1: of course. By nineteen eighty, the Franco dictatorship had been
Speaker 1: over for just five years and journalists were eager to
Speaker 1: flex their new freedom of expression. Besides, in the middle
Speaker 1: of the summer heat, when many Spaniards were on vacation,
Speaker 1: there was barely any other news to report on. On
Speaker 1: August second, nineteen eighty, the only other story making it
Speaker 1: to the front page of a major Spanish newspaper, El Pais,
Speaker 1: was government vacations paralyzed political activity. The case would only
Speaker 1: pick up steam as months passed and the press speculated
Speaker 1: on potential culprits. Readers devoured stories about the iquios in
Speaker 1: various newspapers and weeklies, theorizing that the murderer was a
Speaker 1: member of the Basque nationalist terrorist group. ETA later that
Speaker 1: it was a hit man, or even that it could
Speaker 1: have been a former domestic worker fired for a gay
Speaker 1: affair with the marquess. A clear suspect finally emerged nearly
Speaker 1: a year after the murders. One morning in April nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty one, a child playing in the San Juan reservoir
Speaker 1: in Madrid found a pistol on the shore. This gun
Speaker 1: matched the one that had killed the Marquesses of Quillo,
Speaker 1: a small twenty two caliber pistol with a silencer. It
Speaker 1: was registered in the name of Miguel Escobedo, the father
Speaker 1: of Rafi de Escovedo, the Marquess's estranged son in law,
Speaker 1: who was married to their daughter, Miriam. Rafi Escobedo was
Speaker 1: a handsome law school dropout and a known playboy. Like
Speaker 1: the Marquesses, he was also a noble, as his mom
Speaker 1: was from the Prada Armeno family, but his parents had
Speaker 1: fallen on hard times. His family's dire financial circumstances didn't
Speaker 1: get in the way of his social life. He spent
Speaker 1: his teens and early twenties cavorting with Madrid's young elite
Speaker 1: Miriam de la Sierra, the marquess's daughter, and Raffi, met
Speaker 1: at their equestrian club when she was twenty. Miriam developed
Speaker 1: a crush instantly. She wrote in her memoirs, quote Raffi
Speaker 1: was very attentive, charismatic, friendly, and very affectionate. He was
Speaker 1: all he's making plans. He took me to parties. He
Speaker 1: even taught me how to dress differently. Raffi provided a
Speaker 1: refreshing contrast to Miriam's strict upbringing. Her father was known
Speaker 1: for being stingy with his kids, to such an extent
Speaker 1: that Miriam and Juan were called the poor in their
Speaker 1: posh circle of friends. She started working at the age
Speaker 1: of fourteen to earn her own money. With no allowance
Speaker 1: to speak of, Miriam hoped that with her responsible, practical attitude,
Speaker 1: she could clean up Raffi's act. She wrote in her memoirs,
Speaker 1: I love being a mother to everyone. Raffi was like
Speaker 1: a child, attractive, charming, friendly. So with Raffi, I adopted
Speaker 1: the same role of savior. I wanted to transform him.
Speaker 1: Being so young and sheltered, Miriam wasn't yet aware that
Speaker 1: an I can fix him. Attitude doesn't exactly bode well
Speaker 1: for a couple. The Marquesses were not so naive. They
Speaker 1: strongly objected to their daughter's marriage, since Raphael had no
Speaker 1: job or prospects, but Miriam stuck to her guns, and
Speaker 1: after a year and a half of dating, the couple
Speaker 1: married at the Church of Humera on June twenty first,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight, with all members of the high society,
Speaker 1: from the Duchess of Alba to the Egyptian ambassador in attendance.
Speaker 1: The marriage deteriorated almost immediately, as soon as Miriam said,
Speaker 1: I do she regretted marrying Rafi. They started out living
Speaker 1: with her parents in their summer home in Sasagas, but
Speaker 1: they clashed constantly. Once Rafai even called the Marquess his
Speaker 1: father in law a quote pig, miser and cretan. In response,
Speaker 1: the Marquess threatened to cut Rafae off without a passetta.
