“They stuck scissors in my face.”

Pilar became convinced that she would end up inside a pine box, during the early hours of Friday, May 17, 2024, when two masked men entered her house, They kidnapped her, tortured her for hours, and stabbed her with scissors. the face, In front of his mentally disabled son.

“I was very afraid,” confirms Pilar, Esso’s neighbour, who is 88 years old and only wants one thing from life: “I want these thieves to get a good punishment.” “I want to see it with my own eyes before I die“Yes, sir.”

EL ESPAÑOL obtained the report prepared by the Judicial Police Brutal robbery with violence and intimidation Suffered by Pilar, a retired baker, it sparked social panic among the 2,200 residents of Esso: a district in Helen, near the banks of the Mundo River.

“They put me on the ground and then… I Associationon From the feet and hands To a chair: They kept me like that all night“I am a hardworking Christian woman,” says Pilar, a native of Elche de la Sierra, where she began picking olives with her brothers when she was just 12 years old, after studying at a nuns’ school. “I am a hard-working Christian woman,” she clung to that faith to survive that early morning of Friday, May 17, 2024, when masked men broke into her home. “They entered through the balcony.”

-How was your reaction?

– column: I heard footsteps coming down the stairs and the next thing I knew, they grabbed my cell phone off the table and turned off the alarm. I didn’t have time to respond. They kept me in the living room tied to a chair. They pointed at me with scissors and told me that if I didn’t give them the money, they would stick it on me.

After a year and six months, poor Pilar says she’s broken even “sender Letter to the Courts of Helen“To know what happened to those thieves, he did not want his days to end without knowing the sentence that would be imposed on them because of the games they played on him for three and a half hours.

It is enough to read the statement of this octogenarian, contained in the report, to understand that her “final criminal will” is justified: “They tied me and my son. The two people started threatening us while gagging us. They told me that if I didn’t give them the money, they would set my house on fire: “We will cut off your finger if you don’t give us money.”. “They put the tip of the scissors in my face.”

Pilar (Albacete, 1937) believes that the thieves knew her because the pensioner rents houses to immigrants who come to Helen to work as seasonal workers in the countryside. “They knew me Because they knew that my other son, José Luis, had just left for Madrid,” he confirmed in his interview with this newspaper.

He confirmed this fact in his statement delivered at the Civil Guard barracks. “They told me: “The person who left, your son from Madrid, we will give him part of the money you give us.”. From all this, I conclude that these individuals knew that I had a son in Madrid and they knew that my other son, Pedro, was helpless and without gagging him, there would be no problem for them.”

The hell that this elderly woman endured began after 1 a.m. on Friday, May 17, and continued until about 4:30 a.m. “I was afraid for my life,” Pilar insists. “I’m still emotional.” “nOr I want this to happen to another elderly person. I had a very bad time. “I wouldn’t wish anyone to go through the night I had, it seemed so long.”

-What is the most difficult part of your captivity?

– They covered my nose and mouth so I wouldn’t scream. They put a handkerchief on my face and punched me all over my face with the tip of the scissors. I still have marks. My son wouldn’t stop screaming, so they put a tissue in his mouth so he wouldn’t scream. That day he was wearing bandages because he had undergone surgery.

The suspects were between 20 and 30 years old, had a slim build, were masked, wore dark clothing, were wearing gloves, and were carrying a pair of flashlights. At no time did they address each other by name or any of their own. He phoned a friend who was working as a lookout On the street, alerting them to the presence of a patrol near the house where Pilar still lives with her son, Pedro, 61 years old, who is blind and mentally disabled.

“I’ve worked all my life.” “I retired at 70.” “As long as I can continue to take care of myself, I will take care of my son“I was braver than my husband,” warns Pilar, who endured long, sleepless nights in the heat of the baking oven she ran for more than two decades, while her late husband, her beloved José Antonio, devoted himself to distributing it the next morning throughout the city. “With every kilo of flour, I was kneading 17 loaves,” she remembers exactly.

