The ‘Crossbow Killer’: Life And Psychological Portrait Of A Parricide
One of the best-known murders in Spanish criminal history shook a small town in Maresme. It was February 6, 1994 when Andres Rabadan a local young man who was 21 years old, He killed his father by shooting three arrows with a medieval crossbow that the young man had given himself for Christmas, after what appeared to be a family dispute.
The young Andrés Rabadán surprised everyone by also confessing the authorship by the sabotage that certain train lines had suffered along various sections of the Maresme region of Barcelona, which caused several convoys to derail dangerously, fortunately without leaving any victims.
For months, Several surrounding towns were in suspense due to the constant accidents that occurred and that clearly seemed intentional The police, alerted by the continuous damage to the train lines, received anonymous letters threatening more attacks, leading to speculation that it was a network of saboteurs operating in a coordinated manner. But the solution to the case was much simpler.
The modus operandi in acts of railway sabotage
He modus operandi of Andrés was the following: the young man approached the chosen point of the tracks (a place normally located between two neighboring towns and away from the sight of curious people who could scare him away), he turned the screw two times on one of the screws and then he I was going. The next day, he returned to the same place, continuing to unscrew the same screw; and he fled again. The reason why he proceeded this way was because He knew that if he stayed too long removing the screws he would expose himself to someone finding out His twisted plan also involved sawing the rails, and then masking it by joining them with a piece of electrical tape so that it would appear that they had not been damaged.
The researcher specialized in criminology Francisco Pérez Abellán He maintains that “Andrés Rabadán enjoyed showing off his intelligence” and that derailments were his way of attracting attention. In statements before the judge in March 1995, Rabadán stated that he did not know exactly why he did it, but that he had the idea in his head that everyone was against him, and that he was fully convinced. that nothing was going to happen to the train passengers, since he had everything under control. Once arrested, the sabotage stopped.
The reason for the discussion that led to the murder of Andrés Rabadán’s father was trivial: The glass of milk that Andrés had asked for was too hot This unleashed the boy’s uncontrolled fury, who went to his room for his crossbow and shot him in the temple. Seeing that he was still alive, he ended his suffering by shooting two more arrows into his forehead and the back of his neck.
After committing the crime, Andrés Rabadán went out on his motorcycle and ran into a police officer patrolling the area, to whom he confessed what had happened. The agent went to the home with the boy to check if the victim was unconscious or not. He found the body lying in the kitchen, with three arrows stuck in the back of the neck, temple and forehead. Now deceased, Andrés placed a cushion under his head.
The case immediately hit the media, due among other things to the nature and coldness with which the patricide was perpetrated, causing a national stir In his statements before the judge in March 1995, he explained that he did not know the consequences of shooting his father with the crossbow. But when the magistrate asked him the reason why he shot the last arrows at him, the young man’s response was that so that his father would stop suffering, since he really loved him.
Family background
Andrés Rabadán’s mother committed suicide by hanging when he was 8 years old. She was a submissive woman with a passive character, who left three children in the care of a father whose bad temper was always highlighted. When Rabadán’s mother became pregnant for the first time, her father did not want to marry her and left her to later go to live in Barcelona. Her brothers had to appear at Matías Rabadán’s new home to demand that he face her imminent paternity and to ask him to marry her.
Andrés’ older sister remembers that her mother had told her on several occasions that she wanted to separate from her father, but that she did not have the money to do so. Shortly after she died, her sister left home, leaving her two younger brothers (Andrés and José) with her father, who had various sporadic partners over the years. It was then that They moved to an isolated neighborhood and Andrés lost all the friends he had Since then he dedicated himself to wandering alone in different places, he liked to sit on the rocks and stare at the sea; He felt comforted by being alone.
In the words of Andrés himself “(…) my mind was in pieces, I didn’t think clearly or know what I wanted.”
Diagnosis(es) of Andrés Rabadán
The first diagnosis that was issued certified that Andrés Rabadán suffered from paranoid delusional schizophrenia, a mental pathology whose main characteristic is that the subject dissociates from reality and creates an unreal parallel world Likewise, he establishes a new style of thinking in the form of delusions and a new form of perception that is hallucinations. As a result, he is sentenced to 20 years in a psychiatric prison. In general, one third of schizophrenia patients usually show a favorable prognosis for improvement.
Later, one of the forensic experts who visited him suggested the hypothesis that Andrés had suffered a Psychotic attack This type of crisis is recognized by its sudden appearance (although there are signs that allow us to detect when it will occur) in situations of great stress that last over time. The people most vulnerable to suffering a psychotic break are the most mentally and emotionally fragile.
The appearance of suspicious or “strange” ideas and social isolation are two very notable features of the psychotic outbreak. The subject’s central nervous system collapses, causing a temporary break with reality. In the event of a psychotic break, the psychiatric regulations to follow require that the person must be medicated for at least two years. If within this period of time he stops showing delusions or hallucinations, this medication is withdrawn.
The symptoms of the crossbow killer
As the accused explained, He said he heard noises that suddenly burst into his head at a very high volume ; He also believed that he was being pursued by a series of individuals who were conspiring against him. Precisely for this reason, he revealed that he kept different weapons in his house, so he could defend himself if someone attacked him. When he decided to sabotage the train tracks it was after an incident he had with his bicycle, when he was almost run over by a convoy that was passing at that time. As a result, he swore revenge.
After the murder, he said he felt as if he woke up from a dream and came to, which explains why he carefully placed a pillow under the head of his father’s corpse, proof of his remorse for what happened When the police picked up the crossbow, they saw that an arrow remained intact and was not fired. It was for Andrés.
Various speculations about his clinical profile
To diagnose schizophrenia, the requirement is that the person suffers from delusions and hallucinations for more than six months ; Otherwise it will be considered simply a psychotic break. If ten years pass without suffering a relapse, it is estimated that the outbreak has subsided, and the probability of recurrence is slim. Despite everything, several psychiatrists argued that Andrés Rabadán did not have any mental illness.
There was also speculation that it was a case of psychopathy, given that the forensic reports were very contradictory in this regard. Psychopaths are people who know very well what one wants to hear and improvise a message that really seems spontaneous with the ultimate goal of satisfying their own interests.
According to his psychiatrist, Andrés did not point in this direction, because he often showed signs of empathy and remorse; In addition to having a large circle of friends, although he had distanced himself from them when he moved. According to Francisco Pérez Abellán, the case of the crossbow murderer would be a clear example of psychopathy, since he – he argued – Rabadán managed to convince everyone that he was crazy The difference between a psychotic and a psychopath is that the latter easily distinguishes what he is preparing to do and, nevertheless, carries out his intention.
Final comments
When an event has been so heavily covered in the media and has caused so much social alarm due to its monstrous nature, both the media and society itself hastily try to attribute a mental illness to the person who has perpetrated the crime. This occurs because it is not conceivable that a mentally healthy person could do something like that, with which There is a tendency to look for a psychopathological reason that explains the reason for such a despicable fact
To tell the truth, people with serious psychiatric disorders commit very few murders; it is supposedly healthy people who, under certain pressures or circumstances, can go to such extremes. What happens is that We have little capacity to recognize that, under certain conditions, we could all perform unimaginable acts
Andrés once said that, if he had not killed his father, he would have carried out any other atrocity; him being equally doubtful about his recovery, even though that was what the mental health professionals who treated him during his years behind bars certified.
He was released from the Barcelona Men’s Penitentiary Center (‘La Modelo’) in March 2015, after serving a sentence for threatening one of the nurses at the Quatre Camins prison in Barcelona.
