The Ouija that unleashed the nightmare. The Vallecas case (part 1)

This year marks the 27th anniversary of a strange event that happened in Vallecas, Madrid (Spain). Tragedy, fear and confusion gripped the Gutiérrez Lázaro family for years. This story has become a modern myth that has even reached the big screen with a film that has reaped enormous success both in Spain and in other countries, Verónica (2017) by Paco Plaza. There have been many versions of the strange phenomena that harassed that family and which the police allegedly also witnessed. In fact, there are dissensions among the members of the family. In this post we expose one of the first versions of one of the most controversial Spain mysteries

November 19, 1992. 2:00-3:00 in the early morning. Vallecas (Madrid). A patrol made up of five police officers and the chief inspector José Pedro Negri went to portal number 8 of Luis Marín street alerted by a telephone call that headquarters had received from that address. There they find an anguished and terrified family that prefer to be in the cold night rather than at home. Something or someone was disturbing them, something or someone who has already manifested on several occasions, but that night had intensified its presence unbearably. The head of household, Máximo Gutiérrez Palomares, 46 years old at the time, had turned to the authorities for that reason. The police tried to bring order to his home. The mission of the patrol is obviously to watch over the safety of the frightened family and to reassure them.

At 3:00 in the early morning, the headquarters received another telephone call. But this time it was not a member of the family. Who called then was the chief inspector to communicate what they had just witnessed. Seeing his own courage surpassed, he assured that something “made his hair stand on end”, that that was not normal. He stated that there was “a series of phenomena of all points inexplicable”. A series of phenomena that had been going on for more or less a year, and that as Máximo Gutiérrez had told him, the beginning of that nightmare had coincided with a tragic event for the family. Because a year ago, in July 1991, one of the daughters, María Estefanía Gutiérrez Lázaro, had died suddenly at the age of 18. An unexpected death that was preceded by much anguish and pain. A sudden death in strange circumstances as the forensic report indicated, a real mystery. From this situation was born a police statement that will make the Vallecas case, as it has been named by investigators, jump to fame. However, to really understand this whole story, it’s best to start at the beginning.

The Vallecas file: the beginning

March 1990. In a day like any other, a 16-year-old teenager girl goes to school. Her name was María Estefanía Gutiérrez Lázaro. She was the third of six siblings (Querubina, Marianela, Ricardo, Maximiliano and José Luis), daughter of Concepción Lázaro de la Iglesia and Máximo Gutiérrez Palomares. She studied at Colegio Público Aragón of Vallecas, located a few minutes from her house located on Luis Marín street, in the Palomeras Sureste area. Just like any other girl of her age, she had her worries, her loves, her illusions. That day promised to be ordinary, with the typical encounters and conversations with classmates and friends. Like any other day, she would put up with tedious teachers and would enjoy the cool ones, she would pay attention in class and would get bored. She would take notes and snort waiting for the bell to ring to return to her home. However, a request from one of her friends was going to change not only the routine of that day, but also of her whole life.

Taking advantage of a gap in her scholar schedule due to the absence of a teacher, Estefanía meets with two friends in the bathrooms to play a game apparently innocent, almost childish, but that for many people awakens deep fears. A “game” that for many people is not. However, Estefanía had already practiced the Ouija before in more occasions, both alone and together with some friends. So for once again, what could happen? In addition, it was for the sake of one of her friends, the author of the idea, who had recently lost her boyfriend and wanted to contact him to make sure he was alright on the other side (we will see that this part is much discussed).

Without further delay, the three friends sit around the typical Ouija board engraved with numbers and the letters of the alphabet, rest their index fingers on a glass that they use as the planchette and begin with the session. They close their eyes, concentrate and start asking questions waiting for the answer of someone. Unfortunately, a clatter interrupts the session. Teacher Dolores Molina bursts into the bathrooms and surprises them with the board. Without a second thought the teacher snatches the Ouija board from them and cracks it, possibly at the same time as she looks at them angry urging them to return to class. However, something unusual happens. The glass fills with a strange smoke and explodes into multiple pieces. The strange smoke ends up entering through Estefanía’s nostrils. All witnessed that. According to some versions, it seems that one of her sisters, Marianela Gutiérrez Lázaro, also witnessed the episode. Such was the impression for the teacher that, as Concepción (Estefanía’s mother) would later state, she left her work and the school the following day. This is when the real nightmare begins.

