Simon Hunter
MIGUEL RICART, who was convicted for the rape and murder of three teenagers from the Valencian municipality of Alcàsser, was arrested in a Barcelona drug den on Tuesday.
Ricart was given 170 years in prison back in 1997, for the kidnap, torture, rape and murder of Miriam García, María Deseada Hernández and Antonia Gómez. He was released in 2013, however, after his sentence was reduced.
The infamous killings rocked Spain, after the bodies of the three girls were discovered on a hillside in Tous.
The murders coincided with the advent of private television channels in Spain such as Antena 3, which dedicated hours of coverage to the mourning friends and relatives of the girls, and later gave a voice to a series of conspiracy theories about the crimes.
Since he was released from prison, Ricart had been living in Cordoba, Barcelona and Madrid. Last year, according to Spanish daily El Mundo, he was arrested in a squat in the Spanish capital when he was allegedly about to buy narcotics.
Ricart was the only person to face trial for the killings, after another suspect, Antonio Anglés, disappeared. He is still being sought by the authorities, although many people believe that he is dead.
A Netflix documentary released in 2019, titled The Alcassar Murders – El Caso Alcàsser in Spanish – reopened the case for a wider audience and revisited its unanswered questions.
Read more:
- Spain’s first original Netflix documentary ‘The Alcassar Murders’ released
- European appeal launched to find dangerous felon behind Spain’s triple Alcasser murders