Speaker 1: Sick of fighting with Raffi, the Marquesses threw the young
Speaker 1: couple out of their house. The newlyweds went to live
Speaker 1: in an apartment in Madrid, where they suffered various periods
Speaker 1: of financial hardship without Miriam's parents stepping in to support them,
Speaker 1: which Raffi resented. Raffi and Miriam were so broke that
Speaker 1: he had to pawn Miriam's engagement bracelet. Soon they began
Speaker 1: living completely separate lives. Sometimes Miriam would come home from
Speaker 1: work and find their apartment full of people drinking, doing drugs,
Speaker 1: and gambling, things that she recalls she quote couldn't or
Speaker 1: didn't want to know about. She felt she never fit
Speaker 1: in with Raffie's friends other rich kidd layabouts when she
Speaker 1: never drank a drop of alcohol in her life. Miriam wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: little by little, I realized that my relationship with Raffi
Speaker 1: was hopeless. At first we had daily arguments, but later
Speaker 1: he decided to disappear and dedicate himself to his travels.
Speaker 1: After just six months of marriage, Miriam and Raffie were separated. Miriam,
Speaker 1: regretting her union with Raffi, made amends with her parents, who,
Speaker 1: to their credit, never said I told you so. The
Speaker 1: marquess and his deeply religious wife, a member of the
Speaker 1: Roman Catholic Opus Day Organization, agreed to try and help
Speaker 1: Miriam escape her marriage by seeking a church annulment by
Speaker 1: Easter nineteen seventy nine, nine months after she had married Raffi.
Speaker 1: Miriam was in a new relationship with Dick the America,
Speaker 1: a coworker at the company she worked at. By the
Speaker 1: time of the murders, Miriam and Raffi had been separated
Speaker 1: for over two years. Initially, neither the police nor Miriam
Speaker 1: considered Rafi as suspect because he had no financial motive.
Speaker 1: He didn't stand to inherit anything if the marquesses died
Speaker 1: because they had signed a separation of property agreement before
Speaker 1: the marriage. But after finding the pistol at the San
Speaker 1: Juan reservoir, another motive emerged revenge. Unlike Miriam, Raffi resented
Speaker 1: his in laws for their stinginess and blamed them for
Speaker 1: their financial struggles. They had fought constantly, and Raffi made
Speaker 1: no secret of his hatred of his father in law.
Speaker 1: It's true that Raffi's general incompetence seems not to fit
Speaker 1: the precision of the crime, with not even a shard
Speaker 1: of glass left at the crime scene, but he was
Speaker 1: also a loose cannon, unpredictable and reckless. Miriam began to
Speaker 1: wonder if Raffi's venomous words for her father could have
Speaker 1: turned into actual violence. In the weeks after the murder,
Speaker 1: she remembered a frightening anecdote from her past. After a
Speaker 1: particularly bad fight with the marquess, Raffi had told her,
Speaker 1: I have a plan prepared and I am going to
Speaker 1: kill your family. A few days after finding the gun
Speaker 1: in the San Juan reservoir in April nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 1: inspectors went to Raffi's family home with a search warrant.
Speaker 1: At the shooting range, they collected samples of bullet casings
Speaker 1: which they compared with the ones from the crime scene.
Speaker 1: They confirmed that they were the same, and so they
Speaker 1: had to the Escobedo family ranch in Quinca, where Raffi
Speaker 1: had retired with the intention of setting up a pig farm.
Speaker 1: From there, Raffi was taken to the General Directorate of Security,
Speaker 1: which at that time was located in Puerta del Sol
Speaker 1: in Madrid. Raffi suffered through hours of interrogation and humiliation,
Speaker 1: and at the end of the night he confessed he
Speaker 1: had killed the Marquesses of Urquillo, and he also said
Speaker 1: he had not done it alone. He wrote by hand
Speaker 1: in a statement, I am guilty of the death of
Speaker 1: my in laws, the Marquesses of Urquillo, he gave key details.
