The assassination of the Marquesses of Urquijo refers to the murder of the Spanish nobles María Lourdes de Urquijo, 5th Marquise of Urquijo, Grandee of Spain, and her spouse Manuel de la Sierra, in 1980.
Contents
Events
The main suspect and only convict by the crime was es:Rafael Escobedo (1955-1988), the one who marred Miriam de la Sierra Urquijo, daughter of the Marquesses, on 21 June 1978. The relation went deteriorating and in 1979 Miriam initiated a sentimental relation with Richard Dennis Rew, known as Dick, the American.
The consort marquis was owner of Bank Urquijo, whose shares, at the time, were plummeting.
In the night of 1 August 1980, the Marquesses of Urquijo were shot to death, when they slept in their palace in Somosaguas. The exact place of the crime is in the coordinates 40°25′47.97″N 3°48′10.58″W On 8 April 1981, Escobedo was arrested, after some cartridges discovered in an estate of his father seemed to coincide with the ones that killed The Marquesses. The next day, both Javier Anastasio de Espona, fellow of Escobedo, and Diego Martínez Herrera, butler of the Urquijos, travelled rapidly to London, where Juan, the junior son of the Marquesses, lived.
The disappearance of the cartridges complicated the development of the trial. The conviction to Escobedo to 53 years of prison, in July 1983 was confirmed by the Supreme Court of Spain in 1985. Escobedo maintained his innocence (accusing of the crime to Anastasio), until his death in the prison of El Dueso on 27 July 1988. The processing of this event corresponded to the then Judge of Santoña Fernando Grande Marlaska.
The gun, officially, was not found, although it was thought to be a Star, calibrate .22 Long Rifle. The weapon is all a relic for the collectors since only they did some copies in the company situated in Éibar, in fact estimates between 22 and 24.
Javier Anastasio had been detained in January 1983 and the celebration of the trial as coauthor was foreseen for 21 January 1988. However, a month before he escaped from the justice and since has kept in unknown whereabouts. Only it saw it to him seven years afterwards, when it was interviewed for television by Jesús Quintero in Brazil. In May 2010 dictated the withdrawal of charges and archive of the performances due to the statute of limitations, because it passed 30 years after the crime.
In February 1990, Mauricio López-Roberts y Melgar, marquis of Torrehermosa, was condemned to ten years of prison because of obstruction of justice.
In 2010 for the first time the magazine Vanity Fair interview Anastasio in which he denied to be the author of the crime.
Repercussions
The assassination has been one of the criminal events with greater media follow-up in the history of Spain. In addition to the hundred of pages of press written after the murder, during the development of the trial and after the suicide of the convict. They have written several books on the case, among them, "With a crime on the shoulder, I killed the marquesses of Urquijo", of es:Matías Antolín.
Also, the following films or series were made: