The role of the therapist and the lost mobile in Ecuador: the judge in the Andic case requests more evidence

BarcelonaOne of the turning points in the investigation into the death of Isak Andic, founder of Mango, was when the Mossos d'Esquadra accessed the content of his mobile phone. There they found several conversations in derogatory terms with his son, Jonathan Andic, the person with whom he was on a route through the Collbató caves the day he died. The judge in the case speaks of messages "of hatred, of resentment, of ideas of death". As ARA advanced a few months ago, these messages were part of a kind of therapy that the Andic's son was undergoing with a coach and which the Mossos used to focus even more on the eldest son. Now, the judge is asking to delve even deeper into the figure of this therapist.

The magistrate has issued a new resolution asking the Catalan police to continue with the investigation and to request more evidence from the telephone companies about Jonathan Andic's mobile phone. In this document, advanced by El País and to which ARA has had access, the judge also advocates for clarifying whether a third party could have been involved in these events, and focuses on the therapist.

"From the information that can be extracted from the conversations held through Mr. Jonathan Andic's terminal, the need to inspect the content of the information contained on his phone is based [...], to verify the acts that Mr. Jonathan Andic carried out, the calls he made at the time of the events, who he called after the incident, the premeditation of the criminal action with someone, the existence of a third person who directly or indirectly participated in the events, whether the psychologist J.L. has had any involvement in the events," concludes the judge.

In other fragments of the resolution, the magistrate also leaves the door open to the "possible influence in the events of third parties, specifically the psychologist J.L.". And even more so: "Without ruling out the possibility that there may be the participation of third parties in the events, given that the only reference to how the events would have occurred is the information provided by the deceased's son." However, for now, only Jonathan Andic is registered as a suspect in the case.

According to the judge, the therapist intervened in the relationship between father and son, actions she qualifies as "emotional manipulation", and mediated a process that ended with Isak's donation of "an inheritance during life" to Jonathan to avoid losing the relationship. The magistrate points out that the therapist intervened in the relationship by mediating a process that facilitated this legacy. Likewise, she considers that the son exercised "emotional manipulation" on his father to achieve these economic objectives.

Regarding this therapy, Jonathan Andic's defense emphasizes that the messages and emails that emerged from it must be understood exclusively within a "clinical context" of psychoanalytic therapy. According to lawyer Cristóbal Martell, it was a "strongly directive" therapy where the psychologist herself fostered the confrontation of action and reaction as a tool to seek personal growth.

The trip to Ecuador

Months before arresting him, the Mossos seized Jonathan Andic's mobile phone and wiped it completely. However, it was not the same device as the one he was carrying on the day of Isak Andic's death, and some content could not be recovered, such as WhatsApp conversations prior to his death. The judge suspects this change of phone, which Jonathan Andic justifies by saying he lost it during a lightning trip to Ecuador. In this new ruling, the magistrate explains that, according to the statement of Mango's secretary, Andic's eldest son asked her on March 21, 2025, to buy him tickets to go to Quito on the 24th and return on the 26th of the same month. This trip was not on her agenda and the secretary did not know the reason for it. The trip coincided with the time when the media reported on the reopening of the judicial case, which had initially been dismissed.

A new piece of information provided by the judge is that the Salut app on his iPhone —which regulates, for example, biometric activity— was disconnected on March 23, before starting the trip, and the magistrate emphasizes that it was not usual for Andic to disconnect this application. Furthermore, the judicial ruling also notes that the investigated party did not file any complaint for the theft of the device in Ecuador, nor did he give any instructions to the head of cybersecurity and technology at Mango to remotely erase the mobile phone's content. For all these reasons, the judge has ordered new proceedings with the company Vodafone to obtain the billing and tracking of the line between March 21 and 26, 2025. In addition, she states that the data from the Salut app can also be used to measure the distance between father and son at the time of the fall.

Regarding the trip to Ecuador, Andic's defense considers it is not an unusual or extravagant piece of information for an executive in the fashion industry to travel to very distant geographical points for very specific, often hours-long, meetings that require his physical presence. They also indicate that Jonathan Andic changed his mobile phone biannually and had been asking the company for a new one for some time, but had not collected it.

The first calls and Isak's "good" health

One of Jonathan Andic's defense arguments is that his father had knee problems and had already fallen three months prior. Now, however, the judge refutes this argument by stating that the textile magnate was in "good health" and that the forensic report ruled out medical problems before the fall.

Isak Andic fell to his death in the Montserrat massif, and the judge also focuses on what his son did after the fall. In this ruling, she specifies that the first call was made 4 minutes and 34 seconds after the fall. Instead of immediately calling emergency services, the first call was to his father's partner, Estefanía Knuth. He later called 112. The judge emphasizes as a significant detail that the son made no call to his father to try to locate him or find out if he was okay.

The excursion to Montserrat was planned as a way to reconcile after therapy and also after the father had told his children that he wanted to create a foundation with his inheritance, of which the children would be the trustees. The judge now states that Isak Andic's service staff reported that father and son "never went for walks together." Furthermore, the analysis of 10 years of conversations extracted from the father's phone confirmed that the one on December 14, 2024, was the only proposal to go for a walk recorded in a whole decade of messages.

The judge adds that it "also makes no sense" for Jonathan Andic to ask his father's partner to pick him up after the route and that he would continue walking. Furthermore, the magistrate maintains that Jonathan Andic also contradicted himself about when he told his father to go for the Montserrat route: initially, he said he had proposed it two weeks earlier, and the magistrate concludes that he did so only five days in advance. Additionally, she also suspects that the son initially proposed going for a walk when it was already dark.