They find the remains of the 21-month-old boy they were looking for in a house in Santa Bàrbara, in the Montsià

BarcelonaThe Mossos d’Esquadra found this Thursday the remains of the missing young boy in a house in Santa Bàrbara, in Montsià, where he had been searched for since last weekend. The child's parents were already arrested Wednesday morning in Valencia for allegedly having killed the boy, and this Thursday afternoon they were brought before the Amposta court, which will have to decide whether they are sent to prison or released. For the moment, the case remains under seal.

Once the detainees were already at the disposal of the judge investigating the case, the first proceedings were carried out this Thursday. The judge took statements from the two arrestees and the house where the family lived was inspected, where the child's remains were found and the removal of the body was carried out. The couple remains in custody and more proceedings will be carried out on Friday before deciding on the situation of the two arrestees.

The search began on Friday, after the child's grandfather reported his disappearance. The man explained that his daughter-in-law had confessed to him that the boy was dead and was buried in a cardboard box at the family home, in the center of Santa Bàrbara. During the search of the home, the police found about thirty dogs, some dead and the rest malnourished. Since then, they have been searching for the child's remains.

Dead or malnourished dogs

The couple settled in 2019 in the town of Santa Bàrbara, where the woman's family is from, the mayor, Josep Lluís Gimeno, explained to the ARA. The boy, about 21 months old, is the youngest of the couple's four children, and the regional social services had open files and were monitoring the family. In fact, the City Council had already carried out some interventions related to the dogs that were in the house and had caused disturbances to the neighbors, although the couple was not problematic. However, the municipal services were unaware of the number of animals that were inside the property, which was in unsanitary conditions.

Neither of the two arrested individuals works, and sources from the surroundings explain that they lived off the income from several apartments they had for rent. While the woman used to live her life in the municipality and was the one who usually took the children to school, the man hardly interacted with the neighborhood and was rarely seen outside the house, a two-story building on Carrer Major in Santa Bàrbara, very close to the City Council. For three days now, a cleaning company hired by the City Council has removed trucks of trash from the house.