Human bones found in the Santeria of Madrid.


© Unidad Editorial, SA
Human bones found in the Santeria of Madrid.

The Department of Forensic Archeology of the Autonomous University of Madrid has determined, in a report, that the bones found in a Santeria on Amor Hermoso de Usera last November are human. Among the conclusions, he points out that they correspond to three women and a man who died young in the 20th century and that they are remains stolen from an ossuary or remains from the exhumations of the Civil War, probably selected for their good conservation and similarity. The Municipal Police discovered in the establishment four lumps covered with tar, tar and feathers in a kind of sanctuary next to some sheep horns used for rituals and spells. In the local there were also remains of exotic animals sacrificed that, supposedly, were used to make and sell potions and ointments without any type of sanitary registration. The owner of the store, a Cuban woman, was denounced for various administrative infractions and investigated for the discovery of the remains. He pointed out at first that the bones came from their country. Although they were suspected of being human, the Municipal Police sent them for study to the laboratory of the Forensic Archeology department of the Autonomous University of Madrid. The forensic report highlights that there are three right tibiae and one left tibia corresponding to four different individuals. And it is that by pairing two of the tibiae it has been found that they do not correspond to the same person due to the differences in length between them. The document concludes that the tibiae are of white people and that they do not belong to elderly individuals, but rather to young adults, since there are no “signs of arthritic degeneration of any kind, or osteophyte growth.” It also highlights that «the bones were stolen from some ossuary and manipulated times before the present, as shown by the distal epiphysis of one of the tibiae, where it is clearly observed that the pitch has adhered to a previous and long-standing erosion ». He notes that no bone shows signs of having been altered by roots, nor by animals. One of the central and most complex issues of the study has been find out the date the four people died. For this, a macroscopic analysis of the remains has been made which, despite the limitations, allows us to assert that they are people from the urban Iberian population who died in the 20th century. “From the macro and microscopic analysis, it is deduced that the bones are in a mediated / advanced stage of evolution, so their postmortem interval (MPI) is safely over 20 years and it can probably double or triple this data”, according to the opinion of the specialists. «These bones have a level of deterioration and evolution coinciding with remains of Civil War exhumations and they might be interpreted in some cases as contemporary or even more recent ”, finally indicates the report that has not been able to determine the cause of death of these individuals. The agents of Police Station 3 of the Municipal Police, which is directed by the Ema Teresa Police Station, are now continuing with the investigations to determine how the human bones might get to Santeria and if the owner may be related to the sale of remains of skeletons and corpses. The bones found in the Santeria are being guarded by the Police pending what the judicial authority decides.