Catalan pensioner Pepe, who disappeared while on a trip in Lourdes, calls for help: “I’m lost”

His name is José de Arcos, but in his home town – Sant Vicenç de Castellet (Barcelona) – and around him they call him Pepe. Retired, about to turn 75, calm, always smiling. Happy. He disappeared in Lourdes (France) the day he arrived. On a trip to town with Peña Blaugrana. His son Marc recalls: “My father was confused. He left the band, said he was going to the pharmacy for a while, and disappeared.”

They know Pepe is trying to ask for help. He called his family and friends who were traveling with him to tell him how he could get back to him. The group went to the police to find him. Nobody went looking for him. “He calls out to us and tells us about the scene, but we don’t know where he is.” Your phone’s battery is dead. They never saw him again.

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14 July 2023. A group of just over forty people leaves Sant Vicenç de Castellet (Barcelona). It was a short weekend getaway.. The plan was to go to Viella (Lérida), visit Lourdes the next day, see the Sanctuary, eat and return to Viella. Then return to Sant Vicenç. Pepe signed up without hesitation. He liked it very much, had a good time.

Friday is normal. They arrive in France on Saturday. Son Marc, along with CASE OPEN, re-enacts son Marc: “They’re visiting the Sanctuary in Lourdes,” and when they go to the restaurant to eat, my father, who is with another classmate, tells him to keep going. I was going to a pharmacy.” He did not explain why. “This boy offers to accompany him. My father told him no, he was going.” Pepe was fine before he left. He took pictures with the group, recorded the Sanctuary, and parted ways.

“There are two exits,” says Marc, who walked the same road over and over for days with the rest of the family. “One is the most important, where there are shops where it is impossible to get lost; the other is a little higher, where you can turn left or right.”

Pepe was second. “In principle, if he had turned left, he would have found shops, people, tourism… but luckily he turned right because people pass there too, but go in that direction of the forest.” According to the footage, that’s the way Pepe went. He was light, walking fast. “From that moment on, I think he was disoriented and had no way back.”

“I see a bridge, no one”

It shows 11.30 am. Pepe is leaving Sanctuary. Walking alone. No pharmacy, no shop, find the forest. Walk a little more. “He started making some calls after 2:00 PM.” He first contacted some of his relatives. He called the town, they weren’t going on tour. “A little later, around 2:45 PM, he called people from the group. There were several calls,” confirms Marc. “During the conversation, Pepe said: ‘I’m here, I see an iron bridge, see the cows…’ they said. ‘Look, Pepe, if you see anyone who can tell you.’ But he replied: ‘I don’t see anyone, I just see a cyclist passing by.. ‘ All the calls are being recorded but it was useless, no it didn’t lead to anything.” Pepe had no orientation.

The man insisted, called again. He began to describe a sight that was not in Lourdes, “He was so surprised that he finally described it as being in a forest near Sant Vicenc”. It was clearly stated in the group: You had to go to the police for help. This was not true.

“They didn’t do anything,” complains his son, “and worst of all, they may have done it.” The report said the agents were inactive prior to the Spanish group’s arrival. “They took this as the case of any person lost in Lourdes, no matter: ‘Then they will show up…they will be found.’ They said he only left voluntarily.”

Pepe’s friends insisted. “People told him, ‘but he’s calling, saying he’s lost, he doesn’t know how to get back,'” he said. The agents replied: I had to spend some time starting the search…’Someone will find him'”. The group insisted again: “Again, they explained that my father was confused and also his battery was almost dead. They said that this is not America, that they cannot locate the phone.” The same phone was turned off shortly after and never turned on again.

a blue car

Disoriented, brittle. They sense Pepe walking aimlessly. “He hadn’t been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, but we had noticed a lot of mistakes and started everything to get him to study it well.” The data was forwarded to the agents and they included it in the French alert (d’Alzheimer’s debut), However The first police raid took place only five days later.

Pepe’s children, Marc, Irma, along with their wives and several other family members, arrived in Lourdes in record time. “That same Saturday afternoon, a policeman told my sister that they were going to look for my father. When he called at dawn, a different agent picked up the phone. I didn’t know what he was talking about.” They felt that the search was not like that.

“Before coming to Lourdes, my sister-in-law had to stop to complain to Mossos d’Esquadra,” says Montse, Pepe’s daughter-in-law – Marc’s wife. I was told they would not activate anything without informing the Spanish police. “If it got lost there, that’s something we don’t quite understand.”

throughout the days, They single-handedly defeated the jungle. One of the family’s searches shows a blue car parked next to them. “A man came,” Marc recalls, and went to an area that would later become the key. “A minute later he was gone whistling.” I miss you.

Underwear

“We started to beat the forest on our own and We found a piece of underwear by the river.”explains his son. At the spot where the man in the blue car is. “There was an area that looked like someone was lying there,” explains Marc’s wife, Montse. The garments in question were not analyzed by the French police, but “It probably belongs to him. He used that brand, and he’s missing an identical one in his trunk.”

After the discovery, the first and only official raid was organized, at the intervention of the Mayor of Sant Vicenç and at the insistence of the family. It was Thursday, five days after his disappearance. “A shoe and a sock were found a hundred meters away.“Again, everything points to it.”Judging by the last photo, it matched the shoes he was wearing.”. They had them bring a tracking dog. “He went straight to the underwear department when he smelled the shoe. This suggests that the shoe came from the same person.”

The forest was beaten, the river was dredged. There are no results. There were no other results after that. “Everything that could be done had already been done. If we wanted to raid, we would. They couldn’t do anything else.”

Glasses, wallet and documents

In Sant Vicenç, a group of volunteers was organized to come to Lourdes to scan the area between the two finds. “They drew a radius of about 400 meters with the ends of the two pieces of clothing, aligned… and scanned the area.” No glasses, no wallet, no documents. No sign of Pepe. They couldn’t find any more.

almost two months later call stopped. “We don’t know what to think anymore. Nothing was found.” Sadness, pain, surrender. Distances are added to the impotence of not knowing. “Investigations and disappearances in France are not treated as they are here.” Police intervention, which has always been key, ended as it began. “Time passes and you get used to the idea that he won’t succeed, which was our hope in the first few days of finding him.”

Friendly, talkative, playful, fond of pétanque and football, chats, snacks with friends, good conversations. Despite traveling with Peña Blaugrana, Pepe was a merengue from Real Madrid. She was widowed four years ago but decided to continue “not shutting herself down”. He enjoyed his people, his children, his grandchildren. I was happy. “We’ve been abandoned.” They’re begging for help. There, in Lourdes, no one is looking for him anymore except his family, people, and friends, yes.