Abandonados (2026) s01e04 Episode Script

1
Previously on ABANDONED
It was after eleven
when we started our videocall.
Look, this is your mother.
Wow.
This is your father.
It was a weird feeling.
Really good.
I fell apart.
We knew that they were involved in
illegal activities.
An officer getting shot
forced my parents to flee to France.
Everyone thought they were dead, vanished.
Something serious happened
to your mom and dad.
Who is the couple with my parents?
I believe it's Denis.
I felt again like
I was going down a dead-end street.
We put together an investigative team,
and they focused on trying to find
the best friend of Elvira's father,
Miguel Álvarez Orgambide.
Do you know what happened to my father?
If I've come this far,
I think I can go even further.
Honestly, I want to know so badly
obviously with a degree of caution,
you know, but
I know I'll to get to the bottom of this.
She's made a lot of progress. A lot.
The day Elvira's interview was broadcast
on RAC1,
the only thing she knew about her past was
that her name was Elvira.
I don't know. It still really affects me
when my aunt talks about my grandma.
When she died, she said,
"I won't get to see them again."
Something like that always makes you
wonder, "What if they're alive?"
And if they got themselves mixed up
in something much bigger than we imagined?
And someone definitely did something
that they don't want discovered.
It could be.
Do you know what happened to my father?
ABANDONED
Ramón Martos Sánchez
has always been quite a rascal.
Quite a rascal?
Tell me, tell me stories about my father.
What was he like? I'd find it amusing.
I lived in one room,
and he lived somewhere else.
And we were going on a trip
and he stayed here.
Where were you going?
- To Salamanca.
- Salamanca.
We were scoundrels.
And what did you guys do?
Break into houses?
We'd ring the doorbell.
We'd ring two or three times,
and if nobody opened the door, we would.
We used a huge screwdriver.
You'd push it in a little.
You pushed like this
and the lock would fall off the frame.
You undid the screws
and it'd fall on the floor.
- Who were you with? It was you, my father
- There were four of us.
"The Gold Thieves of Andalucía,"
they called us.
Gold Thieves of Andalucía Wow.
- From then on, no
- Not anymore
I haven't seen Nobody joined our
Well, my brother said
that a man very close to my dad left us.
His name was Denis, Tenis
Maybe Toni.
We figured it could also be Toni.
I have no clue.
And are all the people
who used to come around here dead?
All of them.
- You're the only one left?
- Me, and I'll never die.
I'm here forever.
Look. My dad.
Gap-toothed.
Gap-toothed with fewer teeth
than a turkey.
And do you know why my dad left?
He left because they'd done a job.
I don't know if it was in Cádiz or what.
They'd shot at an officer, or whatever.
So he went to France.
Later, I found out that
he escaped
from the police station in France.
He cut a hole in the ceiling and escaped.
From there,
when he escaped, he went to Belgium.
Yeah.
I don't know how I found out about it,
or who told me about it.
I never heard anything else.
When I found my family,
the whole family told me
- "We thought you guys were dead."
- It's really weird.
He's shown no signs of life.
I don't think he's hiding or anything.
- No?
- No, I don't think so.
- You don't think it's possible?
- No way.
He's gonna leave his kids
and not come back? No way, man.
I don't think so. It had to be
a settling of scores
or something like that.
Maybe he crossed paths with the mafia
and they got rid of him.
- Yeah
- That could be.
Richi and I decided to go back to Madrid
to talk to my aunt, Felisa,
so she could tell us about my mother,
because we barely remember her.
- What was she like?
- Your mom?
- Yeah.
- Really nice.
Yeah?
Not nice, wonderful.
That's why I've told you
you should always remember that your mom
did not abandon you.
My sister felt very sorry for your father.
We talked about it on the phone.
That was the last time
I spoke to my sister.
I asked her about your dad, "How's Ramón?"
Crying, she said, "He's really unwell.
He's got tuberculosis.
Look, everything's screwed up."
That's how my sister talked.
She said, "He took a sheet off the bed
and wanted to escape out the window."
But I remember that.
We went to see him.
I think it was in a hospital.
Our father was inside, in a room,
and they opened a window.
He was on the second floor.
He took two sheets.
The dude climbed down and ran away.
Just like that.
He was an escape artist, man.
And we were still there, in the room.
