A prosecutor has invoked a classic journalism adage to frame the challenge facing a jury at the Provincial Court of Barcelona: how do you prove a murder when there is no body, no crime scene, and no direct evidence?

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Prosecutor Teresa Yoldi told the court:

“If one person says it’s raining and another says it isn’t, your job as a journalist isn’t to give a voice to both: it’s to open the window and check if it’s raining. But what if there is no window?”

This is the central dilemma in the trial of Luis B., who stands accused of the homicide of his business partner, 30-year-old Diego Vargas. Based entirely on circumstantial evidence, the prosecution seeks a 15-year prison sentence. Yoldi urged the jury to look for other clues:

“By noticing if people have wellies, a wet umbrella, or soaked hair, you can answer with the same certainty that it is, in fact, raining.”

A Final, Angry Confrontation

Diego Vargas was last seen on 11 May 2020. According to the investigation, the person who last saw him alive was the man now in the dock: his business associate, Luis B. The two were partners in an illicit marijuana plantation, and Vargas had become convinced that Luis B. had cheated him by faking a robbery.

Determined to confront him, Vargas drove his electric-blue Audi A4 to their shared industrial warehouse on Calle Granada in Sant Andreu de la Barca, a municipality just outside Barcelona. Shortly before arriving, he sent a furious audio message to his lover.

He was never seen or heard from again. His phone, which had 121 missed calls and scores of unread messages from his wife, Cristina, eventually ran out of battery. What happened inside that warehouse remains a mystery, but the Mossos d’Esquadra, the Catalan police force, believe the collection of indirect evidence points to only one person.

An Alibi Full of Holes

During the trial, which is now in its final stages, Luis B. has maintained his innocence. He told his defence lawyer:

“I don’t know where he is.”

However, the Mossos d’Esquadra’s Missing Persons Unit systematically dismantled his initial alibi.

Luis B., who has a criminal record for drug trafficking, claimed Vargas left the warehouse around midday and that he himself departed over an hour later to collect a pallet from a company called Embamat in Terrassa. But CCTV footage from the industrial estate proved this was false. The cameras, crucially, never captured Vargas’s distinctive Audi leaving the area.

A witness further bolstered the prosecution’s case, testifying to seeing a similar blue vehicle at the warehouse that afternoon with its licence plates deliberately obscured by cardboard. Luis B. dismissed the testimony, claiming the witness was lying.

Further scrutiny revealed other suspicious actions. The accused deleted angry messages from Vargas, which he justified by claiming his phone was set to “automatic deletion.” On the very day of Vargas’s disappearance, Luis B. attempted to rent another industrial unit in Terrassa. Investigators suspect this was an attempt to find a location to dispose of the body; he claims it was a search for a retirement “investment.”

Erasing the Trail

When family and friends, alarmed by Vargas’s silence, gathered outside the warehouse, Luis B. arrived in his Iveco van, saw the crowd, and immediately sped away. He told the court he fled because he was afraid.

“They are accusing me of something I didn’t do,”

he said, asserting that Vargas’s family already suspected him.

The prosecution, however, believes Luis B. used the Iveco van to transport Vargas’s body. By the time investigators located the vehicle, Luis B. had already sold it. The new owner had extensively modified it into a campervan, making it impossible for forensic teams to search for biological traces. Georadar searches of the warehouses also yielded nothing.

For the prosecution, the complete absence of a body is not a weakness in their case, but rather proof of the accused’s intent to “erase the trail” of the crime. Luis B.’s defence argues for his acquittal, highlighting the lack of any direct proof he committed a crime.

Reports from ABC Cataluña detail the complex relationship between the two men. Luis B. claimed he treated Vargas like a son, even paying for his driving licence after he was jailed for driving without one. But communications on the now-defunct encrypted chat service Encrochat, used by the men for their illicit business, revealed Vargas’s growing distrust.

The jury must now decide if those signs are enough to constitute a verdict.

According to the official source, see El crimen sin cadáver de Diego Vargas sienta a un ‘narco’ ante la Audiencia de Barcelona.