Manuel Blanco Romasanta has been made famous in Spain due to two successful films about him, but his fame was already great in the 19th century. He is regarded as Spain’s first documented serial killer, criminal psychopath… and werewolf!
Romasant was born on 18 November 1989 in the small village of Regueiro, Orense province, in Spain’s most north-westerly Galicia region. According to documentation of the time, he was quite educated and well-off for his station in society. Unusual for the time, he could both read and write.
He started off as a tailor, but following the death of his wife when he was just 24, he gave up tailoring and decided to become a travelling salesman. According to legend, he became famous for the high quality fat and lard and travelled widely through Galicia, Portugal and Castile. Little did his customers know where this commodity came from.
The first murder case came on his travels outside Galicia, for the murder of Vicente Fernández, the constable of León.
The constable was charged with recovering a debt of 600 reales which Romasanta owed to a Ponferrada supplier where he bought the merchandise for his mobile shop. Fernández was found dead and Romasanta was judged by default (for failing to appear). He was sentenced to 10 years in 1844. He had escaped to the mountains of Orense and used the village of Rebordechao, in Vilar de Barrio, as his base for his peddling operations.
It wasn’t long before a number of women and children started disappearing. In total 7 women and 2 children who had known Romasanta had vanished after being in his company. In many cases he had offered to act as a guide around the city. He even passed on their news to family in other towns, telling them of how happy the victims were in their new life.
He now made a fatal mistake. He began to sell the clothing of the missing women in the towns where they had last been seen. It was also at this time that rumours started about the composition of his lard and fat he sold.
He was finally captured in Nombela, Toledo, and brought to trial in Allariz, Orense, in September 1852. The court case lasted seven months with more than 2000 pages of evidence recorded. These pages have survived the ravages of time and are still available to this day. (The Kingdom of Galicia Historical Archives: ‘Causa 1788, del hombre-lobo,’ – ‘Case 1788, of the wolf-man.’)
By the end of the trial, Romasanta had confessed to nine murders. However he had a chilling twist. He blamed the murders on a curse on him which turned him into a werewolf. He only killed when he was under the curse.
According to the testimony:
‘The first time I transformed, was in the mountains of Couso.
I came across two ferocious-looking wolves. I suddenly fell to the floor, and began to feel convulsions, I rolled over three times, and a few seconds later I myself was a wolf.
I was out marauding with the other two for five days, until I returned to my own body, the one you see before you today, Your Honour.
The other two wolves came with me, who I thought were also wolves, changed into human form. They were from Valencia. One was called Antonio and the other Don Genaro.
They too were cursed ….. we attacked and ate a number of people because were hungry.’
In a ruling which is quite surprising for the time period, four of the murder charges against him were dropped. The reason was because forensic evidence proved that the victims had died due to wounds inflicted in wolf attacks!
On the other five counts, in April 1853, he was found guilty and sentenced to death by garrotte.
The story does not end here.
The case was passed on to the Territorial Court in A Coruña, who subsequently reduced the term to from death to life imprisonment in a ruling that November. This ruling was appealed by the prosecution and a new hearing was set for March of 1854. This new hearing upheld the original sentence and he was again sentenced to death.
But again this was not the end of the story.
A French doctor, one Mr Philips, who also studied hypnotherapy looked into othe case. He wrote a letter to the Minister of Grace and Justice in which he expressed his doubt about whether Romasanta actually suffered lycanthropy. He asked for permission to hypnotise Romasanta in the belief that he could cure him.
At the same time his defense lawyer argued that there was no real evidence presented, other than the confession. He argues that in his opinion, not a single one of the murders could be proved and therefore the conviction was illegal. He went directly to Queen Isabella II as she represented the Supreme Court.
In light of both appeals, on 13 May 1854, the Queen ruled that she was withholding permission to carry out the death sentence until a detailed investigation was carried out. This investigation was never done which in effect gave Romasanta a life sentence.
The last stages of Romasanta’s life is also shrouded in mystery as no official record now exists.
What is known was that the Queen ordered him to be transferred to Celanova prison. The prison no longer exists and all records have been destroyed, so there is no record of what became of him.
There are three versions of his demise:
Locals of Celanova claim that Romasanta contracted a mysterious illness shortly after arriving at the prison. His health quickly deteriorated and he died shortly after.
Another rumour is that an officer at the prison wanted to see whether he really was a werewolf, so shot him to try to get him to transform. He did not transform and ultimately died of the bullet wounds.
The final theory is more frightening. Some locals are adament that Romasanta escaped from the prison and fled into the surrounding forests. To this very day the ‘Hombre Lobo de Allarriz’ lurks in the gloom of the forest on the lookout for any person silly enough to wander around there alone.
The story of Romasanta has been told in two films:
‘El Bosque del Lobo,’ where José Luis López Vázquez won the Best Actor Award at the 1971 Chicago Film Festival
More recently has been Paco Plaza’s 2004 film, ‘Romasanta: La Caza de la Bestia’ (The Werewolf Hunt).
![Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunt [Fantastic Factory Collection] (Arrow Video) [DVD]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61whhQGxyzL._SL75_.jpg "Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunt [Fantastic Factory Collection] (Arrow Video) [DVD]")
