Died 1910 | ||
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Francisco Leóna (1835–1910) was a Spanish child killer, barber, curandero, and Sacamantecas from the region of Gádor, Almería, who was arrested and convicted of murdering seven-year-old Bernardo Gonzalez Parra for the purpose of using the boy's blood and fat as a tuberculosis treatment for a wealthy farmer, Francisco Ortega.
Crime
June 1910, in Gádor, Francisco Ortega El Moruno (The Moorish) was newly diagnosed with tuberculosis and desperately seeking a cure for his disease. He visited the local healer Agustina Rodriguez, who in turn sent for the barber and healer Francisco Leóna. Apparently Leóna had a criminal record and, in exchange for 3000 of reales, revealed that "the cure" was to drink the blood emanating from the body of a child and to spread hot poultices made of the child's fat over the chest.
Leóna and Julio El Tonto (The Fool) Hernández, a son of Agustina the healer, offered to find a child. On the evening of 28 June 1910, the two men kidnapped Bernardo Gonzalez Parra, a boy of seven years from Rioja. Drugging him with chloroform and putting the boy in a sack, Leóna and Hernández took him to a secluded farmhouse in Araoz that Agustina had prepared.
A brother of Julio "Tonto" Hernández, Joseph Hernández, was to advise the client Ortega, leaving his wife Elena to make dinner.
Little Bernardo's murder was as follows: after he was removed from the sack, dazed, Bernardo was cut in the armpit, which emanated blood that Ortega drank mixed with sugar. After that they took the boy to the place known as Las Pocicas where Leona killed him crushing his skull with a rock. Then he extracted fat and mesentery to make a compress to apply to Ortega's chest.
To finish the ritual, Bernardo's body was concealed in a crevice, unburied but covered with herbs and stones, located in Las Pocicas.
When distributing the actual 3000 Ortega paid him for his services, the healer Leona tried to trick his accomplice Tonto Hernández without obtaining good results. Realizing Leona's intentions and to avenge himself, Hernández told the Civil Guard who had seen the body of a child while he was chasing partridges.
When the forces of the Civil Guard arrived, all the people betrayed Leona, because sooner or later he had committed many irregularities, some of them the same type of offense. He stopped when testifying and indicted "Tonto" Hernández who in turn did the same to Leona. Finally, after multiple excuses, both confessed to the crime. When the body was found, it was on its belly with skull completely shattered.
Leona was sentenced to the garrote, but died in prison. The client, Ortega, and Agustina, the healer, were both executed. Joseph Hernández, a son of Agustina, was sentenced to 17 years in prison while his wife, Elena, was acquitted. And Julio "Tonto" was finally sentenced to death too, but it was pardoned for being considered insane.