Paranormal Activity Reported by the Police: The Vallecas Case

[00:00:00] A group of teenage girls were gathered in the bathroom of their high school.

[00:00:07] One of them took a Ouija board out of her backpack.

[00:00:10] She had taken it from her house.

[00:00:12] Her reasoning was pretty sad.

[00:00:15] You see, the boyfriend of one of the girls in the group passed away in a motorcycle accident.

[00:00:18] It was tragic and a death that came too soon.

[00:00:23] The heartbroken girlfriend wasn't ready to say goodbye.

[00:00:26] No one was.

[00:00:27] And there were things that were left unsaid.

[00:00:30] They brought the board out.

[00:00:31] One girl stood guard at the entrance of the bathroom while the rest put their hands on

[00:00:35] the planchette.

[00:00:36] They started asking questions and they actually get a response.

[00:00:42] The board spells out the name Veronica.

[00:00:45] And so they asked again, who are you?

[00:00:48] But this time the board spells out a different name.

[00:00:52] It was the grandfather of two of the girls in the bathroom, Estefanía and Marianela.

[00:00:58] This isn't what the group wants to hear.

[00:01:00] They want to talk to their dead friend.

[00:01:02] And so they ask a different question.

[00:01:05] But they are interrupted.

[00:01:09] Someone is trying to push open the door.

[00:01:12] It takes a few tries but a teacher storms into the bathroom.

[00:01:15] The girls were caught.

[00:01:17] The teacher grabbed the Ouija board from the floor and broke it in half.

[00:01:21] And when the Ouija board broke, the glass planchette fell and as it hit the floor a gray

[00:01:27] smoke was released.

[00:01:31] Everyone saw it.

[00:01:33] One of the girls who was standing right in front of the teacher ended up inhaling this

[00:01:37] smoke.

[00:01:38] The girl started screaming and convulsing.

[00:01:41] Her name was María Estefanía Gutiérrez Lasario.

[00:01:45] Then after that moment her life would change forever.

[00:01:50] This is perhaps one of the most bizarre cases we've come across in the whole podcast.

[00:01:56] It all starts with a game.

[00:02:02] My name is Edwin and here's a horror story.

[00:02:11] Estefanía was 17 years old.

[00:02:13] She lived in an apartment number 8 on a street named Luis Marín in the Vallecas

[00:02:18] neighborhood of Madrid.

[00:02:20] She was her last year of high school at Colegio Público Aragón of Vallecas.

[00:02:25] Estefanía was the oldest of six siblings.

[00:02:29] She was very close to them and helped her parents' concepción en Maximiliano in any

[00:02:33] way that she could.

[00:02:35] She was a good student, responsible, and studious.

[00:02:38] She helped take care of her siblings a lot but it didn't bother her.

[00:02:43] She was so caring and had strong maternal instincts.

[00:02:46] Her two sisters were more like her best friends than younger sisters.

[00:02:50] They were inseparable.

[00:02:52] And until his death Estefanía's grandfather also lived in the apartment.

[00:02:57] Concepción her mother was his caretaker, leaving Estefanía as caretaker of the children.

[00:03:03] Having her grandfather in the home was not easy, especially as his dementia got worse.

[00:03:08] He was mean and hostile, especially toward Estefanía.

[00:03:13] She knew or wanted to believe that he wasn't aware of what he was saying or doing, but still

[00:03:19] his words hurt her.

[00:03:21] He passed away in early 1990, but even on his deathbed he had more to say to her.

[00:03:27] His last words to his granddaughter were, If I cannot harm you in this life, I will

[00:03:33] do it in the next one.

[00:03:36] Strange.

[00:03:38] But life went on for the family.

[00:03:40] Everything was normal.

[00:03:42] The kids kept going to school and Concepción y Maximiliano kept going to work.

[00:03:47] But everything changed after the day Estefanía inhaled the smoke from the Ouija board.

[00:03:51] She was no longer the same bubbly person.

[00:03:54] She developed sleeping problems.

