Zuriñe Zabaleta

Zuriñe Zabaleta is linked to one of the earlier killings in the case that Amaia Salazar comes to recognize as a connected series: her murder in Bilbao, four years before Amaia’s assessment, is grouped with other partner-perpetrated killings marked by postmortem amputation and the disappearance of the severed arm. The evidence also gives a sharply different image of a woman identified by the same name: a poised resident of an elegant Bilbao apartment who speaks to Amaia about her sister’s murder. Those accounts do not fit together cleanly, and the uncertainty is part of what the available record preserves.

Identity and the Interview

The interview passage introduces a woman named Zuriñe Zabaleta at her home on Alameda Mazarredo, where the Guggenheim Museum is clearly visible. She tells Amaia that a police officer had said the inspector wanted to ask questions about her sister’s murder. Her voice is described as courteous and controlled, but it falters when she mentions the crime; she also remarks that she had not expected to be approached after so much time had passed. The scene establishes both her willingness to speak and the emotional strain the subject brings into an otherwise composed encounter.

There is, however, a consequential inconsistency in the evidence. The interview identifies Zuriñe as a living woman whose sister was murdered, while Amaia’s later reconstruction explicitly lists the murder of Zuriñe Zabaleta in Bilbao among the series of killings. The supplied passages do not explain whether the interview’s identification is mistaken, whether the names refer to different people, or whether another detail accounts for the difference. Accordingly, the interview and the later identification should not be silently collapsed into a single, resolved biography.

Family and Domestic Setting

In the interview, Zuriñe describes a family connection to Baztán through her mother, who came from Ziga. Her father belonged to a well-known business family in Neguri. Her parents met when her mother visited Getxo on holiday. This account places her family between a Baztán origin and an established business milieu, without specifying how those backgrounds shaped her later life.

The home Amaia visits is rendered through carefully maintained details. Its black-and-white marble entrance signals the standing of a French-style building; inside are tall French doors, ornate mouldings, and wood-panelled walls. The sitting room is arranged to make the most of the view of the Guggenheim, whose metallic surfaces catch the light with a muted sheen. The furnishings and setting give the interview an atmosphere of cultivated affluence rather than forensic austerity.

Art is part of that domestic portrait. Amaia notices a sculpture by James Wexford in a corner of the living room and smiles. Zuriñe explains that it is by an American sculptor and praises its character; Amaia’s response that it is magnificent immediately wins her sympathy. Their exchange briefly establishes common ground before the conversation returns to the murder. Zuriñe herself is described as dressed soberly in evidently expensive clothes, which make her appear older than she is.

Murder and the Series Pattern

In Amaia’s later reconstruction, Zuriñe’s murder is one of several killings spread across years and locations. The sequence begins, in the account given there, with Zuriñe’s murder in Bilbao four years earlier. Amaia places it alongside the killing of Izaskun López in Logroño, the deaths of María Abásolo and her dog, the murder of Johana Márquez, and the killing of Lucía Aguirre. The cases had appeared separate, but their recurring features change their meaning when considered together.

Amaia’s synthesis identifies a consistent pattern: the victims were killed by husbands or partners, and the perpetrators died by suicide after the killings or while in prison. Each victim’s arm was amputated below the elbow after death. The amputations were carried out with a precision absent from the perpetrators’ other methods, and the severed arms were not found at the crime scenes or otherwise located. In the broader investigation, the remains recovered at Arri Zahar made it possible to match Johana Márquez’s DNA, but the comparison could not be made for the other missing arms. The evidence presents Zuriñe’s case as part of this pattern, though it does not supply separate forensic details specific to her murder.

Investigative Significance

Zuriñe’s case matters to Amaia less as an isolated crime than as an early instance of a repeated signature. The temporal gap between her murder and later killings demonstrates the patience of the unseen organizer whom Amaia suspects is directing the perpetrators. Her analysis distinguishes the men who carried out the killings from the person who, she believes, manipulated them: the partners committed the murders, but the repeated amputations, missing limbs, and recurring messages point beyond any one household or crime scene.

The case’s unresolved evidence also reflects practical obstacles to linking crimes. Amaia notes that Spain’s DNA registry was too limited to be useful for many comparisons, making international database searches important, while jurisdictional divisions between police forces further complicated the work. Against that institutional fragmentation, the recurrence of the same postmortem act gives Zuriñe’s murder its investigative force: a crime initially treated as an individual domestic killing becomes one of the clues to a longer, coordinated series.