The 1970s

The 1970s matter as the decade in which witnesses place an occult group at Argi Beltz, providing investigators with a possible historical context for later infant deaths and ritual practices. Testimony describes a group that began as a hippie-like community and degenerated into occult rites, including animal sacrifice; human sacrifice, specifically of newborn children, was discussed as a possibility. The evidence establishes the reports and the investigative questions they raised, not that every alleged rite took place.

The group at Argi Beltz

A witness told Amaia Salazar that a sect settled at a farmhouse in the valley during the 1970s. Its meetings reportedly shifted from countercultural gatherings to occult, and possibly satanic, practices. Animal sacrifices were said to have occurred, and the prospect of sacrificing children was raised. The witness eventually stopped attending and was harassed by members. She could not say how long the meetings continued, although Amaia understood that the group appeared to have dissolved.

The account was supported in part by Elena Ochoa’s testimony. A separate, trusted informant described similar practices at a farmhouse in Lesaka and said that one man moved between the two groups as their priest, ceremonial leader, or guru, without living at either site. The accounts connect the two settings through an alleged leader and related practices, while leaving the groups’ precise duration and organization uncertain.

Ritual beliefs and the child’s age

Later testimony explained the ritual logic attributed to the group. Children under two were considered especially suitable offerings because, according to the belief reported to Amaia, their souls remained in transition between worlds. Jonan Etxaide also described a related idea: before language develops, young children were thought in some cultures to perceive both worlds and thus serve as vehicles for spiritual communication. These are explanations offered within the investigation, not independently verified supernatural claims.

The reported rules were specific: the child had to be a girl, younger than two, and unbaptized. Baptism was treated as an offering and commitment to another god, which made a baptized child ineligible under the group’s supposed terms. The account also described sacrifices as occurring in groups of the same sex and age, under matching circumstances, until a cycle was completed. A witness said that men were generally the more committed participants; some women who took part fell into depression, and the instruction was to have another child soon. This reported pressure gives the ritual system a human consequence beyond its stated theology: bereaved parents could be drawn into a cycle of loss, guilt, and renewed pregnancy.

The intended death was described as deprivation of air, making the child like Inguma; afterward, the body was to be surrendered as an offering. The body itself was treated as valuable ritual material: investigators had heard that the remains of young children could be used whole or in parts, including bones, teeth, nails, and hair. This framework later shaped questions about stolen infant remains and earlier deaths, but it did not by itself prove that any particular death had been a sacrifice.

A medical identity emerging from the same period

The decade also appears in a separate investigative trail concerning Tabese. A medical association confirmed that a Clínica Tabese operated in Las Rozas during the 1970s, the 1980s, and until the mid-1990s. Its proprietor, known publicly as Doctor Tabese, had been prominent in Madrid society, with a reputation for treatments imported from the United States. He had retired from public life and later lived in Hondarribia; the association could not establish exactly when he died.

Investigators learned that Tabese was not the doctor’s original name: he had adopted the name of his clinic for medical practice. His name was Xabier Markina, and he was the father of Judge Markina. The discovery made the medical connection relevant to the inquiry into the alleged ritual leader, although the clinic’s existence and the doctor’s identity do not, on their own, establish the nature of his participation in the groups.

The decade’s afterlife in the investigation

Years later, Amaia’s team reconsidered the reported history alongside a map of infant deaths. In one reconstruction, locations arranged along the Baztán River formed a line from Erratzu through Arraioz, Elbete, and Elizondo, continuing toward Oieregi. The map prompted a different question from whether the deaths clustered around a road: the river itself appeared to organize the pattern. A broader search of towns bordering the river added cases in Elizondo, Oronoz-Mugaire, Narbarte, Doneztebe, and Hondarribia, while older cases—including the girl associated with Argi Beltz, Amaia’s sister, and the child from Lesaka—extended the line across a longer span of time.

The inquiry also found that several affected families had been in poor financial circumstances when their daughters died and experienced improved fortunes afterward. In some cases, relatives had remarked that things would get better from then on. These details made the group’s reported beliefs about offerings and benefit newly significant to the investigators, but remained elements of a developing case rather than proof that the deaths shared a single cause. The 1970s therefore function in the investigation as both a possible origin point for the alleged cult activity and a period whose traces must be tested against later records, testimony, and the geography of the deaths.