[00:03:56] She started being more irritable and even violent.

[00:04:00] She tried hitting her siblings, things she had never done before.

[00:04:04] The sleeping problems churned into insomnia and in the little moment she did get a

[00:04:08] little bit of sleep.

[00:04:09] It was terrible.

[00:04:13] One night Estefanía finally felt herself drift off.

[00:04:16] As she started to dream, she heard a whisper right next to her.

[00:04:20] Come with us.

[00:04:23] Come with us.

[00:04:25] It was a raspy voice.

[00:04:28] She jolted up in bed and was surrounded by shadows.

[00:04:31] And this became a regular thing for her.

[00:04:35] She started making guttural, incoherent sounds.

[00:04:38] Her family didn't know if it was another language or just random babbling.

[00:04:42] But they were scared.

[00:04:45] She would enter into these trances and then she seemed to be somewhere else.

[00:04:50] And they would last 20 minutes.

[00:04:52] Concepción would ask her, where did you go?

[00:04:56] And Estefanía would answer, the hallway.

[00:05:00] It was the part of the hallway right in front of the bathroom.

[00:05:03] It would be covered in fog and where the voices kept calling to her.

[00:05:08] Come with us.

[00:05:11] Time pass and her symptoms only got worse.

[00:05:14] She started having anger outbursts, seizures, and visions.

[00:05:19] Marianela, her sister, once saw Estefanía levitate from her bed.

[00:05:24] Now it wasn't just Estefanía who was experiencing strange things.

[00:05:29] Estefanía still tried to do things for herself and one of the things she enjoyed doing was ironing

[00:05:34] her own clothes.

[00:05:36] One time she went into the bathroom and gathered the iron board, her clothes and the iron itself.

[00:05:42] She set her clothes down on the board and when she reached for the iron it was already

[00:05:47] on.

[00:05:48] She looked up and at the other end of the iron board there was a shadow figure.

[00:05:54] Estefanía screamed for her mom and when Concepción arrived the iron was still on

[00:05:58] but the shadow was gone.

[00:06:02] And as she was turning around to leave the bathroom, the door slammed shut.

[00:06:07] She tried the doorknob but it wouldn't budge.

[00:06:10] Maximiliano, Estefanía's father rushed to the bathroom and tried to pull it open but

[00:06:14] again it wouldn't move.

[00:06:17] He raised his leg to kick the door open but just then the door slowly creaked open.

[00:06:26] Maximiliano and Concepción were worried.

[00:06:28] They didn't understand what was happening with their daughter.

[00:06:32] They tried taking her to different specialists and they ended up going to at least four different

[00:06:36] clinics looking for help but it was no use.

[00:06:41] Doctors had no idea why this was happening to Estefanía.

[00:06:45] One of the doctors thought she was suffering from epilepsy but none of the treatments

[00:06:49] were helping.

[00:06:50] Estefanía herself started to sense she would never get better.

[00:06:54] She grew morbid as the days went by.

[00:06:57] She would tell her brothers and sisters that when she passed, she would knock and let them

[00:07:01] know.

[00:07:02] On another occasion, she randomly told her mom,

[00:07:06] When I die, don't tell my dad's family right away and bury me with a picture of him.

[00:07:13] She believed she was destined to die.

[00:07:17] And in tears, her mom agreed.

[00:07:23] By the night of July 12, 1991, Estefanía had a really intense seizure.

[00:07:29] The worst one yet.

[00:07:30] She tried attacking Marianela growling and barking at her like a dog.

[00:07:36] Marianela dodged the attack and Estefanía fell onto the floor and she began to convulse

[00:07:41] violently.

[00:07:42] Her eyes went blank and her mouth began to foam.

[00:07:45] She fainted and when she woke up, she didn't remember anything that had just happened.

[00:07:51] The rest of the following day was normal, even good.

[00:07:55] Estefanía seemed to be back to her old self.

[00:07:59] She even went on a walk with her boyfriend Pablo in the afternoon.