Speaker 1: He said that he used tape to break the glass
Speaker 1: door that led to the pool of the village or
Speaker 1: wooden chatter. He refused to say who else had been
Speaker 1: with him that night. The next day, he immediately recanted,
Speaker 1: saying that he confessed under duress. Although he did admit
Speaker 1: to having been in the Samasaguas mansion that night, he
Speaker 1: said that he was not the one who pulled the
Speaker 1: trigger and actually killed his in laws. After Raffi insisted
Speaker 1: on his innocence, the case suffered even more setbacks. The
Speaker 1: four twenty two caliber shells that had been found in
Speaker 1: the marquess's room and the two hundred and sixty five
Speaker 1: that had been collected at the Raffi's family estate disappeared
Speaker 1: from court, as did the murder weapon recovered in the
Speaker 1: reservoir and Raffi's handwritten confession. When the trial finally began,
Speaker 1: it was a media event. Journalists crowded in the front row,
Speaker 1: and the courtroom was so packed that people could barely
Speaker 1: get in and out. Hossein Maria Stampabroun, Raffi's defense attorney,
Speaker 1: emphasized that having lost all of the evidence, the prosecution
Speaker 1: did not have enough proof to convict Raffi. The lack
Speaker 1: of evidence made both sides cases much more difficult. The
Speaker 1: defense expert claimed that the shells from the crime scene
Speaker 1: didn't match the ones from Raffi's house, while the police
Speaker 1: maintained the opposite. Still, the defense attorney Stampa Braun put
Speaker 1: up a formidable defense. When the prosecution brought out an
Speaker 1: expert witness testifying to these similarities between the two sets
Speaker 1: of casings, Braun dictated to the Secretary of the court
Speaker 1: a report in which he qualified and questioned that evidence.
Speaker 1: The prosecutor interrupted him, saying that he was behaving inappropriately.
Speaker 1: Braun responded, quote, if the detailed report of a lawyer
Speaker 1: made in defense of someone who is risking sixty years
Speaker 1: in prison is considered inappropriate, then I from this moment
Speaker 1: resigned from the defense and ceased to be a lawyer
Speaker 1: because I am not interested in collaborating with justice. The
Speaker 1: audience in the courtroom burst into applause, and the presiding
Speaker 1: judge had to order the courtroom to be cleared. For
Speaker 1: their part, the psychiatrists who examined Raffi and testified at
Speaker 1: the trial established that he was quote incapable of killing
Speaker 1: a fly. They concluded that he lacked the quote capacity,
Speaker 1: intellect and will to kill with such certainty and coldness.
Speaker 1: Ismael Fuente and Camilla vele Quantos, who covered the trial
Speaker 1: for L Payes, wrote on June twenty fourth, nineteen eighty three, quote,
Speaker 1: with the exception of Escobedo's confession of guilt, which he
Speaker 1: later retracted, and which is the central issue of the trial,
Speaker 1: from the point of view of the criminal procedure law,
Speaker 1: none of the alleged evidence could be proven to the
Speaker 1: end accused, but it seemed like the judge ban Venito
Speaker 1: Guevara had already decided Raffi was guilty from the beginning
Speaker 1: of the trial. According to a journalist who covered the case,
Speaker 1: one of the sessions of the trial began with the
Speaker 1: judge saying to Raffi guilty, one get up. On July seventh,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, Guevara's sentence was released to the public
Speaker 1: in a decision that only took up a page and
Speaker 1: a half. Raffi Escobedo alday was sentenced to twenty six years,
Speaker 1: eight months and one day of imprisonment for each of
Speaker 1: the crimes. For committing two crimes of murder with the
Speaker 1: aggravating circumstances of premeditation and nocturnality. Upon hearing the sentence,
Speaker 1: Raffi said, I didn't think I was going to be convicted.
Speaker 1: What can you do in spite of the shaky evidence.