And I thought it was a dream.
Carmen managed to contact someone
who might have some information.
Her name is María Elvira and
she's our cousin who lives in Alicante.
She's the daughter of my aunt, Antonia,
my father's sister,
whose the same person
who took us in in Paris,
when the shooting happened
and they had to flee Spain.
I tried to contact her via WhatsApp.
"Hi, I'm Elvira, your cousin,
the daughter of Ramón and Rosario.
I'd like to talk to you."
Click. She blocked me.
Great.
I managed to talk to María Elvira,
but nothing.
She blocked me, didn't want to cooperate
She was unpleasant.
So, I decided to pluck up the courage
and show up on her doorstep.
- Yes?
- Hi, good morning, María Elvira?
- Yes, who is it?
- Hi, look, I'm Elvira.
I'm your cousin. I live in Barcelona
and I'm the daughter of Ramón and Rosario.
Yes, and how did you get my address?
Well, I looked you up on the Internet
and then a woman named Carmen
- Okay, I'll let you in and we'll talk.
- Thanks.
You've got it rough, huh?
I told her, that Carmen woman,
that I didn't know anything.
I said I was sorry.
In other words, "Don't bother me."
Shit, don't bother me,
because I really don't know anything.
- When my parents showed up at
- Yes.
- At my parents' house.
- at your parents' house.
Did you already know they existed?
Was it the first time you'd heard of them?
Or did you already?
I knew my mother had family.
I knew them only by name,
since my mom talked about them a lot.
- But you'd never seen them.
- No.
No, I'd seen them in my mom's photos.
She had lots of photos.
When our parents fled in 1978,
my aunt and uncle, María Elvira's parents,
took them into their home in Paris.
Ramón was born in that house,
according to his birth certificate.
María Elvira was a teenager at that time,
but she remembers our parents perfectly.
Do you think Rosario was also involved?
She definitely knew about it.
I mean, she lived with him.
- She knew what he did and brought home.
- Yeah.
They knew
what their husbands did for a living.
- And they often went with them.
- Yeah, I was referring to
- You can know what someone does, but
- That couple
It was a business meeting among men,
even if the ladies were present.
It was a business meeting.
Those nighttime meetings weren't just
about "making you a quick drink."
Something else was going on,
and they had their meetings at night.
María Elvira gives me good vibes, I mean
She's a bit peculiar
and a bit over the top in some ways.
The only thing she'd kept of my parents'
was an old scale.
This was on the top floor,
which we had to empty quickly.
Because when your dad left,
and he left with the bare minimum.
He couldn't take anything with him, so,
he told me I could keep this for myself.
That's what he used.
He used this to weigh things.
- He would weigh jewelry, diamonds
- Diamonds, gold
Gold, whatever.
Not drugs. I, in my opinion,
your father, for example
I can't guarantee it, but, in my opinion,
your dad didn't touch drugs.
The last time I saw him,
he wanted to step back from the scene
he was in. He wanted to do his last job.
His "last job" could've been a robbery or
whatever he felt like doing.
Not robbing a bank.
- So, do whatever
- Something really big.
Sure, something big to retire for good.
He didn't want to do jobs anymore.
He wanted to live his life.
If he'd died
of natural causes or something,
it'd have to be in the registry, right?
If it happened another way,
they wouldn't ever find the bodies.
So, what are you going to find?
Zero. Niet.
But you might find someone
who knows the story and can tell you,
- "Yes, I knew them and"
- Denis.
They're gonna tell you
what many people will,
that they saw something,
but they'll never tell you
what hole they buried them in.
- Denis, Tenis, whatever, that's the one.
- Yes.
He knows. He's one of the few
who knows everything that happened.
Yeah, that man drove us to the station
and left us there.
The one who left you.
But why was he the one who left you?
Did he have orders?
- If we find him, we'll find out.
- Sure.
It's nice seeing you guys,
and now I'd like to stay in contact.
- Of course.
- For anything at all.
Don't block us, okay?
But tell Carmen not to call me again.
You don't know your family
and suddenly they leave.
- Thanks.
- Thank you.
The police have asked French authorities
for information about my parents.
And we discover that my dad was in prison.
Surprisingly, we got some information
from the French government
that was very significant.
