in red color
There are indications that the substance in a bottle labeled Tarrago, which contained a red liquid, may be seized after the search of Rivas’ home. The Civil Guard’s Homicide Squad, investigating the actor, notes this in a letter to the judge, a view supported by OPEN CASE. Luis Lorenzo and his wife Arancha Palomino were taken into custody on suspicion of poisoning his aunt, who died on June 28, 2021.
Their conclusions rest on a report from the Environmental Department of the Benemérita Criminalistics Service. Investigators examined three boats and shoe-care products collected at the couple’s home and compared them with similar items supplied by Lorenzo and Palomino and by the Catalan company Tarrago. Isabel Suárez resided at that house during the final months of her life.
The Civil Guard’s analysis began by measuring levels of cadmium and manganese in the bottles. Autopsy and toxicological tests on the elderly woman revealed elevated cadmium and manganese, with blood concentrations reaching ten times the normal cadmium level and twenty times the normal manganese level.
One box, specifically the one containing paint in a red shade, yielded findings well above average manganese levels gathered by the Civil Guard from the couple’s bathroom: 1,213 milligrams per kilogram, compared with 1,077 milligrams per kilogram for fresh factory product. Yet experts from the Civil Guard frame this difference as minor, noting that only a single documentation item among the analyzed chemical properties and the boat owned by the couple matches the profile of others of the same brand. Then, some homicide colleagues interpreted the result differently.
The authorities describe the seized boat as opened and used, containing manganese values that exceed the laboratory’s sample. This is cited in an official letter posted on December 20 to the ninth investigative court of Arganda del Rey, highlighting very high manganese readings.
Those tasked with investigating Isabel Suárez’s death consider their colleagues’ report to be more damaging to Lorenzo and Palomino, using it to argue that the couple may have poisoned the elderly woman with this dye, and perhaps other shoe-related products. All this occurs even though the report’s authors have noted a cautious interpretation of the finding.
Earlier, forensic experts had already leaned in that direction. Six months prior, when they first looked at all objects gathered from Lorenzo and Palomino’s home, they found no cadmium in any item. Laboratory results from that earlier period showed manganese in six boats and two batteries from the brands Premio and Extrastar, albeit at very low and not highly significant levels.
The investigators themselves had already stressed the relevance of their August report: manganese is present in many everyday products. Manganese dioxide is a naturally occurring ore that can be processed into various forms and used across multiple industries, including petroleum, glass, healthcare, and animal feed. It is also commonly used in bricks, ceramics, tiles, and pigments in powder form.
severe dementia
The judge continues to keep Lorenzo and Palomino under investigation for murder. The couple maintains their innocence, arguing that a month and a half before her death the elderly woman, who had been moved from Asturias to Madrid, died due to the effects of severe dementia. The Civil Guard contends that the couple sought to protect their funds and that a plan was in motion to strip the victim of her assets. They allege that the actor and his wife hastened to mistreat and isolate her when they failed to secure the inheritance.
Just before her death, the will was revised in favor of her niece Arancha, granting 60,884 euros in a savings account, 72,000 euros in fixed-term deposits, and a house in the council of Grado in Asturias.