New details emerge about how a mobile phone was used to trace the movements of Miguel Carcaño on the day Marta del Castillo disappeared, with investigators attempting to locate her remains through data gathered from the device. The aim was to map movements across various locations in the capital and the province of Seville, though the exact timing of these displacements remains unclear.
A report released today by Diario de Sevilla describes how technicians from the Madrid company Lazarus registered multiple positions on the device after cloning Carcaño’s phone. The record indicates six distinct locations were captured, though officials clarified that the operation involved copying the SIM card rather than cloning the entire phone, meaning the same contact could appear at multiple terminals and potentially on different devices used by the same person.
The Sevillian newspaper notes positions in Dos Hermanas and the northern part of the city, in the San Jerónimo area near the San Fernando Cemetery, and in the El Vacie settlement for squatters. The exact day and time of these records, however, could not be determined. It is not clear whether the movements occurred on the night of January 24, 2009, or the following morning when the young woman was murdered and her body subsequently disposed of or hidden somewhere not yet identified.
Manuel Huerta, an engineer who prepared the report, described a 138-page document with nine documentary appendices. The report places the device and/or SIM card at several locations including Dos Hermanas on the southern highway; between San Jerónimo and Pino Montano, near the Higuerón Sur park; in the El Vacie squatter settlement adjacent to the San Fernando cemetery; near Juventudes Musicales on Doctor Fedriani Boulevard; and at intersections around Luis Montoto and Luis de Morales streets, close to Kansas City Street and near Biología Street, between Luna and Termodinámica streets.
The engineer notes that the records of the telephone antennas are stored in sections, and acknowledges that there is no precise date or time for overwriting the retrieved records and storage areas. He describes temporary memory with no defined format, meaning the data obtained through analysis cannot be assigned to a specific time period.
Additional analysis of the Motorola U9 phone and the SIM card associated with the phone number reveals that another card was used in the phone, which did not match the card analyzed in the clone. This confirms, as stated during the hearing, that the fatal device was not the only mobile phone used by the person who killed the young woman. Lazarus found that on January 23, 2009, images created the day before the crime, as well as files containing unspecified data in the internal memory, had been deleted from the device’s storage prior to the investigation.
Despite these findings, Diario de Sevilla also reports that the National Police Homicide Group in Seville is examining the data collected to uncover new clues about the whereabouts of the victim’s remains. The young woman who lost her life at seventeen continues to be the focus of ongoing inquiries with substantial public and familial interest.
The family demanded an investigation
Marta’s father, Antonio de Castillo, called on the National Police to examine the data from Carcaño’s cell phone thoroughly. He argued that the police did not fully interpret the report and suggested that outside expertise might be necessary to understand the findings. He asserted that the report could not be interpreted correctly without additional analysis and perspective.
“They do not want to publicize the issue and they want peace,” said Antonio de Castillo, who refrained from accepting that the case had run its course due to the lack of specificity in the killer’s actions to dispose of the body. He warned that if the case were shelved, he would continue pursuing answers. He also pointed out that field investigations could still be conducted in the areas indicated, as there may be additional locations to consider for searching and gathering evidence.