A deck of playing cards can provide endless games and fun but what can police do when a sweep of random homicides all bare the decoration of a playing card calling card? Who is their killer and what is the connection? Find out on this episode of The Odder where we travel to Spain to deep dive into The Playing Card Killer!
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Music Credit:
"Lightless Dawn" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
"Five Card Shuffle" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Main Theme
"Dream Catcher" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
- Hello and Welcome to the Odder podcast. I’m your host Madison Paige, and today we are gathering around the kitchen table for a game of Rook, maybe a nice round of Texas Hold em, and a murderer who tucked a playing card calling card under every victim. Today on The Odder, we shuffle the deck and talk about Alfredo Galan, The Playing Card Killer. So make sure you pocket your aces and hide your tell and Let’s go!
- Welcome Odders to our biweekly game night. I hope you all brought plenty of chips and dip as we gather round for a nice hand of cards. How is everyone doing after our deluge into the Mother God last week? Are we all feeling fresh and revived? I sure hope so because we have a real sticky one coming to you today. Let’s start with out usual thanks to all the loyal listeners and our welcome to those giving the Odder a first chance. Everyone is welcome at my card table and we are all here to have a good time. If you haven't reviewed us yet, Please Please Please do so. It really helps.My ego has taken a real bruising following some recent upheavals in my life so I can use all the encouragement I can get. You know I started this podcast as a way to create something, something that was mine and that I could be proud of. And I am. I appreciate all the support you guys have given me and as we near episode 15, and climb towards 500 downloads, I am blown away by how well my little goldfish is swimming in the pond with the other big fish. The Odder is a little podcast but I’m so proud of it. So hopefully, as things change for me, my little podfish keeps circling the pond with the support of all of you. But enough of my schmoozing, Let’s get into our Discussion of The Playing Card Killer.
- Oh how many moments do we owe to a good deck of cards? In our modern day of cellphones, twitter, and tiktok, it can be hard to find an activity as diverting. I am just as guilty of whittling away my free time splayed on the couch with my phone in my face as much as the next guy. However, before the internet was at the tips of our fingers, a set of cards was your ticket to a fun night. A simple stack of 54 cards could provide hours of endless entertainment. By yourself, you could set up a game of solitaire or try your hand at building a house. A long boring car ride to Aunt Marge’s was spiced up with a back seat game of goldfish or war. A fun night of drinking could be concluded with a hand of gin rummy or crazy eights. Many fond memories, lifetime rivalries and, mended friendships were done over a stack of plastic coated cardboard. But in 2003, an ace of cups found under a body would send police on the hunt for a serial killer.
- Now before we get into the meat of who the victims were, there are varying conflicting sources on the age and which cards were placed with what bodies. This may be due to translation errors as the original murders were comited in Spain. I tried to wade through and get as close to accurate as I could so bare with me on this.
- Juan Francisco Ledesma was a polite caretaker to an Apartment Building on Alonsa Cano St. He was holding the door to let people in when he was approached by a man wearing winter clothes. It was January so warmer clothes would not have been too out of the norm for someone to wear. This figure followed Juan Francisco into the building before cornering him and politely asking him to kneel. He would then pull out a gun and shoot him in the back of the head. All of this occured in front of Juan’s two year old son. The son was thankfully unharmed but would be found in the pool of blood surrounding his father. When questioned by the police on what happened, the two year old could only say that his father fell down and he won't get up”.
- Juan Francisco had no apparent enemies and seemed to live simply and unobtrusively so the police could produce no reason for the murder. Now this first murder, did not include the playing card motive as the only clue found at the scene was a bullet casing. The police initally dismissed the murder as a robbery gone wrong.
- However, a month later, on February 5th, Juan Carlos Martin Estacio would be waiting for a bus near the Madrid airport where he worked as a cleaner on the overnight shift. He was truly just in the wrong place at the wrong time as a man swiftly emerged from the shadows and just as he had done with Juan Francisco, He shot Juan Carlos in the back of the head. When his body was found, a Spanish playing card would be found near the body. An ace of cups that would captivate the media and lead to the moniker of The Playing Card Killer. Police, at first, gave the card no credence. Believing it to be another Robbery Gone wrong and had no connection to the previous murder.
- Later that same day, at around 4pm, the man who had previously killed two men with a similar MO would suddenly drop it all together to walk into the bar Rojas and start shooting. The murderer first took aim and killed 18 year old waiter Mikel Jiminez Sanchez who was the son of the bar’s owner with a shot to the face. He then turned his gun on a patron named Juana Dolores Ucles, shooting her in the eye and killing her instantly. He then went after the bar's owner, Teresa Sachez Garcia, who dropped below the counter and began to crawl towards a back storage room. The killer shot at her threw more time, hitting her once in the arm, leg, and back. In court tapes, she describes throwing herself down and pretending to be dead for the sake of her other two children. She would survive.
- Police would originally think this crime was a passion shooting and that the intended targets were Teresa and Mikel with Juana being an unfortunate innocent bystander. They had no reason to connect it to the murder at the airport or the one at the apartment building. At first, this makes since, both of those murders were commited on men with a shot to the back of the head while the bar shooting seemed to be a random attack with all victims shot in various locations. Now there is some conjecture if playing cards were found on these bodies or not, with some sources saying that three cards were found, but other’s saying cards would not be found again until next time.
- Police attempted to get an ID from Teresa but were unsuccessful. This attempt actually led to another man being heavily pursued until it was proven that he was in prison on the day of the 2nd murder. Take notes kids, if you ever need an alibi, prison is about the best you can get.
- So far the Playing Card killer has seemingly at random chosen 5 victims with one of the surviving. But as with most serial killers, this blood bath was not enough and he would soon venture out into another suburb in Madrid to hunt again. Santiago Salas and Anna Castillo were an Ecuadorian pair out for a late night walk on a deserted street. Creeping in the shadows, the killer sprang out and shot Santiago in the face with an exit hole through his mouth. He collapsed but was still alive. Screaming, Anna crouched down to help her friend when the killer turned on her. In a stroke of unexplainable luck, the gun jammed and the killer fled, leaving her unharmed. She would later describe putting her hands up in front of her face and sending up desperate prayers as she waited to be shot only for him to disappear. However, before this hasty retreat, The killer laid another playing card next to Santiago. Miraculously Santiago would survive. The killer’s next victims were not so lucky. Two weeks later, George and Diona Magna, a Romanian Couple, would come across the shooter. He would force them to kneel before shooting George point blank in the back of the head. Diona, reacting to the gunshot, would turn to protect herself and be shot three times, two of the shots would strike her in the head. She would survive for two days before succumbing to her injuries making her the 6th and final victim. Two more cards would be found near the bodies
- Who could do this? Paranoia gripped the public as a killer with no rules and no scruples descended upon them. Think about how scary that is. This might be morbid, but during college I lived in an area where a serial killer was suspected due to a rash of missing women of similar build and look. I remember some of the girls I was with at the time talking about the profiles of the victims and some even dying their hair to try and distance themselves from the similarities of the previous victims in fear of being the next one. Now this is terrifying and it was scary to go through but how much more terrifying is a killer with no MO. One who has no victim profile and no hunting ground. One who kills at random with only a playing card being left behind? The public was antsy. Where did this killer come from? And would he strike again? Although there were survivors, the darkness surrounding the crimes as well as the hoodie and sunglasses the killer always wore made releasing a sketch difficult. In fact when the facial sketches were released, the killer would hang one at his job on the bulletin board confident he couldn't be picked out.
- So with such a ride range of victims, locations, and different styles of attack, how would the police string all of this together? Shell casing at the crime scenes would be forensically compared and linked. The ammo was also believed to come from a gun that was imported, possibly from yugoslavia. This pointed to someone with a military background. Media talked daily about the playing card killer and Police pooled resources to find clues but unfortunately, the trail would grow cold as the shooting would stop following the murders of the Magna’s. As the month’s piled on, no new leads or victims cooled the public interest and The Playing Card Killer faded from view. That was until July 3rd, 2003, when a man would walk into a police station to confess.
- The man was drunk and claimed the confession stemmed from the stupidity of the police and their inability to catch him. Almost an “Do I have to do your job for you?” kind of confession. However, Police were hesitant to believe him due to his inebriated state. They send him out. Shockingly, when the man sobers up, he returns to once again insist they take him seriously. He had to prove it to them by slipping out details they hadn't released, details only the killer would know. He spilled the metaphorical beans. He told them all the details on all 5 attacks that left 6 dead and 3 injured. Throughout all of it, he was described as calm and collected. He almost ignored the fact that he had taken lives at random and for no reason, because the detail he wanted to make sure really came across was that they had not captured him. He had surrendered.