[00:08:02] When she got home, she had dinner with her family and it was pleasant.

[00:08:07] Something that hadn't happened these days.

[00:08:11] That night, the 13th of July, Estefanía had another seizure.

[00:08:15] This one was worse than the night before.

[00:08:18] She wrapped her hands around her head and the pain was just too much.

[00:08:22] She started convulsing after 30 minutes of the unrelenting headache.

[00:08:27] The family rushed her to the hospital at 11pm and sat anxiously in the waiting room.

[00:08:33] After some time, doctors informed them that she was in a coma.

[00:08:37] And then three hours later, at 2am on the 14th, she passed away.

[00:08:44] The siblings that stayed in the apartment heard a series of knocks at that time.

[00:08:49] They knew what it meant.

[00:08:53] Estefanía died of asphyxia, which means there wasn't enough oxygen in her body.

[00:08:59] This can happen for different reasons, but in her case, doctors believed her last seizure

[00:09:03] was a cause.

[00:09:06] Even though Estefanía had been suffering from seizures over the last several months,

[00:09:10] doctors still believed that this was unusual.

[00:09:14] Doctors wrote, suddenly and suspiciously, about her death.

[00:09:19] Just like the doctors, her family was just as confused.

[00:09:23] The loss of Estefanía hit them very hard.

[00:09:27] And now they were left to mourn.

[00:09:29] But they wouldn't get to do that in peace.

[00:09:34] The rest of the episode continues right after this.

[00:09:37] Stay with me.

[00:09:44] The next day, Estefanía died.

[00:09:48] The next day, after the death of her, Estefanía died.

[00:09:52] Most instantly after her death, things started happening in the apartment.

[00:09:56] When Concepción and Maximiliana returned to their home the next morning,

[00:10:00] Estefanía's bed was a mess.

[00:10:03] But her siblings had made it that night.

[00:10:07] As the days went on, doors started opening and closing on their own.

[00:10:12] And she went into a coma.

[00:10:15] A few nights after Estefanía's death, Concepción was trying to sleep.

[00:10:19] Something that was hard to come by for her.

[00:10:22] And as she was dozing off, she heard a voice.

[00:10:26] Mama.

[00:10:28] Mama.

[00:10:31] She fells to cold hand caress her and pull the sheets off.

[00:10:35] They started happening every night.

[00:10:39] Maximiliano started closing the door to the bathroom and locking it.

[00:10:42] They believed the supernatural activity was coming from there.

[00:10:45] No one in the family used the bathroom alone, even during the day.

[00:10:49] The apartment became a living nightmare.

[00:10:52] They started seeing a shadow figure appear in the hallway.

[00:10:56] The same one that Estefanía would talk about.

[00:10:59] They would hear a sinister laugh there from that same place.

[00:11:03] One of the younger siblings was pushed by an unseen force at one point.

[00:11:07] And the family dog flew across the living room as if it had been picked up and thrown.

[00:11:13] One night, the family sat trying to have dinner together.

[00:11:16] The glass levitated and flew toward one of the younger siblings, Ricardo.

[00:11:21] He was able to dodge it but it would have hit him in the head.

[00:11:25] There just seemed to be no moment of peace, especially for Concepción.

[00:11:30] Nights were difficult for her.

[00:11:32] As she tried to sleep, she would feel a cold hand touch her feet and sometimes it would feel like something was standing on top of her.

[00:11:40] The family eventually dragged their mattresses into the living room and started sleeping there instead.

[00:11:46] They closed the door to the hallway and even put furniture in front of it.

[00:11:50] The family dog would spend all night barking at the door.

[00:11:54] There was something on the other side.

[00:11:57] There were a couple of nights where the door still managed to fly open, even with furniture in front of it.

[00:12:03] They were growing desperate.

[00:12:05] Concepción wanted to make sure that they weren't going crazy so one night she poured flour in the hallway before they all went to bed in the living room.