As a result of that Ouija session, Estefanía suffered a sudden change in her behavior. Her relationship with her family got significantly deteriorated, to the point that she tried to assault her siblings and parents physically on several occasions. She seemed to be very touchy and irascible. A behavior that possibly worsened with the strange experiences that interrupted her sleep at nights. Because according to her family, after that day at school, Estefanía did not sleep well. She suffered from hallucinations and visions in which a group of gloomy shadows gathered around her bed and whispered things to her, urging her to go with them. Sometimes she also uttered guttural sounds and seemed to babble languages unknown to her (in parapsychology, the manifestation of languages that the subject did not know is known as glossolalia). She saw those same shadows or something very similar at specific moments, when she entered in a kind of trance. According to her mother, Estefanía was sometimes far away for 15-20 minutes. She didn’t react to any stimulus, she just laughed. When asked what happened to her, Estefanía stated that in those states she was in a long corridor, whose bottom was covered by a thick fog from which some sinister voices called her.

As the time passed by, her strange symptoms worsened. Anger attacks, seizures and visions were more violent and occurred more often. Even her sister Marianela, who shared room with Estefanía, claims she saw one night how her sister levitated while lying in bed. Sometimes, the rest of the family also witnessed strange phenomena. Once, Estefanía went to iron her clothes in the bathroom. According to Concepción, her daughter shouted because she had seen a silhouette and the iron had turned on automatically. Concepción checked it and indeed the iron was on, but not hot. Suddenly, the bathroom door closed by itself. The father tried to help his wife and daughter open the door, but it was all in vain, something kept it absolutely closed. When Maximo was about to throw a kick to open it, everyone witnessed how the door opened itself smoothly.

Obviously, the parents, worried about their daughter, took her to several specialists and up to four different medical centers to find a solution. However, no one was able to give them a clear diagnosis or effective treatment. A doctor speculated that Estefanía would suffer from epilepsy, and she was even prescribed medication to treat it. It had no effect either. In addition, her symptoms did not resemble those of a person with epilepsy. In fact, her mother Concepción really suffered from epilepsy for a long time, and she had no visions or voices, that is, she did not suffer from her daughter’s disorders.

The comments Estefanía made were increasingly strange and sinister. On one occasion she made a very extravagant request: she asked her mother that her father’s family must not be informed of her imminent death and that she had to install in her coffin a photograph in which Estefanía would appear with her father.

We are approaching the date of the tragedy. One night of July 1991 Estefanía suffered one of her most intense seizures. Out of her wits, she tried to attack her sister Marianela as if she were a rabid animal. She managed to dodge it and Estefanía fell to the ground, in the midst of violent convulsions, with her eyes blank and foaming through her mouth. She lost consciousness. When she woke up, she claimed that she did not remember anything. It seems that the rest of her day was normal, although according to her brother Ricardo in an interview for the radio program Dimensión Límite (2012), the morning before her death Estefanía made a sinister omen, because she told her parents that she was destined to die before them. Even so, that afternoon she met her boyfriend Pablo to go for a stroll. She returned home early, had dinner and went to bed early. It was the calm that would precede the tragedy.

On the night of 13 July, Estefanía suffered an even worse attack than that of the previous night. On this occasion she was unconscious in her bed. As Concepción remembers, Estefanía was an insufferable half hour holding her head with her hands and expelling foam through her mouth. She was hospitalized in Gregorio Marañón Hospital, already in a coma, at 23:00. Three hours later, at 2:00 a.m. on July 14, the tragedy was consummated and Estefanía died from pulmonary asphyxia caused by a convulsion, a very strange diagnosis for a person of her age, constitution and health. The forensic specialists were clear: in the document signed by Pedro Cabeza and Gregorio Arroyo Arrieta it could be read that Estefanía had died “suddenly and suspiciously”. The Gutiérrez Lázaro family was left empty; they had been left without of a vital part of their lives. However, the drama did not end here, because the inexplicable phenomena that occurred in Estefanía’s life began to intensify. In fact, and according to her brother Ricardo, before her death Estefanía assured her family that she would warn them when she was on the other side knocking on a door. Guess what happened at 2 a.m. that day?