They report that Mr. Martos
was sentenced for robbery and forgery
and served a sentence
in La Santé Prison in Paris
from January to September,
more or less, of 1979.
The French government told us they
have no record of any address for him.
They also told us there's no record of any
family or dependents. He was single.
His family was in Spain.
That's the only information they had,
apart from a mug shot of Mr. Martos.
With that, we were able to confirm
that he was this missing person.
All the information we'd gotten
from our family members up until now
was that
he'd never been imprisoned in France.
There he had cellmates,
fellow prisoners, lawyers
I'm sure some family member visited him.
Knowing my dad was imprisoned in La Santé,
we decided to travel to Paris
to visit the prison
and meet with the warden.
They took us to an old cell
like the one my dad was in
for ten months in 1979.
The warden of La Santé, Bruno Clement,
spent some time explaining
our father's case to us.
When a person is arrested,
are records from when he was in prison,
and who he associated with?
It's very likely that he's dead,
and we're trying to find people
who knew him,
who are still alive, so we can
interview them and ask them questions.
Sometimes, all we find is a single file
with the name, birth date, some details,
and the reason
the person was incarcerated.
And that's it.
So I can't tell you what we'll find,
if we find anything, in the archives.
We've discovered many things, and we know
he looked a bit shabby when he came here.
We thought that, with his contacts
- When he got out.
- When he got out of here, he had contacts,
who drove around in Jaguars, in Porsches
In prison there's something
called "forced proximity,"
where people interact with each other.
And so, you can find yourself with people
who are more deeply involved in crime
and end up falling in with them,
into a more serious type of crime, etc.
Anything's possible.
Well, merci, thank you so much
for speaking with us.
The documentation team asked
the Archives of Paris
for any and every kind of document
related to Ramón Martos Sánchez,
Elvira's father.
Weeks later, we received an email
with the verdict sentencing him
to be imprisoned in La Santé.
Okay, he was arrested.
On January 27, 1979, he was caught.
And they took this photo of him. Exactly.
So, on March 13, they put him on trial.
On April 12, he was sentenced.
And then, in September,
he'd done his time and they let him go.
Richi was born in September,
and that's when they released him.
Four days before, they let him go.
They attempted to fraudulently steal
personal property.
- That fits with what María Elvira said.
- But in the end, they were stopped
by the police.
Okay, two people were definitely arrested.
Two were arrested?
My father's name appears
in the record of the judgment,
along with another man's.
- Okay, so we have to look for him, right?
- For him, yeah.
We started looking,
and we found him on Facebook.
Based on the dates,
we think he could still be alive,
but we don't know where he lives.
So, we focused on looking for relatives
in his immediate circle.
That's when we found one of his daughters.
Okay, ready? Action.
We've got signal here, right?
Ah! They're calling!
Hi, good morning.
One sec, I'm changing rooms
so I can hear you better.
There was no signal in the other room.
Okay Now. I'll explain. Well,
it's basically
what they've already told you.
I don't know if you've read what
I sent you from Le Parisien newspaper.
- No, I'd rather you fill me in.
- Okay.
- I'm self-employed. I was with clients.
- Okay.
Okay, sorry and thank you for calling.
Look, I'll explain a little bit.
I've been looking for my parents
for about four or five years.
While looking, I came across a document
in which my father
and yours are named together.
My father was arrested.
And the arrest record showed
that your father had also been arrested.
- Okay, let me explain.
- Vale.
- That wasn't my father.
- Okay.
- It was his brother-in-law.
- Okay.
Jesús Mari, who died.
I'm sorry, but he died. Jesús Mari
stole my father's passport from my dad.
- Okay.
- So, yes, they caught him.
They caught him,
but my father almost lost his job.
because they were notified he was
in prison. He worked at the consulate.
Then they said, "No, he's here."
Obviously, his brother-in-law
had taken his passport.
- Okay.
- So it wasn't my father.
- It's a pretty crazy story.
- Yeah, yeah.
That day, he was with Jesús Mari.
- Thank you.
- Good luck.
- Goodbye.
- Bye.
- Merci.
- Goodbye.
We investigated Jesús María
and, well, we discovered
that he was quite a character.
He had a long history of robberies.
He'd also been arrested
for the suspected homicide of a jeweler.
But he's dead,
so yet again, we're faced with silence.
His wife is dead. He's dead.