- So who was this man? A Killer who killed indiscriminately and who, according to himself, did it all because he was bored.
- His name was Alfredo Galan Sotillo.
- Alfredo was born on April 5th, 1978 in Puertollano. He had a happy childhood even though his family struggled financially. At 8 years old, he lost his mother who would pass away during childbirth. This loss affected him deeply and he began to pull into himself. His teachers remember him as introverted and non remarkable although he was the representative for his class. In September 1998, he joined the army where he became a Corporal in a Paratrooper Brigade and was sent to Bosnia to do Humanitarian Work. He thrived helping people who had suffered in the Balkan War. In 2002, However, he was sent to Galicia to help clean up an oil spill following the wreck of the Prestige, an oil tanker that split in two, spilling 15,000 tons of oil. It was Spain's largest environmental disaster. Alfredo was not pleased to be on clean up duty and seemed determined to start trouble. He argued and fought with other workers, began to heavily drink, and even stole a car which put him on his supervisor's radar. They sent him to a hospital in Madrid where doctors diagnosed him with neurosis and anxiety and was placed on medication. The medication however was not meant to be mixed with alcohol but Alfredo would continue to heavily drink. This led to his discharge from the army in March 2003. He was able to quickly find another job as an airport security guard.
- The Murder weapon would prove to be a Tokarev TT-33 that he had smuggled over from Bosnia. He would actually be seen by his sister with the gun as early as Christmas of 2002.
- Although Alfredo would strut into the police station full of vim and vinegar, when it came to the actual trial, his testimony would fall to pieces. He would constantly change his story. First stating he confessed because the police were too inept to solve the crime themselves, he would later claim that the only reason he confessed was that a neonazi had threatned to kill his two sisters if he didnt take the fall. He claims he also sold the previously mentioned gun to the same group of neonazis. He was innocent, he claimed, it was all the neonazi’s doing.
- The Judge swiftly dismissed this.
- The evidence of his guilt went beyond the original confession. A cartridge from the gunshot that killed the caretaker was found along with the clothes he wore at the time of the crime. Positive identification from survivors as well the fact that he had means to get the gun and bring it from Bosnia were all presented at trial. The real nail in the coffin came when the Gun, which he had claimed to have sold, was found hidden in the home of his parents.
- The neonazi story fell on deaf ears and in January 2003, Alfredo Galan was sentenced to 142 years and three months. I always love when they add a few months on top of an already crazy sentence, it's like not only do we want you locked away for 142 years, we don't want to even think about you for an additional three months, thank you very much, go screw yourself. On Top of this sentence, Galan was ordered to compensate the families of the victims, including the survivors, a total of 609,182 euros which is 619,370.57 american.
- That’s right buddy, you better be fishing for those couch cushions for that 57 cents.
- As far as I can find, Alfredo is still alive and incarcerated. He would later tell a guard that he committed the murders because he wanted to know what it would feel like to kill.
- Alfredo did not set out to be the playing card killer. The appearance of the first card at the bus stop was actually pure coincidence but when he saw the amount of attention it got, he adopted it to get the thrill of attention for his crime. It was even theorized that some of the victims were killed by different offenders but that the playing card was put there to confuse the police. He was also noted as being creepy for the politeness he showed his victims. He would ask them to “please” kneel and would greet each of them with a “Hello”. He did this, according to the police, because he thought “politeness is most important in life”.
Well, that's all for this episode. So what do you think? Do you believe Alfedo about the Neonazis? Why do you think he confessed? Do you think there were other playing card killers? Let us know what you think on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and leave a review. The Odder Pod is now on TikTok. Come follow us there! Have a suggestion for a show? Send me an email at theodderpod@gmail.com with your request and whether you’d like me to mention your name, your alias, or nothing at all. Remember this is The Odder Side so give me something cool, creepy, or confusing to deep dive for you. If you liked the show, leave us a review! They really help! The Odder Podcast posts every other Thursday. Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time on The Odder side.