The cursed house of Vallecas

Before the phenomena made a dent in the family, they had a brief period of tranquility in which they tried to overcome the unjust death of their daughter and sister as far as possible, although the calm was only apparent.

In the beginning, the strange phenomena were soft, the poltergeist (from the German, “poltern”, to make noise, and “geist”, spirit) was rather calm: the movements of objects continued, some doors opened and closed alone, some glasses exploded, the bed of Estefanía appeared disordered in the mornings…. That is to say, the typical phenomenology that can be described in similar events. The curious thing is that the phenomena used to manifest at 23:30, coinciding with the coma of Estefanía according to Concepción Lázaro. The situation began to get serious when Concepción felt some nights how an unpleasant, cold, inanimate hand caressed her and removed the bed sheets. For several years Concepción had been listening to a voice calling her. “Mom,” it said. It seemed to come from the bathroom. This testimony is important, because the family believed that the epicenter of paranormal phenomena was precisely the bath adjacent to Estefanía’s room, the same place from which Estefanía received those strange calls and where the phenomena manifested most intensely. Several “investigators” who visited the house contributed to her conviction, alleging that the bathroom was an interdimensional door through which disincarnated beings entered this world… In fact, the couple was so convinced of it that they even disabled and locked it. The family didn’t even dare go to the bathroom alone; they had to be accompanied by another family member each time they had to use it.

As already mentioned, the anomalous phenomena did not start abruptly. At first they were even bearable, but over time they were in crescendo. It didn’t take long when the family started to see a shadow in the hallway of the house and heard the malicious laughter of an elderly person. It seems that at first that entity was related to Concepción’s father, who died five months before Estefanía after suffering from senile dementia. One of the best-known stories about the Vallecas case is that the relationship of Concepción with her father was not pleasant. As it was reported from the beginning, some economic quarrels between daughter and father had deteriorated their relationship and Estefanía’s grandfather had developed a certain antipathy. It was also said that a few days before his death, he swore to make their lives impossible for them from the other side. And it seems that he was fulfilling his fatal promise.

The phenomena reached the height of the intolerable when they began to violate the physical integrity of the family. The children were pushed by someone invisible, one of the poodles that the family had as a pet flew through the air on one occasion, the mother felt more often at nights that someone stood on top of her, oppressing her and touching her feet and hands. Once, as Concepción and her son Ricardo were talking around the dining room table, something threw a glass to hit the child’s head. Fortunately his mother saw it from the corner of her eye and could warn her son. Fortunately, the family did not suffer any injuries during the time the poltergeist occurred.

Crucifixes were inverted on their own, house doors opened and closed more and more violently, violent blows or raps on the walls were heard (in parapsychological slang, raps refer to unusual noises and sounds), the poodle barked and grunted at something located always at the same end of the hallway. Such was the fear that felt the family that everyone moved their mattresses to the living room to spend the nights together and protect each other. They locked the door that communicated with the hallway with heavy furniture to isolate themselves from the phenomena. However, this action was useless. That inexplicable force was able to throw the obstacles towards the opposite wall and open the doors wide. Some researchers pointed out that collective hysteria had taken over the family. Be that as it may, an atavistic fear ruled the lives of the Gutiérrez Lázaro family at that time.

Desperate and unable to control the situation, the family decided to call parapsychologists and seers to find a solution. As expected, many charlatans and scoundrels arrived to the house to make abundant profits at the expense of the family’s anguish. For instance, a seer from Seville offered Concepción to eliminate her problems… upon payment of 200000 pesetas (about 1800 euros). It is very possible that the frequent visits of these people molded and intoxicated the original version of the Vallecas case. For example and as we will see later, the family got to believe for a while that the entity that took away their sleep was a demon that some of these scoundrels called Crápula. Finally, this entity replaced the figure of Estefanía’s grandfather. However, the person who possibly caused the most damage to the family was a guy known as Tristanbraker. Born in the Madrid’s district Lavapiés, he achieved fame by playing Tarot in the Retiro’s Park of Madrid and making several appearances in the early 1990s in the humorous television programs Al ataque (Antena 3) and Força Barça (TV3), both presented by journalist Alfonso Arús. In these TV programs he dedicated to what he knew best: frauds, such as making supposed weapons to capture ghosts, because he also considered himself a ghostbuster and an “investigator” of the paranormal. He was the first “expert” to whom Concepción turned to desperately.