If you have not heard of Anabel Segura or what she and her family endured, this is an introduction to a case still spoken about decades after Anabel was kidnapped and murdered.
Anabel Segura was born in 1971 to her German-born Mother, Sigrid Foles (deceased 2016), and Spanish Father, Jose Segura (deceased 2019). Jose was a businessman in the petrochemical sector. Anabel had one Sister, Alexandra (Sandra).
From left to right: Sigrid and Jose Segura with their daughter, Anabel Segura. Image: Netflix
On April 12, 1993, Anabel went for a morning jog in her hometown of La Moraleja, Madrid, Spain. During her routine exercise, two men in a white van pulled up beside her, threatened her with a knife, and abducted her. Emilio Muñoz Guadix and Candido Ortiz Añón (who died in 2009 from a heart attack while in prison) were later identified as Anabel’s abductors and killers. Witness reports suggest that some of Anabel’s belongings were left behind during the struggle.
Anabel did not know the men who abducted her; the attack was random. The two men had chosen to target someone from an affluent area because the crime was motivated by money. Then, Anabel was gone. A staff member from a nearby school witnessed the struggle between Anabel and her attackers and immediately contacted the police, reporting that a woman had been forced into a vehicle against her will.
Interview with Emilio Muñoz Guadix, one of Anabel’s captors and murderers. Heraldo reported that Guadix was released in 2013 after serving 18 years. Interview and Video credit: laSexta
Anabel was driven nearly fifty kilometres away to a desolate, abandoned factory that would become the haunting site of her captivity. Desperate for freedom, she fought to escape and resist her captors; yet, despite her bravery, she was ultimately overpowered and restrained.
Rafael Escuredo served as the family attorney and acted as the spokesperson for the Segura family when they received their first phone call from the abductors on April 14, 1993, just two days following Anabel’s kidnapping and murder. The kidnappers managed to persuade the family that Anabel was safe and unharmed.
Rafael Escuredo was great friends with Jose Segura. He is a politician and lawyer and served as President of Andalusia between 1979 and 1984. Then in 1993 served as spokesperson and lawyer to the Segura family during Anabel’s abduction and murder. At the time of writing this document, Mr Escuredo is 80 years old. Image credit: Ministry of the Presidency. Government of Spain
Unknown to the world, except for the two men responsible, within mere hours of Anabel’s abduction, this vibrant twenty-two-year-old had tragically lost her life at the hands of her captors. She was brutally murdered, and her body was heartlessly discarded, left to lie in silence and solitude in a place she never chose, during a time that cruelly did not belong to her.
Knowing that Anabel was gone, Guadix and Añón revelled in a cruel, years-long campaign of ransom demands aimed at the Segura family. Her mother, father, and sister were given heart-wrenching false hopes that Anabel was safe and being cared for, all while they were coerced into paying a ransom; otherwise, they would be threatened with the unimaginable horror of her execution.
Amidst the torment of their phone calls, in July 1993, the Segura family asked the kidnappers for proof that Anabel was still alive before they would even think about paying any ransom. In response, a recorded tape arrived at their home featuring a woman’s voice pretending to be Anabel. As the heartbreaking case unfolded, it was revealed that Guadix’s wife, Felisa Garcia, had crafted this deception, using her voice to impersonate Anabel.
In 1994 and into 1995, the police decided to publicly release recordings of the abductors’ voices captured during their phone calls with the Segura family. In September 1995, a resident from Toledo recognised Añón’s voice from these haunting tapes, which ultimately led to the arrests of Emilio Muñoz Guadix, Candido Ortiz Añón, and Felisa Garcia on September 28, 1995. Just two days later, on September 30, Anabel’s remains were heartbreakingly discovered near the abandoned factory.
In 1996, Muñoz Guadix and Ortiz Añón were sentenced to thirty-nine years in prison for kidnapping, murder, illegal detention and attempted fraud which Spain’s supreme court then increased to 43 years. In stark contrast, Felisa Garcia received a mere six-month sentence for her role in this tragedy, primarily for the heart-wrenching act of impersonating Anabel on the chilling audio tape sent to the Segura family.
The abduction case reached the public eye and became personal for many people in Anabel’s community and globally. People who did not know Anabel, people who were sickened and appalled by the news of Anabel’s abduction fought for her release and campaigned for Anabel’s safe return to her family.
The public was given only the news that the Segura family knew, Anabel was alive and well. The people wanted her returned, the public demanded her safety, and the world needed a resolution to the situation that could have happened to anyone. A nation and a world that stood behind Anabel and her family in their shocking ordeal of cruel lies from Anabel’s killers. The most inhuman of hope was given when in fact there was none.
Anabel became everyone’s sister, daughter, aunt, mother, niece, friend, work colleague and comrade. She became a highly personal symbol of strength, change and justice to a generation. Yet the lies about Anabel’s safety continued, and as such, so did the fight for her to be released without harm.
When the news broke that the body of Anabel had been found and that her killers had been arrested, the public campaign switched from a fight for freedom and hope to that of justice and condemnation for both Anabel’s kidnapping, murder and, the long-term deception and torment of the Segura family.
“They say that time heals everything. I am convinced that something has broken in the Segura family and it has broken forever” said Rafael Escuredo after Anabel’s remains were found.
“Anabel’s memory demands, and the family demands, in capital letters, that the weight of the law falls on these murderers and kidnappers,” Rafael Escuredo.
By Segura family – Original publication: April 1993
Rest in peace Anabel Segura (1971 – 1993) Image: Segura family
