The Spanish mystery of the cut hand left in a milkmaid

One morning of the last January 1954 The police broke into the luxurious domicile number 72 of Princess Street in Madrid. During the inspection he would make a discovery that would become one of the great chapters of the black chronicle of Spain. Among rooms full of dissected animals, agents would find a milkmaid with a dissected hand. The suspect was the enigmatic Margarita Ruiz de Lihoryto which his son had denounced. A Marquise who had amputated a limb to his daughter, Margot. The scandal managed to sell hundreds of copies of the weekly of events ‘The case’ and fed an unbridled rumorology.

Lihory’s story has fascinated many. Call The Spanish bushIt was a multifaceted woman. Double agent, adventurous, falsifier of pictures …, even saved Franco’s life with his knowledge in medicine. He was a lover of great personalities and in the book ‘Franco Top Secret’ it is reported that this mysterious Spanish was part of the Circle 30, which is described as the germ of what the Spanish Secret Service would be later With headquarters in Ceuta, Melilla or Tangier, among other places.

Among his friends were Primo de Rivera or Blasco Ibáñez. Following the scandal of the amputated hand, numerous curious to his famous Albacete residence through which it was said that strange and striking characters passedas scientists from Nazi Germany. It was speculated that also a guest at the Josef doctor Mengele. Juan Rada, veteran research journalist and historian, has closely studied this case in his book ‘Great Cases of the Black Chron He kept some of his best secrets in an autobiographical book he used as life insurance. that further increased its mystery.

From the pages of the ‘New York Times to his mission in Morocco

Margarita Ruiz de Lihory It belonged to the Valencian nobility. She was the daughter of Soledad Resino de la Bastida, Marquesa de Villasante and Countess of Val del Águila, and José María Ruiz de Lihory and Pardines, Barón de Alcalalí and San Juan de Mosquera.

Became One of Spain’s first lawyers. But she was also an actress, dancer and a prestigious painter who He would win the gold medal of the National Contest of Fine Arts. He also gave concerts as a pianist in New York, Washington, Mexico or Havana. But before all that he had married only 17 years with Ricardo Shelly, of Irish descent, with whom he had four children who sent a boarding school. When her husband left with a younger one, she started traveling around the world.

He came to rub shoulders with US president John Coolidge. And the well -known businessman Henry Ford would give him a valuable pearl necklacewhich would appear to appear in ‘The New York Times’. And in the times when Primo de Rivera had been Governor of Valencia cultivated a friendship that would lead him to his first mission as a spy abroad. He commissioned him to enter Melilla in Morocco to join the war that was taking place as a war correspondent.

A tourniquet and a series of experiments

The Rifeños wanted to become independent and their leader was Abd el-Krim. The objective was to seduce him while writing excellent chronicles and collected intelligence information. In fact, this was key to preventing Francisco Franc It would fall into an ambush. And when he was seriously injured by a bullet in the belly it was Lihory who He practiced a tourniquet that prevented him from dying. In thanks, Franco He would appoint her Honorary Captain of the Spanish Army. Rada, in his interviews, has also said that Lihory shared the ‘Baraka’ (good luck) of Franco. And during the Civil War and World War II he would exercise as a spy because it was what really passionate.

Lihory’s peculiarities also extend to his activities in the residences he had distributed in Spain. They were always a reason for rumor among the premises that said that In his palace in Albacete some kind of clandestine activity was practiced. In this house two young people had been ventured who said they had seen operating rooms for animals and medical material. Rada has explained that they were two German military who had a false passport and were working on the development of a poison and its antidote. And also in a water poisoning systemin case of sitting a city to leave it without access to drinking water.

A ritual and some notes in a safe

Despite all this history, Lihory had not attracted the attention of the general public to the famous case of the amputated hand. When the event occurred, the founder of ‘The case’ had to follow the Censor’s slogan, who did not want to see in the first page a photo of a hand floating in a milkmaidso that he wrote with a cover for the cover: ‘The mystery of the cut hand’. That day the weekly reached a sales record. “It is said that a hornet Quiosquero from the Tetuán neighborhood went with a van buying all the specimens he saw, two pesetas and reversed them to five pesetas,” said Reda for the radio.

When the police appeared at home, they also found strands of hair and eye balloons. Margotthe daughter of the spy, had been sick of leukemia for some time. And Rada has detailed that it was known for their exemplary behavior and his help to the most needy. To the point that Lihory reached Think that your daughter was a saint And that’s why I wanted to keep parts of it as relics. An idea that came from the rituals he had observed on his trips through Africa.

Lihory and her husband managed The dissection had been ‘post mortem’, therefore it was not a murder. The order was to give folder to the matter.

In addition, Lihory boasted that he had been keeping numerous tests of influential characters during his time as a spy. Secrets that, in light, could compromise important names. A content that had become a book and I hid it in a safe Jde Bank. A treasure that ‘the case’ also wanted to find, but the attempt was unsuccessful. Lihory He finished his days ruined and was forced to sell his jewels to survive. They buried her in the cemetery of Albacete, where her daughter Margot was also.