The Spanish National Police located human remains in the Loeches landfill, in the Community of Madrid, where they had been searching for nearly two weeks for Roberto Fernández Magriñat, a retired 84-year-old Cuban doctor who went missing in early September in Torrejón de Ardoz.
Researchers believe that the remains could belong to the elderly man, although identification must be confirmed through forensic analyses, according to information published on the case and shared by El Mundo.
The remains were transferred to the Institute of Legal Medicine in Valdebebas to determine their identity and further clarify the circumstances of the death.
The discovery marks a pivotal turn in an investigation in which one of Roberto's sons remains in provisional detention on suspicion of homicide.
The main police hypothesis is that the doctor died violently in the home he shared with his son in Torrejón de Ardoz and that his body was subsequently placed in a garbage container.
Blood and freshly painted walls
The investigations suggest a possible death during the first weekend of September.
On Saturday the 5th, Roberto's daughter and wife spoke with him on the phone and informed him that they would come to visit him two days later to bring him food. When they arrived at the house on Monday, the elderly man was not there, and they noticed that some walls had been recently painted.
The son initially asserted that his father, who had been suffering from Alzheimer's for years, had left the house while he was sleeping and that he had subsequently been unable to locate him.
She even went with her sister to report the disappearance.
However, the investigators' suspicions eventually focused on the residence. The Forensic Police found biological remains in various places around the home and detected blood using chemical reagents, despite the fact that the property had been cleaned and some walls repainted.
The gathered evidence led days later to the arrest of the son. Subsequently, a judge ordered his provisional detention due to his alleged connection to his father's death.
The detainee has invoked his right not to testify before investigators and the judge.
Roberto's brother, Orlando, told Spanish media that the son had initially offered the family an explanation about what had happened.
"He said that his father had fallen, that he put a bandage on him, fell asleep, and when he woke up, he was gone," he recounted.
After the arrest, Orlando expressed his outrage, although he acknowledged that the family does not know exactly what happened.
"We don't know if he was the material author, if he had help, or if he sent someone," he noted.
Almost two weeks searching through waste
The possibility that the body could have ended up in a container led investigators to the Loeches landfill.
For about two weeks, agents and specialized canine units searched through tons of waste in search of the elderly man.
The researchers traced the path of the waste collected in Torrejón de Ardoz in the days following its disappearance, until they focused the operations on those facilities.
On September 25th, while the search continued, the police conducted a second search of Roberto's home, according to information from TeleMadrid.
The detainee himself requested to be present during the procedure and was transported from prison accompanied by agents. The investigators were seeking new evidence that would allow them to reconstruct the final hours of the doctor.
The investigation is still in the hands of the Homicide Group of the Provincial Judicial Police Brigade of Madrid, in collaboration with agents from Torrejón de Ardoz. The inquiries have included searches, mobile phone analysis, and review of surveillance cameras.
The son is awaiting another trial for a death that occurred in 2021
The case also has a particularly relevant background: when he was arrested for his father's disappearance, the son was out on provisional release and awaiting another trial related to the death of a 66-year-old woman in 2021.
The victim, Rosa Limón, died in August of that year in Nombela, Toledo, after hiring several men to carry out tasks related to a move at a property.
Roberto's son was one of those detained at that time and ended up remaining in provisional custody. He was later released while awaiting trial.
That procedure is still awaiting resolution and, therefore, there is no final conviction against him for that death.
Now, while he remains in provisional detention due to the investigation related to his father, forensic analyses of the remains recovered in Loeches will be crucial to confirm whether they belong to Roberto Fernández Magriñat and to clarify what happened after his disappearance.
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