The mysterious disappearance in mid-March of Jesús Tavira made headlines due to its connection with the most high-profile criminal case Alicante has experienced in recent decades: the unsolved murder of Maria del Carmen Martínez, widow of the former president of the Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo, Vicente Sala. The discovery of the businessman’s body, stabbed multiple times and buried in a modest house on the rural outskirts of Alicante, no matter how sordid and gruesome the crime, would not have drawn so many cameras and so much public gossip without the link that connected Tavira to another murder committed almost ten years ago that remains unsolved, that of the matriarch of a wealthy family embroiled in inheritance conflicts.
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Owner of a scrapyard, the now murdered man was called to testify in the trial of Miguel López, the deceased’s son-in-law and owner of the car dealership where his mother-in-law was shot twice on December 9, 2016. Tavira and López had nearly two hundred phone contacts in the weeks leading up to that crime, a circumstance the then witness attributed to purely professional reasons. Investigators could deduce nothing relevant from his testimony.
Almost ten years later, the shooter remains unknown
Almost ten years later, the shooter remains unknown. The only accused was acquitted and although the Supreme Court found irregularities in the case and ordered a retrial, the case was definitively closed last October by the Constitutional Court. Who ordered that cold-blooded murder? Was it carried out by a hitman? Why was the widow’s Porsche left in the car wash instead of being taken out to the street as usual? These are questions for which there is, and perhaps never will be, an answer.
In November 2019, Miguel López was found not guilty by a popular jury in a second deliberation, under unusual circumstances. In a first vote, annulled by the judge due to a procedural defect, the jury had opted for guilt. The record of that deliberation was destroyed and, therefore, the Supreme Court ordered the trial to be repeated with another jury, considering that the court had violated the right to judicial protection of the victim’s son, Vicente Sala Martínez.
But the expectation of a new trial was frustrated last October when the Constitutional Court annulled the Supreme Court’s order and confirmed Miguel López’s acquittal, ruling that the right violated was precisely that of the accused. Does this mean the judicial route is definitively closed? No. Since the victim’s son appealed to the European Union Human Rights Court, the matter remains pending a ruling.
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A society so fond of true crime and series about conflicted family sagas cannot help but be interested in the Sala case, also called the CAM widow’s crime. Vicente Sala Bello, former president of the now-defunct Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo, died in 2011 in Alicante at age 73. This businessman in the chemical sector gained public notoriety when the CAM, a savings bank under the strict political control of Eduardo Zaplana’s government, promoted him to the presidency. His fortune came from his activity as a chemical sector businessman, which he complemented with investments in automotive and real estate.
The expectation of a new trial was frustrated last October by the Constitutional Court
Owner of one of the few large estates that survive in the Alicante orchard area, in Vistahermosa, fifteen minutes from the city center, his determination to keep the family united led him to build independent houses but within the same property for all his children, one son and three daughters. This discreet and reserved man, who avoided the press after the headline of one of the few interviews he gave caused him serious displeasure, could hardly have imagined that a family used to gathering weekly around a table for a large lunch including many grandchildren would become the subject of morbid curiosity.
His decision to grant his wife a ‘golden share’ in the will and effectively hand over control of the companies to his only son broke the family in two, with the three sisters on the opposite side to the mother and son. And those confrontations, which had not gone beyond gossip among the local bourgeoisie, brutally came to light during the trial for the murder of his widow.
Today, the victim of a horrendous crime is another, Jesús Tavira. Investigators believe that his death, for which four people have been arrested, including one of his employees, is unrelated to the Sala case, but is the result of economic disputes involving an amount less than 10,000 euros. But this case, like the previous one, still offers questions to be resolved.
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