Speaker 1: With the trial over and a verdict reached, it would
Speaker 1: seem that the Archio case was closed, But in his sentence,
Speaker 1: the judge included a phrase that would fuel decades of
Speaker 1: further investigation by the police and press alike. He stated
Speaker 1: that Escobato murdered his former in laws, either alone or
Speaker 1: in the company of others lo and Behold No more
Speaker 1: than Two days after the verdict had been reached, a
Speaker 1: bombshell article dropped in Spanish magazine Interview that promised to
Speaker 1: reveal who those others might have been. On July ninth,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, Interview magazine introduced a new suspect into
Speaker 1: the Arquio case, Mauricio Lopez Roberts, fifth Marquis of Torre Amosa.
Speaker 1: Lopez Roberts was a close friend of Raffi's and ran
Speaker 1: in the same circle of Madrid socialites. The magazine alleged
Speaker 1: that being a good shot and an inveterate hunter. He
Speaker 1: had ordered a silencer for a gun from a workshop
Speaker 1: days before the crime. The silencer, which they alleged, was
Speaker 1: then used on the gun that killed the Marquesses. Mauricio
Speaker 1: Lopez Roberts was taken into police custody, where he clarified
Speaker 1: that the silencer he had ordered was for a rifle,
Speaker 1: not a pistol, disproving the allegations from the magazine. Still,
Speaker 1: he admitted that he was connected to the case. Lopez
Speaker 1: Roberts told the inspectors that on July thirty first, nineteen eighty,
Speaker 1: after having dinner at Ls Bejo and a few drinks,
Speaker 1: Raffi arrived with his friend Javier and Aastasio. Anastasio was
Speaker 1: another boy from a well off family, a flirt and
Speaker 1: a party animal who spent his nights out at famous
Speaker 1: Madrid clubs. Anastasio and Raffi had been friends since they
Speaker 1: were six. Anastasio did not belong to a family of
Speaker 1: ancient lineage, nor did he have a noble last name,
Speaker 1: but his father owned a gas station in the center
Speaker 1: of Madrid, with which he amassed a considerable fortune, which
Speaker 1: made him a rich kid. According to Lopez Roberts, after dinner,
Speaker 1: Anastasio did not accompany Raffi to the chalet to kill
Speaker 1: the marquesses. That said, on August third, nineteen eighty, Raffi
Speaker 1: met Anastasio in Madrid's Placa del Conde del Villa Asuchil,
Speaker 1: where he gave him the bag he had taken two
Speaker 1: somasaguas on the night of the crime. It contained guns, gloves,
Speaker 1: a blow torch, and the hammer that had been used
Speaker 1: to gain access to the inside of the house. Apparently,
Speaker 1: Raffi asked Anastasio not to look at what was inside
Speaker 1: the bag and just to get rid of it, and
Speaker 1: Anastasio was the one who threw it into the San
Speaker 1: Juan reservoir the next day. Lopez Roberts warned Anastasio of
Speaker 1: the danger if he were arrested, and recommended that he
Speaker 1: flee to England and from there to South Africa, a
Speaker 1: country with which there was no extradition treaty. Since Anastasio
Speaker 1: had no money on hand to escape, Lopez Roberts lent
Speaker 1: him twenty five pesetas. The police confirmed this information and
Speaker 1: also confirmed Lopez Roberts' alibi for the night of the murders.
Speaker 1: It might seem strange that Lopez Roberts would confess to
Speaker 1: helping an accessory to the crime escape, but he declared
Speaker 1: that Raffi's sentence was indefensible and that he just wanted
Speaker 1: to help the police find the true culprit. I say
Speaker 1: this now because I want justice to be done, he
Speaker 1: told the police, while assuring that his friend was innocent
Speaker 1: and was paying the price for others. After Lopez Robert's revelation,
Speaker 1: both he and Anastasio, who hadn't actually fled, were arrested
Speaker 1: and both spent three and a half years in provisional
Speaker 1: prison awaiting trial. They were released on March twenty first,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven. Nine months later, a lawyer went to
Speaker 1: Anastasio's house to notify him that the Madrid Provincial Court
Speaker 1: had set the date for the oral hearings for both
Speaker 1: his and Lopez Roberts's trial, but Anastasio was nowhere to
Speaker 1: be found. It turned out he had escaped. He took
Speaker 1: a bag with some clothes and the money from an
Speaker 1: apartment he had sold, and drove across the border into
Speaker 1: Portugal with one of his eight brothers. From there, he
Speaker 1: took a direct flight to Brazil, a country with no
Speaker 1: extradition treaty with Spain. Meanwhile, Rafi Escobedo was in prison.
