Nine years after the disappearance of 15-year-old Malen Ortiz, a specialized team has searched a farm in Mallorca

The Civil Guard carried out a two-day search for Malen at a farm in Calvià on March 6. ‘Operation Vans’, so named because it was Malen’s favorite brand, also tracked via CCTV from the road near where Malen disappeared to identify the possible suspect. vehicles

farm search

The search team, which traveled from Madrid, arrived with trained dogs and bulldozers after a notice suggested the Magaluf area had been used as an illegal horse graveyard and that a clue to Malen’s disappearance could be found there. In addition, the farm is located near where a former prime suspect, who was interviewed at the time, kept his belongings and used to hang out.

Police recovered shoes, shawls and animal bones, which were illegally buried, from the site.

The suspect was a 70-year-old Spaniard who had worked as a representative for Hollywood artists and was looking for girls with skateboards to parade on the Rambla de Palma. He was known to frequent one of the farms very close to where Malen was last seen with a skateboard on December 2, 2013.

The former Los Angeles resident was questioned by police for two days in 2014 after being reported for harassing minors at a bus stop near Magaluf. When the Civil Guard discovered that the man had been looking for ‘girls with a skateboard’ they took a statement from him but he was never officially arrested.

The suspect denied any connection to Malen’s disappearance, however, he had serious mental health problems, including hearing voices and having visions, as well as suffering from split personality disorder.

After the police interrogation, the man moved to Malaga after the neighbors prohibited him from entering the establishments and the young people nicknamed him ‘the murderer’. It is understood that his mental state worsened and he ended up in a psychiatric facility. The man is alleged to have suffered from dementia or Alzheimer’s in more recent years. The police no longer consider him the main suspect.

vehicle analysis

Malen was last captured on CCTV from the Sa Parrassa nursery as she made her way to her boyfriend’s house. She disappeared into a blind spot on a 1,000-foot bike and pedestrian path that merges with a road at the end. The path passes a luxury property and an abandoned building, but there were no sightings of her.

The analysis of 300 vehicles that traveled through the Son Ferrer section during the ten minutes after the last sighting of Malen may be key to the investigation.

After years of searching and a report of more than 1,000 pages, the Judicial Police have concluded that Malen may have voluntarily gotten into the car of an acquaintance. This conclusion was reached when a Calvià Local Police car was stopped nearby, which ruled out any struggle in the street that would have been heard by the agents.

Questions without answer

Police have been trying to gain access to Malen’s Facebook as it may have crucial information about the conversations the teen may have had online. Till the date, Facebook has denied investigators access until there is a clear suspect.

The suspects have reportedly been narrowed down to 13 people, including a homeless German man who used to panhandle in the area Malen was last seen and two family friends who had committed sex crimes.

Investigations into the 13 men have been conducted to exhaustion, yet there are still many unanswered questions.

Malen’s living situation at the time of the disappearance

At the time of her disappearance, Malen was living with her father Alejandro Ortiz, who was awarded custody of Malen and her brother in 2012 after the alleged abandonment of their mother Natalia Rodríguez, who had moved to Thailand to work.

Before the disappearance of the 15-year-old, Malen had vented on the Ask.fm social media platform: “My life is not rosy, I have a very difficult family situation.”

Since the revelations of her comment on Ask.fm, the parents have accused each other of abandonment and abuse. Her mother filed two complaints for ill-treatment against her ex-husband, Alejandro, which were later filed.

In addition, information came to light that he had an appointment with a psychologist to talk about “something serious” one day after his disappearance, according to what was reported by Interview on November 30, 2015.

Alejandro Ortiz offered a reward of 30,000 euros to anyone who gave information about the disappearance of his daughter and said Interview “It is clear that he did not leave of his own free will” in 2014.

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