Toledo murderer of Anabel Segura to be released

By Euro Weekly News Media • Published: 29 Apr 2013 • 22:00

TWENTY years have passed since the kidnapping and murder of Anabel Segura, 22. One of the two people imprisoned for the crime is due to be released in August.

Anabel, a business administration student, disappeared in April 1993 while jogging in La Moraleja luxury urbanization in Madrid, where she lived with her father Jose, the manager of a multinational German company, her mother and her sister.

A gardener witnessed her being bundled into a white van, which fled to the motorway. Her body was found in September 1995, at an abandoned warehouse in Toledo.

There were more than 20 phonecalls, in which the kidnappers demanded up to 150 million pesetas (€900,000). There were a couple of attempted drops, but Anabel was dead all along. She was killed just six hours after she disappeared.

Her parents mortgaged their home and offered a huge reward. Another was offered by the Interior Ministry. The family received a recording supposed to be of Anabel’s voice, but it was false. The voice was that of a woman named Felisa Garcia, who helped cover up the crime. Communication ceased in June 1993.

Arrests were made partly thanks to the involvement of the media. Police released a recording of the voice of one of the kidnappers, which was broadcast on TV. One programme received 30,000 calls. The information of one caller led to the location and arrest of the three suspects in September 1995. Anabel’s body was found the following day.

The trial began in Toledo in January 1998, and the kidnappers, Emilio Muñoz Guadix and Candido Ortiz Añon, admitted that the kidnapping “went wrong.” They said they had kidnapped Anabel with sexual motives but decided to ask for a ransom when they found out her family had money.

They were sentenced to 39 years each in prison, but in 1999, the Supreme Court increased the sentence to 43 years and six months. Felisa was sentenced to 28 months in prison.

Candido Ortiz died in 2009, aged 48. Emilio Muñoz, thought to have masterminded the crime, is due to be released in August, according to reports in the Spanish press, although he is reportedly “very ill.”