Speaker 1: He had been transferred to al Duezo prison in cell
Speaker 1: number four on the second floor. He decorated it with
Speaker 1: photos of Miriam and paper airplanes in every corner of
Speaker 1: the room. Raffi also kept in his cell a collection
Speaker 1: of letters stored in cardboard boxes and a canary. While
Speaker 1: in prison, Ralfi agreed to an interview with the journalist
Speaker 1: Jesus Quintero, who had the nickname the Madman on the Hill.
Speaker 1: Raffi spoke of his depression in prison and his alleged
Speaker 1: unfair treatment by the justice system. There has been no
Speaker 1: investigation and there will be no investigation because nobody interested
Speaker 1: in investigating it, he said to Quintero, I am nothing
Speaker 1: any more. On July twenty seventh, nineteen eighty eight, fourteen
Speaker 1: days after that interview, Raffi Escobedo was found hanged at
Speaker 1: the age of thirty three in his cell. He had
Speaker 1: hanged himself using a sheet. Later that year, Lopez Roberts
Speaker 1: was taken to court where the judge, who happened to
Speaker 1: be the son of the judge who had originally tried Raffi,
Speaker 1: presided over the case, Lopez Roberts was accused by the
Speaker 1: prosecutor of covering up the perpetrators of the murders and
Speaker 1: of having had news of the event both from Raffi
Speaker 1: and from Anastasio. The case was much less of a
Speaker 1: media event than it had been in the early eighties.
Speaker 1: The courtroom was not even half full. In court, Lopez
Speaker 1: Roberts tried to downplay his knowledge of the crime, saying,
Speaker 1: Raffi told many things, some were true and others were not.
Speaker 1: I did not believe absolutely everything he told me because
Speaker 1: he had changed his version about two hundred times. But
Speaker 1: Lopez Roberts admitted to having met with Anastasio the day
Speaker 1: after Rafi's arrest at a cafe in Madrid. Quote, I
Speaker 1: found him very worried about the arrest, and I advised
Speaker 1: him to go to London, where his girlfriend was, so
Speaker 1: that she could console him. He told me that he
Speaker 1: had no money, and I lent him twenty five pisetas
Speaker 1: if I knew that Anastasio was actually involved in the affair,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have lent him that money so he could
Speaker 1: go anywhere. Lopez Roberts maintained almost to the end that
Speaker 1: in his conversation with Anastasio, the latter made no reference
Speaker 1: to having gotten rid of a bag containing the gun
Speaker 1: used in the murders, the hammer, the blowtorch, and abutane
Speaker 1: cylinder used to break into the quio. He knew from
Speaker 1: Rafi that Anastasio had taken care to get rid of
Speaker 1: these objects, but at the cafe they didn't mention it
Speaker 1: quote as Lopez Roberts says, although I imagine he was worried
Speaker 1: about it. On February twenty sixth, nineteen ninety, Lopez Roberts
Speaker 1: was sentenced to ten years in prison for being an
Speaker 1: accessory to the crime, lending Anastasio money to escape the country.
