1900

The events of 1900 mark the beginning of the dark history of Salvador Jausa’s house. In July, Jausa, his wife, and Marisela moved into the residence he had commissioned. By August, both women were dead, and the police found Jausa alive but profoundly incapacitated. The investigation offered an account of what had happened, yet the sealed case did not end the story: Jausa’s persistence turned the house into the setting for what he described as a scientific and spiritual experiment.

The Move and the Police Inquiry

The house had been designed to Jausa’s exacting preferences, and its garden included angel statues arranged at six points. Soon after the household moved in, the police encountered a scene of disorder: the walls were bloodstained, the garden statues had been altered, and traces of black candles remained on their pedestals. The inquiry continued for eight months, during which Jausa fell silent.

The Official Explanation and Its Aftermath

Investigators concluded that Marisela had poisoned Jausa and his wife with an herbal extract found in bottles in her rooms. Jausa survived but gradually lost his speech and hearing, became partly paralyzed, and endured severe, lasting pain. The police believed that Marisela had died by suicide after killing the couple. They attributed her actions to jealousy and reported that Jausa’s wife had been pregnant. These conclusions closed the official inquiry, but did not resolve the larger mystery surrounding the household and its home.

The Sealed Case and Jausa’s Continuation

The police and Jausa’s lawyers closed the file, and Barcelona’s upper classes treated the affair as an aberration brought by eccentric, wealthy outsiders. Their confidence that Jausa’s story had ended proved premature. Rather than accept the case’s official conclusion as an end, Jausa sought to continue what he called a scientific and spiritual experiment. The house thus shifted from the object of a criminal inquiry to the setting of an unresolved private undertaking.

The House as an Unfinished Experiment

The sealed inquiry had explained the deaths in the language of a crime, but Jausa refused to let its official closure define what the house meant. He invited Don Ricardo Aldaya, then a wealthy industrialist, to visit the property after Aldaya proposed buying it, demolishing it, and reselling the valuable land. No one had entered since the investigation ended. Inside, Aldaya found that the dark traces of Marisela’s blood still covered the walls and that Jausa had lost his mind. The visit marks a further turn in the house’s history: the site of a police investigation became the private arena for Jausa’s continuing experiment, while the condition of the rooms preserved the violence the closed case could not erase.

The House as an Unfinished Experiment

The sealed inquiry had explained the deaths as a crime, but Jausa refused to let its official closure define the meaning of the house. He invited Don Ricardo Aldaya, then a wealthy industrialist, to visit after Aldaya proposed buying the property, demolishing it, and reselling its increasingly valuable land. No one had entered the house since the investigation ended. Inside, Aldaya found that the walls still bore the dark traces of Marisela’s blood and that Jausa had lost his mind. The visit marked another turn in the house’s history: the scene of a police inquiry had become the private setting for Jausa’s continuing experiment, while its unaltered rooms kept the violence of the case present after the authorities and lawyers had closed it.