What a bummer.
During the investigation,
the document team
discovered that my dad had been imprisoned
in Bern, Switzerland.
As you know, Ramón had a memory
of his dad in Switzerland.
Looking at his priors,
both in Spain and in France,
we thought
he might've been imprisoned there too.
We consulted with Thorberg Prison,
who referred us
to the state archives in Bern,
which is where all records are kept.
And there,
thanks to an email we've just received,
they've confirmed Ramón Martos
was imprisoned in Thorberg
on Christmas Eve 1982.
He was arrested
under the name Paulino Pedrosa Figuero.
In those records,
do they know when he was released, or not?
They know he was due to appear in court
in March 1983, and he didn't appear.
That's all the information
they can give us.
It's a powerful discovery
because it gives us two clues.
The first is that my father was imprisoned
in Switzerland
between December 1982 and March 1983.
THORBERG PRISON
SWITZERLAND
That adds solid dates to the case.
Secondly, my father provided an address,
Calle Armengol, in Barcelona.
We also discovered
that my father was using a false name.
Paulino Pedrosa Figuero.
As his residence, he gave an address
in Barcelona that's very near
the France Railway Station.
It's definitely the apartment I remember,
where we were that morning,
the morning we were abandoned.
We looked hard and found
that the number he gave in Calle Armengol,
number 89, didn't exist.
The numbering on this street
only went up to number four.
It's all pretty weird.
In my father's prison file,
it also said that when he was arrested,
he was with a certain Marc Richard.
And there, the name Richard
immediately drew our attention
to Elvira's brother's name,
the only one who had a French name.
We'd always wondered
if it was a tribute
to their father's accomplice
who was French and named Richard.
Bad luck again,
because Marc Richard
died in a car accident
near Barcelona,
and his only sister, Pierret,
never wanted to talk to us.
One of my issues is that I'm late.
Many of the people
who might know something are dead.
COURTHOUSE
I decided to listen to Montse
and file a report with the courts.
The case ended up being assigned
to a young judge
who was eager to investigate.
We don't want to seem overly enthusiastic,
as we're talking about 40 years ago
and investigating things outside of Spain
under very complicated circumstances.
But in any case, we found it interesting.
And I remember she filed the report
while I was on duty in court one week.
We reviewed it and discussed with
the prosecutor's office. It looked good.
We thought it over a bit before
rolling the dice to see what'd happen.
First, I contacted the Institute
of Legal Medicine of Catalonia
and asked about unidentified cadavers
since the late 1970s.
I remember the boss in Tarragona called me
and said, "Hey, Diego, what's this?
Why are you asking me for this?"
The judge asked for information
from a body of European judges
called Eurojust,
which shares information
with other countries.
They made it clear
it would be a very long road.
We were interested in getting information
from Belgium, Switzerland, and France.
The best case scenario would be
if a reply came by email one day
with 500 scanned documents of Mr. Martos's
criminal record, right?
I think that's quite improbable.
I'm not optimistic about that.
I wish we were just trying to find
a needle in a haystack.
But we're looking for
what we're not even sure is a needle.
One day, as I was filming the documentary,
I looked at my phone and I got
some photos of the L'Escala house
before the renovations.
I'm talking to my brother
because I found the photos
He'd made me some sketches of the house.
I pulled up the photos
and I'm trying to show them to him
Because one of the things he'd said was
that the staircase was too small.
When we saw David, there were three steps.
And the whole time he insisted
that even though he'd been very young
See? He's writing me, "Holy cow."
And Richi had a gut feeling
that he'd been there before.
He told me no,
that the stairs used to be much bigger.
In the photo that I'm sending him, they'd
done some renovations and there are
One, two, three, four, five, six steps.
So yes, this could be it.
"I've seen these stairs before."
That's the house. I knew it.
It's a question of energy.
And I had been there.
I was blown away by the details.
All the details coincided
and then I was 100% sure
that it was the house.
Not just that, but also in L'Escala,
there's a lady named Rosa Mari
who apparently knew my mother.
And this
was ours. You can see it better here.
This lady walked around with kids,
pushing a stroller.
She had really long hair.
- Let's see.
- She looks like me.
Just like her.
Yes, you look alike.
She's brunette,
and because you've left your hair white,
but otherwise
Are you the youngest?