[00:12:14] The next morning, they saw a man's footprint on the flower.

[00:12:20] This was all the evidence she needed.

[00:12:23] Concepción found a paranormal investigator to come by and help but she had no idea that he was a fraud.

[00:12:32] His investigation was broadcasted to Antena Tres, the channel on TV, on October 14th, 1992.

[00:12:39] And in the end, he took financial advantage of the family and even tried to convince them to get him a car.

[00:12:45] He made the activity in the house even worse.

[00:12:49] Marionela and Quirubina were in the room and they thought that it was safe to sleep there again.

[00:12:55] And sometime past midnight, they heard a sound.

[00:12:58] Both of the girls woke up at the same time and they saw a faceless creature.

[00:13:03] It was dark and spiky.

[00:13:05] It was crawling straight for them.

[00:13:08] They reached for their small lamp hoping that it would scare the thing away.

[00:13:13] Their hands were shaking and they screamed for their parents.

[00:13:18] And as Concepción and Maximiliano ran to their daughter's room, the door opened.

[00:13:22] The dark spiky creature crawled out of the room and into the hallway.

[00:13:26] The girls and their parents ran to the living room where the rest of the family was.

[00:13:31] And as they hugged each other in fear, a ball slowly rolled toward them.

[00:13:37] It was coming from the hallway.

[00:13:40] Maximiliano grabbed the ball and threw it back.

[00:13:43] And then it flew back to them.

[00:13:47] This frightened the family and they decided to leave for a while.

[00:13:50] But before leaving, Concepción tied each door with cords.

[00:13:54] When the family returned a couple of weeks later, all of the cords were ripped apart.

[00:14:00] And their first night back in the apartment on November 19th would be the worst of their lives.

[00:14:10] At two in the morning, Maximiliano called emergency services.

[00:14:14] He tells Dispatch that there is something in the house.

[00:14:17] It's been this way ever since one of his daughters passed away, he told them.

[00:14:22] It turns out that all the crucifixes in the house turned upside down and three claw marks appeared on the wall.

[00:14:29] The Dispatcher couldn't believe what he was saying.

[00:14:32] Concepción was asked to get on the phone.

[00:14:34] They needed to make sure that Maximiliano wasn't just drunk but she verified the story.

[00:14:39] Dispatch needed more and they talked to two of the older kids.

[00:14:43] The family seemed truly horrified.

[00:14:46] A nearby patrol was sent to the apartment.

[00:14:49] It was raining and cold but when the officers arrived, the family was outside waiting for them.

[00:14:55] They just felt safer there.

[00:14:57] The officers proceeded to enter the home and everything was dark when they got inside.

[00:15:02] For some reason none of the lights were working.

[00:15:05] Streetlights shining through the windows were their only source of it as they continued their search.

[00:15:11] All five officers noted the crucifixes were indeed upside down.

[00:15:16] The three scratches on the wall that Maximiliano mentioned were also there.

[00:15:22] One officer felt sick to his stomach as he walked through the house and the temperature continued to drop.

[00:15:29] And the bathroom was even colder.

[00:15:33] Doors started opening and closing.

[00:15:36] There was a bang from the terrace. Two officers ran over to check it out.

[00:15:40] There was nothing there.

[00:15:42] Four of the officers ran out of the apartment after this.

[00:15:46] One of the detectives was forced to continue the inspection by himself.

[00:15:50] He looked closely at the doors trying to make sure that there wasn't anything else controlling them.

[00:15:55] He went into the room that once belonged to Estefania and tried to pull one of the crucifixes.

[00:16:01] It was stuck to the wall.

[00:16:03] It was also colder in this room.

[00:16:05] And then as he inspected a different room something pushed over a cabinet and it almost fell on top of him,

[00:16:11] but he dodged it at the last second.

[00:16:14] The detective exited the house and he was convinced that all of this was real.

[00:16:20] He contacted dispatch to give his report.

[00:16:24] And he said,

[00:16:26] On this day the 19th and for several hours we have noted a strange phenomenon.

