Enriqueta Martí

Spanish serial killer

Enriqueta Martí i Ripollés (1868 – 12 May 1913) was a Spanish child serial killer, kidnapper, prostitute and procuress of children. She was called "The Vampire of carrer Ponent", "The Vampire of Barcelona" and "The Vampire of the Raval" in the press.

Enriqueta Martí was born in Sant Feliu de Llobregat in 1868. As a young woman, Martí moved from her hometown to Barcelona where she worked as a maidservant and nanny;

In 1909 Martí opened her own brothel, which attracted some of the more affluent in Barcelona. Some of them had unusual desires which she accommodated for a premium. Some expressed a desire for children. To accommodate them, she dressed as a pauper during the day and frequented the poorer parts of the city. When she came across unaccompanied children she abducted them to prostitute them in her brothel. She begged and joined bread queues at the monasteries to find the most abandoned looking children. By night she attended the El Liceu, the Casino de la Arrabassada, and other places where the wealthy of Barcelona gathered likely offering her services as a procurer of children. At the same time as she was prostituting children, she was also practicing as a witch doctor. She claimed drinking the blood of children could cure tuberculosis, and offered creams and elixirs that could stop ageing and prolong life. The ingredients she used to make her remedies came from the remains of the children that she was killing, who ranged from 5 up to 15 years of age. She used the fat, blood, hair, and bones. For this reason, she did not have problems disposing of her victims. Martí offered salves, ointments, filters, poultices, and potions, especially to treat tuberculosis, which was highly feared at the time, and various other incurable diseases. The wealthy paid large sums of money for these remedies. During the Tragic Week of 1909, she was arrested at her flat on Barcelona's carrer Minerva, along with a young man from a wealthy family, and accused of running a brothel that offered sexual services from children. Thanks to her contacts with Barcelona's high society using her services, she was never tried. Over the next three years many more children disappeared, but as they were from poor families police investigations into their disappearance were minimal. It is suspected that she kidnapped a large number of children over a span of twenty years. Forensic experts managed to differentiate a total of twelve children with what little evidence they were able to recover. In spite of suspicions, and because Martí did not tally her activities, experts are unsure if she was Spain's deadliest killer. It is clear that she acted for many years in Barcelona. The public suspected that someone was kidnapping babies, and many children disappeared without a trace causing dread among the population. Congost told authorities that Martí was in the habit of leaving them alone and that one day they risked exploring the rooms that Martí forbade them from entering. They found a sack with girl’s clothes covered in blood and a boning knife also covered with blood. Congost never left the flat during her captivity. During the second inspection of the flat, detectives found the sack with the bloody clothing and the knife. They also found another sack with dirty clothes and at least thirty small human bones.

For his book Barcelona 1912 (published 2014), Barcelona writer Jordi Corominas conducted an exhaustive investigation into the life of Enriqueta Martí. Reviewing the journalistic chronicles that were published at the time, he warned that many articles were based on the rough information that was available in the first days, but there was no subsequent investigative follow ups.

La Vampira del Raval (The Vampire of the Raval) a 2013 musical by Albert Guinovart won the Max Awards for the Performing Arts (Los Premios Max de las Artes Escénicas, Spanish) for his musical score of this piece.

In the Spanish film "Diamond Flash" (2011), directed by Carlos Vermut, the character of Enriqueta is inspired by Enriqueta Martí. In the film, Enriqueta controls an organization that is dedicated to the kidnapping of children. "The Barcelona Vampiress" or "La vampira de Barcelona" (2020), directed by Lluís Danés. In early 20th century Barcelona, little Teresa goes missing shocking the country. When police start investigating Enriqueta Martí, the "Vampiress of Raval", they cover a much more sinister affair.

In episodes 20 and 35 of the first season of Cuarto Milenio, broadcast in 2006, the theme of the so called vampiresa was discussed. The figure was characterized in the Spanish TV series El ministerio del tiempo (episode Separadas por el tiempo played by Maria Rodriguez) as a former servant of one of the protagonists who was dismissed for theft and inadvertently discovers through time travel that she will become a serial killer who exploits children, and tries to avoid her destiny by escaping into other periods in history. Eventually, her younger self offers to not change history any more than she already has and agrees to become the woman history says she was on condition that she be allowed to die a more painless death than what was previously described in jail