Murder of farmer Toño Otero in Ribadesella: a year without a culprit
The death of Ribadesella farmer Toño Otero Toraño, found beaten to death in his home on 12 September 2025, remains unsolved a year later.
A year without answers: the murder of Toño Otero remains unpunished in Ribadesella
According to Google News ES — Crime (es), as the first anniversary of the crime approaches, the murder of Ribadesella farmer Antonio "Toño" Otero Toraño continues without a known perpetrator. The 60-year-old man was fatally beaten in his home at Cuevas del Agua on 12 September 2025, at midday and during peak tourist season.
Present in the home were his partner, Mar Berjón, and her sister, Magdalena. Both told the Civil Guard that two hooded individuals had burst into the house and attacked Otero without a word. The sister-in-law called 112 shortly after noon, when the victim still showed signs of life. Medical staff could do nothing for him. He died in the farmhouse which he had barely left, entirely devoted to his livestock.
No witness saw the two hooded men described by the women. No one heard or witnessed anything in the surrounding area, and there was no material evidence placing these two individuals in Cuevas del Agua.
The sister changes her account
A few days after the crime, Magdalena presented herself voluntarily at the Civil Guard barracks in Gijón—where she lives—and provided a statement different from her initial one, with significant details: she said she had suspicions that her own sister could be implicated in the homicide.
"I was resting upstairs and did not see or hear anything, but when I came down I found my brother-in-law completely covered in blood, only saying with a thin voice 'Magda, Magda, Magda', while squeezing my hands very tightly. She did not even look at Mar...," she stated. Regarding the hooded men, she acknowledged that she had not seen them directly: "But at first with the stress of everything that had happened I said that two hooded men had killed him," she added. She went so far as to suggest that her sister had told her to "be calm because the cheese mallet was already washed".
The autopsy determined that Otero had sustained violent blows to the head from a blunt object, injuries consistent with the kitchen tool with which Mar Berjón had been making cheese shortly before the attack.
Cattle seized and life rebuilt
The scene at Cuevas del Agua has changed considerably over the past twelve months. Twenty days after the crime, the Principality of Asturias seized the livestock and remaining animals from the farm in light of their apparent state of neglect. The Civil Guard's Nature Protection Service (Seprona) opened an investigation against the widow for a suspected offence against fauna. Neighbours pointed out that she had not taken the calves out of the stable for three weeks.
Mar Berjón continues to live in the farmhouse and has for some time maintained a relationship with another farmer from eastern Asturias. According to information gathered, this person and his daughter would have been the only ones to offer assistance to the widow with livestock tasks whilst she retained the animals. This new life direction would have generated a rift with her sister Magdalena.
"I loved Toño like a brother, poor fellow had very bad luck to end up like that...," Magdalena commented to the newspaper El Comercio shortly after the death. She currently resides in a town in León, having put physical distance between herself, her sister, and the scene of the crime.
The investigation proceeds under court secrecy
The Civil Guard's Organic Unit of Judicial Police—the same unit that recently solved the contract killing of Emiliano 'el Panameño' in Llanera, with five detainees in provisional custody—continues to work on the case. The court is maintaining secrecy of the case file to preserve the evidence and leads accumulated over the past year.
According to information that El Comercio has been able to obtain, the circle around the perpetrator or perpetrators of the crime has been tightening, with a main line of investigation progressing without pause.
In the village itself, alarm subsided quickly. "In the village, neighbours never felt afraid because from the start it seemed to us that those hooded men did not exist and therefore were not going to break into our homes...," people say in Cuevas del Agua, where the shock of that 12 September quickly gave way to everyday routine.
Source: Google News ES — Crime (es)