In 1991, Alto del Prado High School—sitting quietly on the outskirts of Santander—seemed as unremarkable as any other tired public institution. A drab building, worn-out teachers, and restless teenagers dreaming of escape. Nothing hinted that this school year would become one of the most haunting chapters in the town’s history.
Within a matter of weeks, four girls from the same 11th-grade class—Nerea Salvatierra, Clara Busto, Marisa Ceballos, and Julia Arjona, all sixteen—were confirmed to be pregnant.
The revelation spread through the community like wildfire. Families reacted with disbelief and shame, teachers retreated into stiff silence, and rumors multiplied at a dizzying pace.
A pact?
A shared secret?
The same father?
A prank gone too far?
But nothing prepared anyone for what followed.
One April morning, Nerea didn’t show up at school. She never came home that afternoon—and never returned at all. Two days later, Clara disappeared. Then Marisa. Finally, Julia vanished.
Four girls. All from one class. All pregnant. All gone.
No letters. No notes. No signs of a struggle.
Just… absence.
The Guardia Civil launched a sweeping investigation. They interviewed students and staff, combed nearby woods, set up roadside checks, even questioned the girls’ families and boyfriends. Despite the pressure from national media, no leads surfaced. Eventually, the case was shelved, the files shut away in archives.
The school slowly emptied as families pulled their children out. Its hallways, once loud with chatter, turned muted and hollow. Over time, the girls’ names became taboo—something spoken only in hushed tones.
Thirty Years Later
By 2021, the school still stood, though partially renovated. One of the few long-term staff members remaining was Eusebio Santín, the elderly custodian who had worked there since the early ’90s. A quiet, meticulous man with a memory that never faded.
One October morning, while clearing an old storage room scheduled for demolition, he noticed a loose metal vent. When he removed it, he found a narrow cavity hidden within the wall—thick with dust and cobwebs. Inside it lay a damp plastic folder from the early 1990s.
He pulled it into the light. Opened it.
And froze.
Inside were photographs of the four missing girls—some taken around the school, others in an unfamiliar location. There were sketched floor plans, lists of names, handwritten schedules… and finally, a letter dated March 1991. The handwriting trembled as though written in panic.
The sender: Julia Arjona.
Eusebio’s hands shook. For decades he had unknowingly worked within a building that hid a terrible secret.
“Someone needs to see this,” he whispered.
But first, he needed to read the letter.
The Letter
The note was written in fading blue ink, some words smudged by moisture, but most of it still clear. Eusebio sat heavily on a bench in the hallway—almost as if he needed physical support to face what he was about to learn.
“If anyone finds this, please… don’t judge us. We had no choice.”
Julia explained that none of them had planned anything. Each girl went through her own private nightmare: fear, guilt, confusion. Strangely, they all discovered their pregnancies around the same time. None of them were in stable relationships. None wanted to name the father.
But all four, as the letter revealed, had trusted the same man.
His name was written several times throughout the folder—underlined, circled, repeated in notes:
Alfonso Mera — the new history teacher, described by students as “charming,” “young,” and “too attentive.”
Julia wrote that Mera had manipulated each girl differently.
To Nerea, he acted like a confidant.
To Clara, a protector against bullies.
To Marisa, a mentor.
To Julia, someone who “understood her family problems.”
He had groomed them all.
When the girls began to suspect they weren’t the only ones he had crossed boundaries with, they confronted him. But Mera reacted with chilling confidence. He told them that no one would believe them, that he had “connections,” and that he could easily paint them as “lying teenagers out to ruin his career.”
Then he offered them a “solution”: stay for a while at a countryside house he claimed belonged to his family—“a quiet place to deal with the pregnancies.”
Julia admitted they were terrified. None wanted to face their parents. None wanted the scandal. And all were paralyzed by fear.
So they agreed.
On March 14, 1991, after the last class, Mera drove them in pairs to an isolated farmhouse near the Picos de Europa. Julia wrote that at first, it almost felt like a refuge.
But soon, they realized they were trapped.
The doors locked from outside.
No phone.
No way out.
Mera visited every few days, bringing food, telling them to “stay calm” and “remain silent.”
The letter ended abruptly:
“If this goes wrong, someone must know the truth. We didn’t run away. We were taken. And we are not alone.”
Eusebio shivered. Not only because of what Julia confessed, but because of one repeated note found throughout the folder:
“Search the old pavilion — testimonies — Room 3B.”
Determined to verify as much as he could before going to the authorities, Eusebio went to the school’s old, sealed-off pavilion. Room 3B was abandoned—dust thick on desks, wires dangling from the ceiling—yet on a shelf sat a rusted metal binder.
Inside were statements written by other students in 1991.
Several had grown suspicious of Mera.
One said he was frequently alone with different girls in the multimedia room.
Another described him canceling classes without explanation.
A third said he asked overly personal questions and touched her shoulder inappropriately.
One student had even drawn his car’s license plate.
Worst of all was a counselor’s report recommending an official investigation of Mera for “inappropriate behavior.”
Beside it, in red ink, someone had written:
“DO NOT PROCEED — Principal’s orders.”
Eusebio closed his eyes. He remembered that principal well—rigid, politically connected, obsessed with avoiding scandal.
Suddenly, the pieces began to fit together.
The Final Discovery
But one question remained:
What happened to the girls?
Eusebio then searched property records. After hours of digging, he found that Mera had inherited a small rural house in Liébana—matching Julia’s description.
He went there.
The farmhouse, half-collapsed and swallowed by weeds, creaked open.
Inside: old mattresses, food cans dated 1991, and in one corner, hidden beneath fallen boards, a tattered notebook labeled with four names:
Nerea — Clara — Marisa — Julia
Its pages were devastating.
Small entries written by the girls:
“He didn’t come today.”
“No milk left.”
“I heard a car, but it wasn’t him.”
“My stomach hurts.”
“We have to get out.”
The final page, scribbled in haste:
“We try tonight. We can’t stay here.
If he finds us, you know what will happen.”
No one ever learned if they escaped.
There were no bodies.
No signs of struggle.
Just silence.
But thanks to what Eusebio had uncovered, there was finally enough evidence to reopen the case.
The police traced Mera, who had fled Spain in 1992 and lived under a false identity in Portugal. He was eventually arrested. He never confessed what happened that night.
Yet for the first time in 30 years, the town of Santander broke its silence.
They finally spoke the girls’ names without fear:
Nerea.
Clara.
Marisa.
Julia.
Four stories that were no longer buried.