Post by notaguest on Oct 20, 2009 16:55:59 GMT -5
Hi all and greets from Spain. I hope my English is not too terrible.
Before I begin, I have to say I don't think the show writers did really base the episode on the case I will talk about, having happened in another country and as far I can tell not being well known outside here. Anyway, I was watching this show some months ago on this side of the pond, and this episode came and I couldn't say other thing but "What the Hell, that's just like the Boisaca Walker". Or, better said, like one of the original hypothesis made to explain the case. Because it turned to be other thing in the end, and it isn't a cold case anymore. You'll understand.
The "Boisaca Walker" was a John Doe that appeared from nowhere in the night of May 5, 1988 near the village of Boisaca in Galicia (that corner of Spain right above Portugal) and was hit by a train. There are photos of the body on the internet but I don't recommend looking at them. The victim was male, around 20 years old, clean and wearing sport clothes, with 15000 pesetas in a pocket (that is like 3 or 5 times more than somebody usually carries, and in the 80s I suppose it was even more) and no documentation. Prints didn't match any base either, and nobody came to claim the body. Even stranger, the train driver said the guy walked straight ahead to the train despite he pushed the horn as much as he could, like if that guy didn't know what a train was. The police investigation also found that he had been playing and making mountains with rocks on a side of the railway before starting his "walk". Aside of the train driver, the only person that had seen him before was a store owner that saw him entering and leaving the place without pronouncing a word.
So the body was buried in a common grave and the case went cold, becoming a recurrent staple in mystery and crime TV shows for decades.
It happens that Galicia is probably the most rural region in Spain, full of tiny villages with just a few dozens of inhabitants and isolated farms. In the 50s-60s there were a pair of cases of mentally challenged children that had been born and raised in houses with no contact with anybody but the family. So, to further the parallels with the episode, the guy was speculated to be mentally challenged and raised by a single relative in a house isolated from the world. When that relative felt he was dieing, he released the boy and gave him money, but being totally unable to look for himself the guy ended in front of a train and perhaps without even knowing what a train was.
Flash forward 20 years. In 2008 the police decides to make DNA tests on every unidentified remains and compare them to the relatives of missing persons. Turns out the "Boisaca Walker" has a name, Oscar Ortega, and his family has been waiting for him for two decades in Catalonia, at the other side of the country. Even counting on the distance, it still amazes me how the family never heard of this case in TV or made the conection with their own son. And to make it even more unbelievable, they were originally from Galicia (although from a big portuary city, Vigo), and had moved to Catalonia just some months before their child went out and never came back.
According to them Oscar was not mentally challenged but had developed PTSD while doing the military service. Other 3 guys in his same camp committed suicide for the same reason in that decade. So the case is now closed as a suicide. Sad story.
Before I begin, I have to say I don't think the show writers did really base the episode on the case I will talk about, having happened in another country and as far I can tell not being well known outside here. Anyway, I was watching this show some months ago on this side of the pond, and this episode came and I couldn't say other thing but "What the Hell, that's just like the Boisaca Walker". Or, better said, like one of the original hypothesis made to explain the case. Because it turned to be other thing in the end, and it isn't a cold case anymore. You'll understand.
The "Boisaca Walker" was a John Doe that appeared from nowhere in the night of May 5, 1988 near the village of Boisaca in Galicia (that corner of Spain right above Portugal) and was hit by a train. There are photos of the body on the internet but I don't recommend looking at them. The victim was male, around 20 years old, clean and wearing sport clothes, with 15000 pesetas in a pocket (that is like 3 or 5 times more than somebody usually carries, and in the 80s I suppose it was even more) and no documentation. Prints didn't match any base either, and nobody came to claim the body. Even stranger, the train driver said the guy walked straight ahead to the train despite he pushed the horn as much as he could, like if that guy didn't know what a train was. The police investigation also found that he had been playing and making mountains with rocks on a side of the railway before starting his "walk". Aside of the train driver, the only person that had seen him before was a store owner that saw him entering and leaving the place without pronouncing a word.
So the body was buried in a common grave and the case went cold, becoming a recurrent staple in mystery and crime TV shows for decades.
It happens that Galicia is probably the most rural region in Spain, full of tiny villages with just a few dozens of inhabitants and isolated farms. In the 50s-60s there were a pair of cases of mentally challenged children that had been born and raised in houses with no contact with anybody but the family. So, to further the parallels with the episode, the guy was speculated to be mentally challenged and raised by a single relative in a house isolated from the world. When that relative felt he was dieing, he released the boy and gave him money, but being totally unable to look for himself the guy ended in front of a train and perhaps without even knowing what a train was.
Flash forward 20 years. In 2008 the police decides to make DNA tests on every unidentified remains and compare them to the relatives of missing persons. Turns out the "Boisaca Walker" has a name, Oscar Ortega, and his family has been waiting for him for two decades in Catalonia, at the other side of the country. Even counting on the distance, it still amazes me how the family never heard of this case in TV or made the conection with their own son. And to make it even more unbelievable, they were originally from Galicia (although from a big portuary city, Vigo), and had moved to Catalonia just some months before their child went out and never came back.
According to them Oscar was not mentally challenged but had developed PTSD while doing the military service. Other 3 guys in his same camp committed suicide for the same reason in that decade. So the case is now closed as a suicide. Sad story.
