One of Spain’s most watched programs on television is Cuarto Milenio, hosted by Iker Jiménez on Cuatro. In its latest episode, the focus turned to a neighbor case from Bejís, Castellón, concerning Pilar Prades. She was executed in 1959 and is remembered as the last woman to receive the death penalty in Spain. Her story links a small Valencian community with a broader national history, tracing a dangerous path from crime to punishment in a mid-20th century setting.
Born in Alto Palancia in 1928, Pilar was illiterate and moved to Valencia at age 12 to work in private homes. For many women from rural areas at the time, domestic service offered a way to earn a living. After several moves, she settled with Enrique Vilanova and Adela Pascual, a butcher and a delicatessen owner respectively. Pilar managed chores at home and even helped in the shop, but a cruel turn of events began there when Adela fell ill and died on March 19, 1954.
Initial assessments suggested a flu, yet the true cause of death was poisoning. Pilar allegedly added arsenic-based poison to Adela’s coffee, prompting vomiting, rapid weight loss, and eventual weakness that led to death. When Enrique, Adela’s husband, returned from the funeral and saw Pilar in Adela’s apron, he dismissed her from the household in no uncertain terms.
repeat offender
Afterwards, Pilar joined the home of Doctor Manuel Berenguer Terraza. She attempted another poisoning in this household. A cook named Aurelia, who had helped Pilar secure the Bejís assignment, later learned of the attempt and revealed that the same symptoms had begun to appear in the doctor’s household. The doctor grew suspicious, and the owner fell ill, prompting a medical examination that uncovered arsenic traces.
Manuel Berenguer personally reviewed the maid’s past and confirmed the earlier death of Adela, the deli owner Pilar had served. The body of Adela was exhumed, and arsenic residues were found. In Pilar’s room, investigators discovered a bottle of the ant killer commonly known as Diluvión, a poison that could be purchased in pharmacies at that time. The evidence against her grew undeniable.
Despite the mounting proof, Pilar did not confess to the crimes, though her lawyer urged cooperation to avoid the death penalty. She would later claim that she had given Miss Adela a small amount of the liquid, mistaking it for sugar, and that her fate was sealed by a grievous misstep. The narrative, however, is contested, and many details point to a calculated pattern of poisonings rather than a single act of misjudgment.
Antonio López Sierra, the executioner, was charged with carrying out the sentence that would seal Pilar Prades’s fate. On May 19, 1959, at the age of 31, she was pronounced the last woman to be sentenced to death in Spain. Historical records describe her pleas to those who accompanied her on the way to the execution chamber, fearing that she would meet a swift and brutal end. The subsequent report notes that the sentence was carried out, and Pilar Prades faced the consequences of her actions with a final, solemn fate that closed a grim chapter in the country’s penal history. The case continues to attract attention for its emblematic status in the history of capital punishment in Spain and for the questions it raises about justice, gender, and punishment in mid-century Spain.