Hospital de Santiago

Hospital de Santiago is presented as a place of acute psychiatric assessment in the immediate aftermath of the twins’ deaths, and later as a source of testimony in the trial of Alice Espanet. The hospital’s importance lies in the gap between what its clinicians observed during her admission and the contested conclusions experts drew about her condition.

Role in the immediate aftermath

After Alice was detained, she was taken to Hospital de Santiago and admitted to its seventh floor for psychiatric evaluation. She was described as disoriented and in shock; clinicians considered possible dissociative amnesia, and she received sedatives. Her speech was sparse and confused, and she appeared unable to reconcile what had happened with her understanding of events. A police patrol remained outside her room while investigators secured her clothing and collected biological samples, placing medical care alongside the criminal investigation.

Examination and clinical observations

Alice was allowed to sleep late into the night. The next morning, court-appointed forensic doctors examined her for about three hours. She had refused breakfast but was beginning to respond; when told what had happened, she rejected the account and became intensely distressed, then fell quiet before tremors and spasms returned. The episode is recounted as an unsettled sequence of reactions rather than a clear, conclusive explanation of her mental state.

Testimony and significance

Later in the trial, the two psychiatrists who had initially attended Alice at Hospital de Santiago confirmed that she had shown shock, disorientation, amnesia, and denial of reality during her admission. Their observations supported the existence of an acute crisis, but did not by themselves settle whether she had postpartum psychosis or establish how that condition related to the crime. The hospital therefore occupies a significant but limited evidentiary position: it documented Alice’s immediate state, while the meaning and legal weight of that state remained disputed in court.