Body found off Sitges identified as missing 12-year-old from Granollers
Salvador Illa confirmed the identity of a 12-year-old boy with autism who went missing on 4 October during heavy rain in Granollers. A body seen floating at sea near Sitges on Wednesday, 14 October, is still awaiting formal forensic identification.
A search that began on 4 October
A 12-year-old boy with autism left his home in Granollers, near Barcelona, in the early hours of Sunday, 4 October, frightened by a storm during a spell of intense rain. Europa Press reported that the search lasted about 10 days, with up to 50 personnel from the Bombers, the Mossos d'Esquadra and volunteers taking part. El Mundo put the firefighter deployment at 48, including canine, underwater and mountain specialists, drone units and volunteer crews from Matadepera and Sant Llorenç Savall.
The Mossos used thermal drones over urban areas, while firefighters searched wooded and interurban zones and combed the Besòs river with divers, dogs and land trackers. The inquiry concentrated on the stretch of the Besòs from Sant Fost de Campsentelles to its mouth, the coast between that mouth and Badalona, and the Barcelona shoreline out to one nautical mile. The body ultimately surfaced tens of kilometres further south.
Body spotted at sea
On Wednesday, 14 October, a fisherman alerted the emergency line 112 and a local maritime unit went to the spot. Reports differ on the location: Europa Press described a body on the beach at Sitges, El Mundo and eldiario.es placed it floating in the sea between Sitges and Castelldefels, and La Razón named the area near the Port de Ginesta. Eldiario.es said first indications pointed to the body being that of the missing boy. The body was taken to Catalonia's forensic medicine institute for formal identification.
- 12-year-old boy with autism goes missing in Granollers during heavy rain
- Fisherman alerts 112 and a maritime unit heads to the spot where a body is floating
- Salvador Illa confirms the boy's identity while forensic identification is still pending
Police sources told El Periódico that a body can sink and later resurface, so currents could have carried it from another point on the coast. Investigators were therefore not assuming that the death occurred where the body was found.
Identification and the second missing person
Early reports, published before the identification, described an unidentified man in an advanced state of decomposition. Police were then weighing two people missing from the October rains: this boy, and a young man who disappeared in Pineda de Mar after witnesses said he fell while filming the flooding on his mobile phone.
On Thursday, 15 October, Illa confirmed the boy's identity and sent condolences to the family during the homage to former Generalitat president Lluís Companys on the 86th anniversary of his execution. Eldiario.es noted that the forensic analysis still has to confirm the identity. The Mossos plan to take fingerprints first, and if the condition of the body prevents that, to use DNA tests compared with samples from relatives.
Wider storm toll
Eldiario.es reported that a man died after his car was swept away in Les Franqueses del Vallès, a town neighbouring Granollers, during the storms that hit Catalonia in early October. If the identification is confirmed, the boy would be the second death from that storm. The outcome of the identification will also determine whether the Pineda de Mar disappearance can be resolved.
