"The ghost of the poisoner still haunts Escarpe Farm"

BarcelonaBetween February 1935 and April 1936, Dolors Coït, a petite 21-year-old woman with "beautiful, naive, and curious eyes," according to the press of the time, fatally poisoned five people: her mother-in-law, her husband, her brother-in-law, her brother-in-law's wife, and her son. The crime took place in Granja de Escarpe, a farming village in the Segrià region that now has a thousand inhabitants, and where Anna Sàez Mateu (1969) grew up. The director of the newspaper Segre Not only was he born in the same town, but he also lived in the same house where three of the victims died. "I'd been approached to write a book about these crimes before, but I'd always said no because it's a well-documented story and didn't offer much. Until I realized it connected with me," explains Sàez, who has just published The poisoner (Portico), which has as a subtitle A rural serial killer.

The journalist and writer doesn't understand people who refuse to look back. She does so to talk not only about the crime, but also about collective memory, about journalism before the Civil War, and about how those journalists who came from Bilbao, Madrid, and Barcelona explained what Granja de Escarpe was like. "They were highly publicized crimes. Journalists came from all over Spain and settled in the town for weeks. I've consulted more than a hundred articles. They sent a daily chronicle, and I was able to see the town through what they wrote, but I was also able to know how they saw us," she explains.

A murderer turned celebrity

There are many versions of who Coït was, and she lived to be 102. Chronicles from the time suggest that she generated a certain appeal. She even signed autographs from prison with a smile. In contrast, her mother, who was also convicted, was described as a "perfidious old woman." "For me, Dolors remains an enigma, even though I've tried to put myself in her shoes to try to understand why she did it. She was a great manipulator who kept changing her version of events and never said anything that could harm her. She cast a shadow of doubt on the victims themselves and even had only Dolors's testimony," says Sàez. What mother and daughter were like, or what their relationship was like, is another mystery, because after incriminating each other, they remained very close.

Dolors could neither read nor write and came from a very humble background. "She didn't have many resources; she acted instinctively. I'm not just referring to the crimes but also to how she later became a celebrity," says Sàez. The press reveals how she controls her image and changes it according to the circumstances. "She was pretty and young, and had the ability to say the most appropriate thing at the right time. On the other hand, her mother was an older and defiant woman," explains Sàez. Whatever the case, Dolors had no problem getting rid of those who stood in her way. "I think she was motivated by ambition and greed. She wanted a better life and eliminated those who bothered her," emphasizes Sàez.

More than ninety years have passed since that crime. We won't reveal Dolors's fate, but we can say that it was obviously much better than that of her victims. For Sáez, the book has helped her understand a little about who she is and where she comes from. "When journalists talked about how uneducated Dolors's family was, they were also talking about the rest of the families. In the censuses, you can see how the majority of the town's inhabitants at that time couldn't read or write. Neither could my great-grandparents. There's also the harshness of it all. The line between poverty and the land, because work was very hard for everyone, especially for women. And between them and me, there's only one generation," she explains.

Another thing that fascinates the journalist and writer is that, even now, everything Dolors Coït did remains taboo for the older residents of Granja de Escarp. "Ninety years later, the ghost of the poisoner still hovers over the town, and I wanted to understand why my parents' generation, who were born after the crimes had already been committed, still thinks it's a stain on all of them," she explains. "It's as if everyone is somewhat responsible for this crime, and I suppose it's due to a sense of belonging to the community; what happens in the town affects us all," he adds.