Yes.
Sure, one in every
Look! The stroller.
Yes. That was it.
This is the stroller.
Well, let's see
I can see her. One here, another there
- And the girl?
- In the stroller.
She remembers.
On La Ronda del Pedró, you keep going
as if you were going to Empúries Beach.
Down there, there are some laundromats
in really good condition.
I always saw her around there.
I honestly, I'm really sorry I'm unable
to give you more information.
- It's okay.
- But that's all I know.
Between my brother's memories of the house
and Rosa María's memories,
it's become clearer and clearer
that we lived in L'Escala.
Knowing that most of the photos
were taken in Belgium,
we tried to investigate more in Belgium.
In order to do so,
we added a new collaborator to our team,
the Belgian journalist, Sven Tuytens.
Are you guys there?
-Yes, now. Hi, Sven!
- Hi, good morning.
I'm a journalist, born in Brussels.
I focused a lot
on the photos of Middelkerke.
And what really interested us is
a photo of your parents in a bar
talking to another couple.
They told me,
"The ones on the right are our parents
and we want to know
who the ones on the left are."
We don't know the name of the bar,
but we're almost positive
it has to be in Middelkerke or nearby.
Sven asked his contacts, and after a bit,
brought us some news.
I know there was a bar
and the owner is still alive.
We're gonna talk to him.
So, there I met Guy.
And when I was with Guy, he gave me
another photo of the bar That is bar.
It's the Copacabana.
I called Giles.
"You have to come to Belgium.
You have to bring the kids.
I have someone!"
This is Guy.
Guy is the man who was
the owner of the Copacabana,
a famous bar here in Middelkerke.
Here's his card.
It's the original card
from over 40 years ago.
- From the Copacabana.
- Let's see.
- Wow, yeah.
- My goodness.
- They were here.
- They were sitting here.
- Yeah.
- It doesn't exist anymore, right?
The bar doesn't exist now. The bar closed
When did the bar close?
I closed the bar in 1995.
- Can we show you the photos?
- Of course.
- Show him, yeah.
- Okay.
Look, our father went there.
- Yeah.
- Also, well, we have
these photos which were given to us.
- That's our father.
- Yeah.
Yes. I recognize him.
- Yeah? Do you remember?
- Yeah?
I remember him
because he was a very stylish man.
He was well groomed, super friendly,
and the typical customer I really liked.
I never forgot him
because he parked his car
right in front of my bar.
There it is, in fact. That was it, yeah.
I used to talk to my customers, and once,
speaking with your father,
he invited me to drive
around the block with him.
I'll never forget it, as it was
my first time in a Jaguar.
Do you know if he was here for long?
He came several days in a row,
but he wasn't here for weeks or months.
Do you know what they did?
He could've been someone
involved in crime.
There are many possibilities.
Why go to Middelkerke?
My first reaction is
maybe because Ostend is nearby.
Ostend was the capital in the 1980s.
There was violence in Ostend.
There was prostitution. There were mafias.
OSTEND'S MONTMARTRE ZONE
WANTS TO FORM ITS OWN GANGS
There were many highs and lows.
Every time you get a match,
every time you find a clue, every time
You know?
It was a rollercoaster of, "Yes, yes. No."
This story is exactly what I told Elvira
it would be, a long-distance race.
Right now, we still haven't finished.
Who knows if we will finish it further on.
They know their names, where they lived.
But they still don't know
if they're alive or dead
"Did they leave them? Did they not?"
I mean, the initial question
for them remains the same.
There are still many things to figure out
that are very important to them.
The journalists' investigations
helped us find
the places in the photos
from over 40 years ago,
and we visited them.
GILES TREMLET
JOURNALIS
Frank took us to the Acapulco building
and let us go up on the roof.
To see that it was me in that stroller
and that photo was on the exact same roof.
I was like "Wow!"
When Frank saw one of the photos,
he also said
it was very likely taken at a resort
called Terstret.
I know that place
because I've been the manager since 1996.
The visit there was like
what happened to us on the rooftop.
The place was the same,
with the same cottages.
Not even the long-time residents
remembered our parents.
There's no doubt that the photos
were taken in that place.
DO YOU KNOW THESE PEOPLE?
We were there, but we were definitely
passing through, and no trace remains.