[00:16:31] The strange force moved the equipment and the crucifixes.

[00:16:35] There's three scratches on the wall.

[00:16:37] As we sat with the family we saw a cabinet fall.

[00:16:41] The way it moved was a natural.

[00:16:43] We heard a loud sound from the terrace.

[00:16:46] Moments later a brown liquid oozed from the corner of the wall.

[00:16:51] There are a series of phenomena that we cannot explain.

[00:16:54] Over.

[00:16:56] The call to dispatch would become the first official police report to formally file the occurrence of paranormal activity.

[00:17:04] The activity continued after the officers left but for some reason that the family did not understand it decreased.

[00:17:12] Nothing extreme really happened again and they thought it was over.

[00:17:17] On all Saints day in 1993 there was a crash in the living room.

[00:17:22] Concepcion walked over from the dining room and found a Stephanie S picture on the floor.

[00:17:26] It had fallen from the altar.

[00:17:29] She picked it up and turned it over.

[00:17:31] The picture inside the frame was burned.

[00:17:36] It was even charred in the corners.

[00:17:38] The glass was fine.

[00:17:40] So was everything else on the altar.

[00:17:44] The family ended up moving shortly after that and the activity disappeared.

[00:17:49] There were no strange shadows, no voices, no flying objects in their new home.

[00:17:55] Even future tenants of apartment 8 on the street Luis Marín were safe.

[00:18:00] They never experienced anything.

[00:18:03] Two of the older siblings have gone on record with different talk shows in Spain and tried to debunk the story.

[00:18:08] Blaming their mother for making everything up.

[00:18:11] They claim that Stephanie had never changed that she was the same bubbly and friendly girl even up to her death.

[00:18:17] The mother had instructed supposedly one of them to throw a rock into the terrace and that's what the officers heard that night.

[00:18:24] Their house had already been on the local news channel.

[00:18:27] The officers probably hyped themselves up into believing supernatural phenomenon was taking place.

[00:18:32] The pair even said that there's discrepancies in the timeline.

[00:18:36] That is, Stephanie's sickness didn't happen until almost a year after the Ouija board incident.

[00:18:42] But even with their statements some things remain unexplained.

[00:18:45] As if any sudden epilepsy, even if it might have been months after playing the Ouija board it just never made any sense.

[00:18:52] She got so sick so fast.

[00:18:55] And how quickly she passed away didn't make any sense to anyone.

[00:18:59] Concepción remained firm in her account of things.

[00:19:03] She truly believed and insisted that sinister paranormal activity was plaguing their home.

[00:19:10] It was difficult to think that the Ouija board had something to do with it.

[00:19:14] Their lives changed after that day.

[00:19:18] This would end up becoming one of the most famous paranormal cases in Spain.

[00:19:22] It's so well known that the movie Veronica is based on the story.

[00:19:29] Whatever happened to the family in Vallecas scarred them for life.

[00:19:34] There was no moment of peace or quiet.

[00:19:37] They were not able to grieve the loss of Estefania properly.

[00:19:40] But one thing is for sure.

[00:19:43] Their version of reality was forever changed.

[00:19:47] And for them it wasn't a question of what if something happens when you play with the Ouija board.

[00:19:53] But who will it affect?

[00:19:56] And when will it happen?

[00:20:05] This episode of Horror Story was written and researched by Cristina Lumagui

[00:20:09] with production by me, Edwin Cobarrovias.

[00:20:13] If there's an idea you want to talk about for the show, send it over.

[00:20:16] I'll leave my contact information in the description of this episode.

[00:20:19] Ad-free versions of this and the other shows are over on ScaryPlus.com.

[00:20:24] You can try it for free for two weeks.

[00:20:26] You can cancel whenever no questions asked.

[00:20:28] It's automatic.

[00:20:30] Anyway, thank you very much for listening.

[00:20:32] Keep it scary everyone.

[00:20:34] See you soon.

[00:20:39] Bye.