judicial Sandra Culi is 44 years old and hasn’t been here for almost two years.. disappeared 26 December 2020, Vilassar de Mar (Barcelona). After a family dinner at her mother-in-law’s house, she decided to go for a walk – in Catalonia they celebrated Sant Esteve (Little Christmas). He did this alone and without a phone. He wanted to clear his head, saying, “Put the nougat down.” He left at five in the afternoon. At eight o’clock the alarms went off. I wasn’t coming back. At nine they got even stronger. He didn’t come back.
They went to the police station the night they disappeared. “Some mistakes were made,” they point out to their surroundings. “His phone was checked two weeks later, bank statements as well…”. He was defeated two days later. A few days after it started, the search stopped. this Mossos d’Esquadra He cited suicide as the reason for his disappearance. His friends disagree with the “core” as they always describe themselves: “Sandra didn’t want to disappear”. Mireia and Carles form the group together with another friend of the same name, Sandra. set indissoluble, chosen family. The first two go back to those days, that quest, with CASO ABIERTO. The fateful moment when Sandra stopped being around.
last speech
“I remember,” says Carles, “I called him on the 24th and he didn’t answer. I sent him a message: ‘We’re packing our bags, we’re going to Vilassar. We talked…he replied. I still have messages saved.” Nothing felt like goodbye. He wrote “talk” two days before he disappeared.
Mireia also steps back, “the days when we were all with the family, celebrating Christmas, Sant Esteve …”. Busting and overeating, another year. “We always used to cook for friends. It couldn’t be done in Kovid either. But we were in constant communication. I met him when the holiday was over. Again, plans after the loss. Nothing indicated that Sandra Culi wanted to disappear.
The alert went off for both of them on the 27th: “Sandra isn’t there, we can’t find her, her partner Jordi told me she was crying,” Carles recalls. He called Mireia. They also activated the other friend Sandra. “When I found out”, Mireia still hurts, “everything suddenly fell on me like cold water“No one could believe it.
After lunch with Sandra, her mother-in-law and Jordi (husband) in Vilassar de Mar, He went for a walk, as he had done many days before. Hours passed and he did not return. The agents asked them to calm down, a little bit of 24 hours to pass.
“There was no family dispute or any incidents,” the representative said.
It became official in the morning: “The woman is thin-skinned (1.68 meters tall, weighs about 50 kilograms), long, straight, blond hair. She left the house at five in the afternoon,” wrote an agent when activating the complaint. “Inside He was wearing black pants, anorak, scarf and sneakers when he disappeared. He was carrying a fluorescent green backpack.”
The car was still parked in the same place, the keys did not take them. They confirmed that he was not in his home (Barcelona) or the three other homes he owned (Terrasa and Manresa). “There was no family dispute or any incident,” the representative stated. Sandra went out that day only because Jordi was ill and could not walk. Mireia remembers that she didn’t have her phone with her, “it’s not surprising that she didn’t take her phone with her, unaware of it…” They started shaking. The investigation has begun.
Cameras: Sandra walking towards the sea
Hundreds of volunteers responded to the call for help within hours. “An emergency committee was formed,” they recall. Social media was asked for help. A real battalion of hundreds of men -Many of them didn’t even know Sandra- she started looking. “Carles was beating on the field. I couldn’t because I was afraid to find him in any situation. It would hurt, so I thought it would be more helpful to be behind the phone and coordinate people with Sandra, our other friend, and Dani, who selflessly coordinated everything”.
map in hand They scattered the town of Vilassar on the grids. They followed every inch of the town (especially along the seaside where he used to walk) and the periphery of the municipality. They called and called your name. Nothing came from Sandra.
Mossos d’Esquadra checked the cameras. They managed to see it only in those who first caught it, leaving the house. “If you go the way he always does, you’ll have to go through an underground passage. Those cameras didn’t work by chance,” his friends complain. “And then, the Yacht Club’s cameras, the ones down there, are no longer filming it. So, We only know that he left his mother-in-law’s house at 5 pm. there is no more“The station’s cameras were viewed negatively. Sandra had not taken any trains.
a scream on the mountain
For days the town fought the sea. The investigation was not progressing. Sandra’s family, perhaps overwhelmed by the situation, set an end date for the calls: New Year’s Eve can’t get any longer. “So we had to look at the mountain. It was undefeated,” Mireia recalls. The search took a turn against the clock. “One district was beaten, La Pedrera. We thought: If someone took him, I did something to him there… It’s easier to get rid of him there, or to leave him there badly injured, than to leave him on the street, isn’t it?”
At that moment, a scream was heard. a group of volunteers He claimed that the heartbreaking voice of a woman was heard in the quarry. When they said Sandra’s name, they said it sounded like an answer. “I was there,” Carles recalls. “I don’t know if it was a scream or an animal right now… I don’t know. Maybe there was a great desire to find it and the noise was also associated with it. I don’t know…”. Sandra had disappeared four days ago.
Meanwhile, 12 firefighters came to an area frequented by marchers, about 9 kilometers away, which is about a 2-hour walk from the building where the woman left. “It was the only raid supported by agents and expert personnel, the rest were volunteers.” Trained dogs have also joined the search for humans. They heard no more noise. They just gave up.
“Search Elsewhere”
Christmas is over. On January 8 or 9, Carles received another fatal phone call: “We don’t need to keep looking for Sandra. She committed suicide.” Her husband was Jordi. That was the police hypothesis. Two weeks after his disappearance, Mossos had access to his cell phone. “A hand-to-hand phone was used to call Sandra, it could have been picked up by anyone. It was delivered two weeks later.” According to Jordi, the agents found this on his cell phone: The woman was looking for how to end her life.
“Impossible,” Mireia says. “We couldn’t believe it.” He clings to a thousand reasons to strengthen his argument: his strength, his energy. plans. “I had a business trip planned,” she recalls. “He just bought a new car a few months ago. It’s not the act of wanting to leave everything behind all at once.”
It also holds up to weather conditions. to physical problems. “The sea was calm on the 26th. Some volunteers gave photos of the promenades that had been there. Search days stormed out. We leave aside the theory under which he committed suicide and threw himself into the sea. The sea would have given him back.” Carlees beside him confirms. “It’s just that there aren’t cliffs in that area to end his life. It’s all beach. He should have walked into the water and not come out…”
She studied veterinary medicine, loved animals, but turned her life around and got a Masters in Clinical Research: she worked at Laboratorios Alcon. Fun, smiling. She overcame dark moments, lost her mother and brother, needed help but she got over it.. His friend, when he was young, his strength failed him once and he wanted to end it all, “maybe that’s why it’s easy to believe he committed suicide,” complains his friend.
Urban, cosmopolitan, lover of ‘Tous’ and gourmet food, Sandra Culi enjoyed the rhythm of the music. She loved dancing, Zumba and sevillanas. His family, his chosen one: Carles, Mireia and Sandra remember that he was strong and happy. “Sandra is activity, she is vitality,” he adds. “Doing things, going to museums. Anything not at home.” They were defeated, but Sandra is not here. “We believe that his corpse will be revealed …”. It was San Esteban, they remember, “people are at home with their families. At five o’clock in the afternoon there weren’t many people. Maybe they stopped him. A hunter passed by, so to speak, and the prey was his”.
They need answers. They need Sandra. The “core” will not stop looking.