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It was the most sensational Spanish Case of its time. A man killed his own children, as a way of ‘getting at’ his ex-wife.
After 14 years of flat denial, José Bretón has now confessed that he killed them. These new revelations are contained in a book by Luisgé Martín, appropriately entitled HatredSoon to be released. Bretón, who is still serving two life sentences, made the admissions in letters written to the author.
The Bretón Case (in Spanish, the ‘caso Bretón’) refers to the events related to the disappearance and death of the siblings Ruth Bretón Ortiz, 6, and José Bretón Ortiz, 2, on October 8, 2011, in the city of Córdoba, Spain.
Bretón began plotting the terrible crime in September of that year when his wife, Ruth Ortiz, told him she was leaving him. The case received intense media coverage, especially after the National Police’s leading research official categorically denied that the burnt remains could be human, classifying them as ‘rodent bones’.
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On July 22, 2013, the Audiencia Provincial of Córdoba sentenced José Bretón to 40 years in prison for murder. The sentence was reduced in March 2015 to a maximum 25-year term.
Ruth Ortiz announced her divorce to her husband in September 2011. José Bretón then conceived the idea of murdering their children in revenge. Bretón committed the crime on October 8, having picked his children up the day before to take them to Córdoba for the weekend.
Between 5 and 7 October 2011, Bretón collected firewood and bought over 270 litres of diesel fuel in large quantities at a petrol station in Huelva. He also came up with a plausible explanation for his children’s disappearance and pretended that they had been lost in a nearby park. In order to offer some information about the alleged disappearance, he carried out a kind of experiment with his nephews—the children of his sister Catalina and his brother-in-law José Ortega—on the morning of October 6, 2011, leaving them on their own for a few moments when he was taking them to school.
After killing his two kids with high doses of prescription medication, he built a funeral pyre. He had already prepared the funeral pyre’s essential elements, in a quiet corner of the property, surrounded by orange trees. He laid his children down and set a large bonfire, which he stoked with firewood—about 250 kilograms—and gasoil—about 80 litres. The fire reached temperatures of up to 1200 °C, achieving a similar effect to that of a crematorium. Due to the high temperature, the flesh of the children disappeared very quickly. Only a few bones remained. Bretón remained by the bonfire until 5:30 pm, fuelling it with diesel oil to keep the temperature high enough to completely destroy the remains.
He then drove to the City of Children, a large play park in Córdoba. He texted Rafael at 6:01pm, making him think that he and his children were near the park. Then he did the same thing with their mother who called him at her home. When José thought that enough time had passed to make the fictional disappearance of his children credible, he called his brother again at 6:18 pm, telling him that his children were lost. He called his family members and convinced them to begin the search at the playground.
At around 6:41 pm, Bretón called the Spanish emergency number 112 and notified the authorities of the ‘disappearance’. He went to the Córdoba police station at 8:43 pm to file a report.
Bretón’s trial began on June 17, 2013, with the election of a jury, consisting of seven women and four men. He denied killing children or providing them with pills. Ruth Ortiz said in her statement that she decided to divorce Bretón because her life was unhappy. When Bretón informed her that the children had disappeared, she knew that she wouldn’t see them again.
The Huelva workers who worked at the petrol stations testified in court. Bretón’s parents and siblings refused to testify. Bretón’s brother-in-law claimed that while he did not think Bretón would have killed the children, he was certainly responsible for their vanishing. Residents around Las Quemadillas claimed to have noticed a burning smell, but no smoke column.
Psychiatrists and psychologists who examined Bretón diagnosed that he did not suffer any mental disorder. Bretón pleaded not guilty. The public prosecutor claimed that there was obvious evidence that proved that Bretón had murdered his children in the cruellest possible way and then burnt the corpses.
On July 12, the jury decided unanimously that Bretón was guilty and condemned him to 40 years of imprisonment (20 per murder).
