Enriqueta Martí preyed on Barcelona’s poorest families during the early years of the twentieth century, abducting children whose disappearances long went unexplained.
Martí moved through the city’s working-class districts at a time when rapid industrial growth left many households struggling. She presented herself as a healer and midwife, offering remedies that drew on local superstitions. Families who sought her help often lost track of their children soon afterwards. Police records from the period show clusters of missing children around the neighbourhoods where she lived and worked.
Contemporary accounts describe how she maintained several addresses and changed her appearance frequently. These habits allowed her to evade scrutiny even as rumours circulated among residents. The full extent of her activities only emerged after her arrest in 1912, when officers discovered human remains and children’s clothing in one of her flats.
Background
Enriqueta Martí was born in 1868 in a village near Barcelona. She moved to the city as a young woman and worked in domestic service before turning to informal medicine. By the 1900s she had established a reputation for preparing ointments and potions from animal fats and herbs. Neighbours later recalled that she occasionally claimed access to rarer ingredients.
Martí also ran a small brothel in the Raval district. This dual role gave her contact with both desperate parents and clients willing to pay for unusual services. Court documents later noted that some of her customers included members of Barcelona’s middle class who sought treatments for skin ailments or tuberculosis.
The Crimes
Between 1909 and 1912, at least five children vanished from Barcelona streets after being seen with a woman matching Martí’s description. The victims ranged in age from three to nine. Families reported that the woman had offered sweets or promised medical attention. In each case the child was never seen alive again.
During the search of Martí’s flat on Calle Poniente, police found bones, jars of rendered fat, and locks of hair. Forensic examination confirmed the remains belonged to several young children. Investigators also recovered items of clothing identified by parents of the missing. These findings formed the core of the case against her.
Martí denied any involvement in the deaths. She claimed the bones came from medical specimens she had purchased. Prosecutors argued that the pattern of disappearances and the physical evidence pointed to systematic abduction and murder. No direct witness to a killing was ever located.
Investigation and Arrest
The breakthrough came in February 1912 when a neighbour alerted police after hearing a child crying in Martí’s building. Officers arrived to find two young girls locked in a room. Both were malnourished and unable to give clear accounts of how they had arrived there. One girl later identified Martí as the woman who had taken her from a market square.
Further searches uncovered additional addresses linked to Martí. At each location police recovered similar items. Detectives traced a network of contacts who had bought or received the supposed remedies. Several customers admitted paying for treatments they believed contained human remains.
Martí was charged with multiple counts of kidnapping and murder. The case attracted intense press coverage across Spain. Newspapers published daily updates, and public outrage grew as more details emerged.
Trial and Aftermath
Martí was held in Barcelona’s Reina Amalia prison while awaiting trial. She died there in May 1913 from natural causes before proceedings could begin. The absence of a formal verdict left many questions unanswered. Families of the victims received no official closure.
After her death, authorities destroyed much of the physical evidence. Surviving records are held in the Archive of the Crown of Aragon. Historians have since examined these documents alongside contemporary newspaper reports to reconstruct the case.
Legacy
The Martí case exposed gaps in child protection laws in early twentieth-century Spain. It prompted limited reforms in the registration of missing children and greater oversight of informal medical practitioners. The story also entered local folklore, where it is still recounted as a cautionary tale about trust and vulnerability.
Modern researchers continue to study the case through surviving police files and press archives. No new victims have been conclusively linked to Martí since the original investigation. The episode remains one of the earliest documented examples of serial child abduction in urban Spain.
Conclusion
Enriqueta Martí’s activities illustrate how social conditions in a growing city could enable prolonged harm to the most defenceless residents. The evidence gathered in 1912 established a clear pattern of abduction and concealment, even though a trial never took place. The case continues to serve as a reference point for studies of historical child protection failures in Spain.
Bibliography
Archivo de la Corona de Aragón. (1912) Expediente de Enriqueta Martí. Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya.
La Vanguardia. (1912–1913) Reports on the Martí investigation. Barcelona: La Vanguardia Ediciones.
Río, A. del (2008) La vampira de Barcelona: Enriqueta Martí y los crímenes de la calle Poniente. Madrid: Ediciones Nowtilus.
Sentís, M. (2013) ‘Enriqueta Martí: una revisión de las fuentes policiales’, Revista de Historia Contemporánea, 42(3), pp. 145–168.
Tébar, J. (2005) Crimen y sociedad en la Barcelona de principios del siglo XX. Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat.
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