Speaker 1: While Lopez Roberts served his prison sentence, Anastasio was still missing.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until twenty fifteen that Vanity Fair finally found
Speaker 1: Javier Anastasio in Buenos Aires. The charges against him have
Speaker 1: been dropped, and he insisted on his innocence, alleging that
Speaker 1: Juan de la Sierra, the marquess's son, was actually the
Speaker 1: one behind the murder. He poked holes in Juan's alibi
Speaker 1: that he was in London at the time, saying that
Speaker 1: none of the journalists who had waiting for Juan at
Speaker 1: the airport to see him arrive back to Madrid, had
Speaker 1: actually seen him, and that Juan denied a judge's request
Speaker 1: to show his plane ticket and passport. Most damningly, he
Speaker 1: said that the Knight Raffi, told Anastasio to take him
Speaker 1: to the Marquess's house. Raffi had said it was because
Speaker 1: he had an appointment with Wan. It's still unclear what
Speaker 1: exactly happened on the night of July thirty first, nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty and who killed the marquesses. Even if you believe
Speaker 1: that Raffi did pull the trigger, Javier Anastasio buried the
Speaker 1: evidence and Mauricio Lopez Roberts helped Anastasio escape. It remains
Speaker 1: murky what Raffi would have had to gain from such
Speaker 1: a gruesome murder and why his friends were so willing
Speaker 1: to help him with such a high profile crime. It's
Speaker 1: even less clear if there were even more people were
Speaker 1: involved in the crime. It was the case's ambiguity that
Speaker 1: so captivated the Spanish media. Their Quio murders were the
Speaker 1: first parallel trial in democratic Spain, creating a media circus
Speaker 1: and a slew of conspiracies in its wake. Every aspect
Speaker 1: of the case was up for debate, even the smallest detail,
Speaker 1: like why the marquess's poodle didn't bark when an intruder
Speaker 1: arrived that night, or why the bodies of the marquesses
Speaker 1: were washed before the police arrived, making a forensic autopsy impossible.
Speaker 1: We still don't have answers for those questions, and police
Speaker 1: mismanagement only made things worse, given that the most crucial
Speaker 1: evidence in this case, the murder weapon, the bullet casings
Speaker 1: found at the scene of the crime, and Raffi's handwritten
Speaker 1: confession all went missing. This allowed the media to pick
Speaker 1: apart and speculate about every detail and let conspiracy theories proliferate.
Speaker 1: As a journalist who covered the case put it quote,
Speaker 1: it had all of the ingredients of a good soap opera.
Speaker 1: Two dead marquesses, Raffi's morbid gang, well off guys who
Speaker 1: spent their time drinking gin and tonics at the country club.
Speaker 1: There was also a divorce, an American lover, a guy
Speaker 1: with no job or prospects, strange moves in the jet set.
Speaker 1: This case had everything everything, perhaps except definite answers. That's
Speaker 1: the end of the story of the murder of the
Speaker 1: Marquesses of her Quio, but keep listening to hear even
Speaker 1: more about some shady behavior that happened in the house
Speaker 1: on the morning of the murders. The day after the murder,
Speaker 1: the marquess's financial administrator, a man named Diego Martinez Herrara,
Speaker 1: arrived to work wearing black clothes as if he were
Speaker 1: already in mourning, even though it was a sweltering August
Speaker 1: in Madrid. As soon as he found out what had happened,
Speaker 1: he went immediately to the Marquess's office. He took some
Speaker 1: documents from the table and went out to the garden
Speaker 1: to burn them. He asked for help from the butler
Speaker 1: to burn the documents, but the butler kept many of
Speaker 1: the papers and then handed them over to the police.
Speaker 1: This detail continues to confound those investigating the crime what
Speaker 1: documents were burned and why. While we don't have an
Speaker 1: answer and the police never considered the administrator nor the
Speaker 1: butler prime suspects, the act was suspicious enough to raise
Speaker 1: questions about the involvement in the case. Raffi, for example,
Speaker 1: did accuse Diego Martinez Herrera of collaborating with Juan, their
Speaker 1: son in murdering the Marquesses for the record, The butler,
Speaker 1: who took every opportunity to talk to the press about
Speaker 1: the murder, also blamed Juan and Diego for the horrific crime.
Speaker 1: Noble Blood is a production of iHeart Radio and Grimm
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Nobel Blood is hosted by
Speaker 1: me Danish Forts, with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston,
Speaker 1: Hannah Zewick, Courtney Sender, Julia Milani, and Armand Cassam. The
Speaker 1: show is edited and produced by Noemi Griffin andrima il Kaali,
Speaker 1: with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers Aaron Mankey,
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
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