“These thieves stole 1200 euros of my money Which I saved from my pension and my son’s salary.” They also took from the house a bracelet, four gold medals, a mobile phone, a bag, a jacket and some surveillance cameras, perhaps to obstruct the investigation. But these criminals did not have cameras from a bank and gas station in the area, as they caught their friend watching the old woman’s house while they carried out the beating.

“A man wearing a light jacket with a hood, dark pants, and white sneakers with a black horizontal stripe, between 3:27 and 3:33 a.m., walked on foot, at least twice, around the area of ​​the house that was robbed (…).” “This walking at night, at dawn, at ungodly hours, makes no sense at all. It will not have any logical justification, except for the possibility of the aforementioned persons participating in the aforementioned robbery,” according to the judicial police’s reasons in its report.

The researchers kept pulling out the cameras and checking The three suspects arrived in Esso two hours before the robberyOn board a white Skoda Superb. Specifically, they drove along the CM-412 highway and crossed the path where Pilar’s home was located, either by car or on foot, in order to “conduct a reconnaissance” of the area.

“Plan in advance the various transcendental issues that need to be taken into consideration, such as, Identify the most vulnerable point in the house To get in and out of the property, the perfect place to escape…”

So are the two thieves They jumped over the wall of the houseOnce they had crept into the yard, they entered Pilar’s house at one in the morning and twenty-nine. From that moment on, they tied up this old woman, put a handkerchief in her son’s mouth and tied him by his feet with wire, so they without any remorse began torturing a helpless octogenarian man who could not resist.

This whole horrific sequence happened while you were on the street, as an accomplice, He was on guard duty in a Skoda Superbfully aware of the atrocities they were committing on a harmless old woman.

The poor woman was sold. In her statement before the Civil Guard, Pilar admitted that she told the masked men where she got the money because they were “very aggressive” and brought up everything. “They did not find any valuables, they came to me and while I was gagged and tied, they picked me up and took me to the corridor of the rooms, so that I could tell them where I was hiding the money (…).” “I remembered that I had money in a bagSo I decided to tell them that if they left, I would give them the money from the wallet, and they agreed to that (…).”

But they lied to this good woman. They continued to violently search every room, and searched the cupboards and drawers from which they threw the clothes on the floor. They even managed to lift part of the plaster from the ceiling areaeager to find more coins and jewelry. At 4:17 a.m., the bank’s surveillance camera captured the two robbers running away from Pilar’s home.

“They are evil people”Reflects Jose Luis, the victim’s son. “There was no need to do that to him.” It is clear that the violence they used to rob an elderly woman was excessive, given the bruises they caused all over Pilar’s face, which were recorded in the video report of the judicial police.

“I believe these people had been in town for some time and had information about my mother.“.

“He is someone who knows us and has visited Esso, which is why I would like to see his picture.” During the search carried out by the judicial police at the home of Jose Luis’ mother, They found metal scissors measuring 16.5 cm longused to torture Pilar, as well as several fragments of orange rope or tape, similar to those used to raise or lower the curtain, which they used to tie the woman’s hands and feet to a chair.

Pilar has not yet received a response to the letter she sent to the Helen courts, inquiring about the situation of the thieves who kidnapped and tortured her for more than three hours that she will never forget. EL ESPAÑOL newspaper confirmed from Civil Guard sources that investigators moved heaven and earth for a year and four months to find two of the perpetrators of this despicable theft.

The proof of this is this Two of the three suspects were arrested in Cartagena: 150 kilometers from Helen. “It is an operation carried out jointly by the National Police of Alicante and the Civil Guard of Albacete,” explained the source from the Armed Institute.

“The arrests occurred on September 18 during a visit to Cartagena. One of them is a Slovakian citizen and the other is a Moroccan citizen. They were arrested on charges of robbery and another drug trafficking crime.One of them was responsible for surveillance, while the other actively participated in the violent attack on the house.

Civil Guard investigation stays “open” To pursue the third party involved. “It remains to locate and arrest one of the masterminds of the robbery, against whom an indictment remains pending.” Until then, Pilar will not be able to rest in peace.