Elena Ochoa’s death was ruled a suicide by ingestion of sharp objects, yet her autopsy revealed an extraordinary quantity of walnut shells inside her digestive tract. The findings made the official classification difficult to reconcile with the physical evidence and turned the examination into a source of new uncertainty for Amaia Salazar’s investigation.

The autopsy ruling

Inspector Iriarte called Amaia after the autopsy was complete. Forensic Doctor San Martín had classified the death as suicide by ingestion of sharp objects. Iriarte described the examination as the most impressive he had witnessed, and said the conclusion had been troubling even for the forensic doctor. The ruling named a cause and manner of death, but the findings Iriarte relayed immediately complicated that account.

The walnut shells

Walnut shells were visible in Ochoa’s vomit, and some remained in her stomach. The more startling discovery was farther along: her intestines were packed with shells, with no pieces of walnut fruit among them. Iriarte described the intestinal contents as if they had been forced inside mechanically. The shells had torn the tissue in places, perforating the intestinal wall and reaching surrounding organs.

The extent of the damage gave the finding a precise, disturbing scale. Seven metres of small intestine and another metre and a half of large intestine were filled with shells; the intestines had expanded to roughly twice their size. The forensic doctor reportedly found it remarkable that the intestinal walls had not ruptured completely. These details established the severity of the physical condition, but did not explain how the shells had entered the body.

Amaia’s response and the unresolved method

As Iriarte described the autopsy, Amaia felt a migraine strike and connected her reaction with the letter from Ochoa that she had been holding. The letter slipped from her hands into the footwell of the car during the call. She asked whether the shells could have been implanted or packed into Ochoa’s body, but the account of the call provides no confirmed answer. The distinction matters: the autopsy exposed an abnormality on a massive scale, while the available findings did not establish the method by which it had been produced.

Forensic uncertainty in the wider inquiry

Elsewhere in Amaia’s investigation, sudden infant death syndrome is described as a diagnosis made when an autopsy finds no other cause for an unexpected death during sleep. Historical cases in Navarra included four deaths in Baztán over five years; all had been classified as sudden infant death after autopsy, although two prompted later social-services inquiries that apparently closed without further developments. A forensic doctor also recalled two apparently healthy girls whose autopsies had not disclosed evidence of unnatural death, while noting that the parents’ conduct had raised concerns. These cases are not identified as findings from Ochoa’s autopsy; they show the wider inquiry’s recurring tension between formal classifications and troubling details that those classifications did not resolve.