Maybe it was the last place
the whole family was together.
We took the opportunity
to go to the playground,
which was ke y to discovering the photos
were taken in Middelkerke.
He's there and I'm here, right?
- No, no, it's here.
- That's heavy.
We knew from the investigation
that the Belgian authorities had contacted
the Spanish authorities
to ask for information about my father.
And that's when we realized
it would be very interesting
to be able to contact
a Belgian ex-policeman
to see if he could tell us or knew
something about my father.
Let's say your father committed
a robbery that would have given him
enough money to retire
for the rest of his life,
and he wanted to quit the gang of thieves.
They never would've let him do that.
Let's say that
my father was shot
and found dead in the street,
is there no way
to track down the deceased?
It was at a time
when computers still weren't in use,
and everything was done by hand,
so I don't think
you'll find that kind of information.
Roland shed some light for us
on how criminals operated at that time.
He promised to give our photos
to his police colleagues
to see if they remembered something.
Sven got us access to a house he believes
could be where we lived in 1982.
There are many white stone rental houses.
We have the photos.
There are many photos
with white stone buildings.
- Yes.
- And there's a house on the corner.
- Yes.
- It looks a lot like the one
you lived in with your parents.
Also with the Jaguar
parked in the street.
We think we found the house.
Oh, yeah?
- They gave me a key.
- Oh, wow.
Let's see if it's right.
- You're about to find out.
- And where is it?
It's there, on the corner.
- The house being worked on
- Under construction.
- And Dad was sitting here.
- He was here.
Wow, man, that's intense!
Wow!
You come in these houses
and it stirs everything up.
A time comes when you say
"We are so, so close"
But I'm actually afraid to find out.
But I also really want to know.
What'll happen if we find them?
That's my question.
It's like posting photos and saying,
"It was real!" You know?
I didn't have a past before this.
I remember Marco saying, "Holy cow!"
When I saw these photos
it was as if you start having a life.
Starting that day.
Right? That's how it was, you know?
It was as if nothing existed.
Only what they'd told me.
And it's like, "No, I'm seeing it's true."
In that apartment, I lost it.
In Belgium, I started to see
that it would be too difficult
to find our parents.
Yeah, no, actually,
it's also one of those things that
If the story ends
without an ending and not knowing
This is what I'm taking with me.
Everything I've found, I've experienced,
and I'm taking it with me.
Totally.
It's amazing.
He's getting serious.
Fear's made him serious.
I'm not getting serious,
but for me too, even if we hadn't
Even if we hadn't done this,
I've always loved you guys just the same.
I love you guys a lot.
Sure, sure, but
- This has brought us closer together.
- Yeah, it's cool.
- We've spent a lot of time together.
- Yeah.
We went on a field trip.
I think everyone's looking for something,
which is very powerful.
Well, for me it's very powerful.
I get emotional.
Everyone wants to know
that they were loved.
Everyone needs to know they were loved.
That's what they're seeking.
Yeah, I also wanted to know
that they loved me.
I could tell, just by looking at photos,
that they loved us a lot, I mean
We were super happy.
In the photos,
yeah, you can see that they loved us,
and we were really comfortable.
You see well,
my dad tossing us up in the air.
We're with my mother
Yeah, they loved us a lot.
I always say that, if they were alive,
they would've come looking for us.
I'm absolutely certain.
For me, it's always been
death. They were killed.
I've always thought it and always said it.
I'd never see him again.
My parents are dead.
And I'd rather them be dead.
You know what I often wonder?
I think I'd choose for them to be alive.
And dress it up an excuse
with something pretty.
Like they couldn't look for me because,
otherwise, my life would be in danger.
Finding themselves in danger, we suspect
the parents left the three kids
in the custody
of Denis, and that, at a certain point,
he was forced to abandon the kids
in a place he knew they'd be found.
He left them there because he knew
their parents weren't coming back.
I think that, all things considered,
it would give them peace
to know that they had died,
so they can bring the story to a close.
I wouldn't change my life for anything
in the world, but, yeah
I don't know,
sometimes I wonder, you know?
What would have been, or who I would be,
if they hadn't left me in that station.
The investigation into the disappearance
of Ramón Martos Sánchez
and Rosario Cuetos Cruz
remains ongoing.
Translation by Courtney Keeling Greenlaw