Three unsettling details from ‘Unprotected: Murder in Galicia’
Unprotected: Murder in Galicia doesn’t just draw back our attention to one of Spain’s most shocking true-crime cases. The Netflix documentary reconstructs the chain of events to ask bigger questions that continue to haunt everyone.
In April 2015, 65-year-old Isabel Fuentes survived a near-fatal attack in her home and was found with severe injuries. While the incident was brushed off as a robbery gone wrong in the wake of violent burglaries in the area, a Guardia Civil sergeant refused to buy the story, suggesting someone close to home must be involved.
37 days later, while she was recovering from the injuries at a hospital in Ourense, Isabel was killed in her hospital room. Unprotected: Murder in Galicia is built around the question that struck director Jorge Laplace the most: “How was it possible that she was murdered in a hospital when it was known that she was in danger?”
The film is made of testimonies from investigators, doctors, relatives, neighbours, and journalists who tried to join the dots between the two nights, raising questions about how the killing could happen and why she wasn’t provided enough protection. So, in case you were wondering, the true-crime documentary is packed with unsettling details and theories, and here are three that send chills down the spine.
Three important details from Unprotected: Murder in Galicia
The initial attack
According to the chronology of the indictment published by Ourense daily La Región, Aniceto Rodríguez reportedly pounded a hammer on his wife, Isabel Fuentes, the victim at the centre of Unprotected: Murder in Galicia, “with the intention of ending her life” when she was deep asleep on the sofa. He made the ordeal look like a robbery by messing up the kitchen, breaking a glass window, and getting rid of the weapon. But when Isabel was admitted to the Complejo Hospitalario Universitario de Oursene, a Guardia Civil sergeant strongly doubted the initial account.
Despite his warnings, no additional protective measures were taken, as has also been covered by the Spanish press. Her husband was not jailed either.
The second attack
Per La Región’s chronology, the second attack on Isabel Fuentes happened on the fourth floor in the wee hours of May 8th, 2015, when Aniceto Rodríguez entered the room and stabbed her twice in the chest with a kitchen knife. When a security guard spotted him, he had already inflicted injuries on his abdomen, arm, and neck, and was hospitalised. The Netflix true-crime documentary details and tries to establish these events that leave question marks in our minds.
The trial and conviction
In June 2017, the case went to trial before the Audiencia Provincial de Ourense, and Aniceto Rodríguez was sentenced to 31 years in prison, 12 years for attempted murder and 19 for murder. However, he died in A Lama prison in Pontevedra in September 2018 without serving even a fraction of his sentence, according to EFE via Diario de Pontevedra.