On the night of July 1, 1888, a heavy smell began to drift through the corridors of a modest apartment building on Fuencarral Street in Madrid. It was the smell of oil and smoke, but mixed with something else—something that made the doorman run into the street for help. When police forced their way into the second-floor apartment, they found the body of Luciana Bossi. She lay in her bed, her body partially burned, charred rags clinging to her remains.
The room showed signs of fire, but not the damage that a true blaze would have caused. Closer inspection revealed the truth: she had been stabbed three times, once through the heart. The fire had not been an accident. It had been a failed attempt to conceal a murder.
In an adjacent room, the police found the maid, Higinia Balaguer Ostale, unconscious, apparently under the influence of some substance. The widow’s dog had also been silenced. Money and valuables remained in the apartment despite drawers appearing disturbed, which immediately raised doubts about a simple robbery. The scene had been arranged to mislead, suggesting a theft that had gone violently wrong rather than a carefully planned killing.
Luciana Bossi had been born in Vigo, a port city on the Atlantic coast of Galicia, in the late 1830s. She had grown up in the shadow of the First Carlist War, the brutal conflict that erupted in 1833 when King Ferdinand VII died without a son and his daughter Isabella took the throne, opposed by followers of the king’s brother, Don Carlos. The war ended in 1840 with Isabella victorious, but bitter divisions remained. Luciana was not born to wealth or to poverty.
Her family belonged to the modest middle ranks of provincial society, and like many women of her generation, she was expected to secure a good marriage. She married José Vázquez Varela, and the couple moved to Madrid, where she gave birth to a son, José Vázquez Varela Bossi. Widowhood came far earlier than she expected. In 1880s Spain, a widow could legally control her own property, but security depended on prudence and careful management.
Luciana was left to oversee her affairs alone, and in the neighborhood she became known simply as the widow Varela. Her husband had not left her destitute; she lived in a respectable apartment on Fuencarral Street and was regarded as charitable, though strong-willed and strict in temperament. Her only son, known locally as Varelita, had acquired a troubled reputation. He had been imprisoned several times for violence, including striking his own mother and stabbing his girlfriend, Dolores Gutiérrez Robles.
The relationship between mother and son was volatile, and neighbors often reported loud quarrels from the apartment, most of them over money. In June 1888, Luciana hired a new maid, Higinia Balaguer, a thirty-year-old woman with good references. She had previously worked for José Millán Astray, the interim director of the local prison, who described her as reliable and hardworking. Luciana had employed many maids, but few stayed long; many complained of her demanding nature and explosive temper.
Higinia was quiet and efficient and did not draw attention to herself. Initial statements from Higinia offered nothing. She claimed to remember nothing of the crime, a story investigators found impossible to accept given the scene before them. As inquiries deepened, they learned that she had been keeping company with individuals known to the police, people connected with dishonesty and petty theft.
One such person was a woman named Dolores Ávila, who had a reputation for being devious. Higinia then changed her story, claiming a man had entered the apartment and committed the crime. But neither neighbors nor the doorman had seen anyone arrive or depart, and no trace of forced entry was found. Pressed further, she named the supposed intruder as José Vázquez Varela Bossi, Luciana’s own son.
According to Higinia, he had murdered his mother and forced her to help conceal the deed, purchase oil, scrub away bloodstains, and set the fire. The story encountered a serious difficulty. On the night of the murder, José was officially confined in the local prison, charged with stealing a cloak. Yet rumors spread that certain inmates from respectable families were quietly allowed liberties.
The prison director knew Luciana and her family and had recommended Higinia as their maid. Suspicion grew that José might not have spent the entire night behind bars. Higinia then confessed that she herself had stabbed her mistress, though she insisted it had not been deliberate. She said she had accidentally broken a vase, her mistress shouted at her, she became frightened, and without thinking, grabbed a knife and stabbed her.
Investigators remained unconvinced. The evidence pointed to premeditation rather than impulse. The dog had been deliberately drugged, oil purchased beforehand, and the fire set with care. To them, this was a planned murder, likely involving others.
The case consumed Madrid. Newspapers devoted daily columns to every rumor and development, some true, some fabricated. The city divided into factions. The Higinistas believed the maid was innocent or at least less culpable, suspecting José had escaped prison to commit the crime.
The Varelstas defended the son, believing the accusations against him were fueled by class prejudice. Crowds gathered at night outside newspaper offices waiting for fresh editions. The boundary between fact and conjecture blurred entirely. Charges were brought against Higinia Balaguer, José Vázquez Varela Bossi, Dolores Ávila, and José Millán Astray.
The trial did not begin until March 26, 1889, and public interest had not diminished. Spectators queued through the night for entry. Higinia’s defense was entrusted to Nicolás Salmerón, a former president of the First Spanish Republic, whose presence lent the defense credibility and drew further public and political attention. The prosecution laid out a timeline designed to demonstrate premeditation.
Oil had been purchased before the murder. The dog had been sedated. Witnesses described Higinia’s association with Dolores Ávila, who was accused of helping conceal stolen money. The prosecution reminded the court that Higinia’s statements had changed from total ignorance, to an intruder, to the widow’s son, and finally to her own admission.
How, the prosecutor asked, could she possibly be believed? When Higinia took the stand, she admitted stabbing her mistress but framed it as a result of a sudden domestic quarrel, repeating the explanation of the broken vase and a moment of humiliation. Her counsel sought to humanize her, describing a servant under strain, frightened and startled into violence. The case against José Vázquez Varela Bossi weakened as witness testimony proceeded.
Records of his confinement proved difficult to disprove. Though public suspicion remained, there was no proof he had left his cell. Gradually, it became evident there was no solid evidence placing him or José Millán Astray at the scene. On May 25, 1889, the verdict was delivered.
Both women were found guilty. Higinia Balaguer was sentenced to death for robbery and murder. Dolores Ávila was convicted as an accomplice and received eighteen years imprisonment. José Vázquez Varela Bossi and José Millán Astray were acquitted.
Execution did not follow immediately. Appeals extended the process for more than a year. On July 19, 1890, Higinia Balaguer was executed by garrote before a crowd estimated at twenty thousand people. She was the last person to be publicly executed in Madrid.
In her final moments, she cried out the words “Dolores, catorce mil duros. ” The meaning was never conclusively explained. Some believed it referred to stolen money. Others considered it an accusation or a final attempt to implicate another person.
The building on Fuencarral Street gradually receded from daily attention. Urban reforms renumbered it; the infamous 109 later became 95, and a guest house eventually occupied the rooms where Luciana had lived and died. Yet the memory of what happened there in 1888 endured. Two expressions entered popular speech: to be more famous than the crime on Fuencarral Street, and to be like the porter of Fuencarral.
José, though acquitted, did not find a settled life. Years later he was implicated in another suspicious death, involving a woman who fell from a building on Calle de la Montera. He was convicted and spent fourteen years in prison, where he learned photography. Upon release, he opened a studio.
The crime at 109 Fuencarral Street marked a decisive moment in Spanish legal and journalistic culture. It demonstrated how quickly public opinion could be mobilized, how newspapers could write and sometimes distort the truth, and how questions of class, credibility, guilt, and innocence could be argued not only in courts, but in shops, cafés, bars, and homes across Madrid. Though the address has disappeared from Fuencarral Street, what happened there in July 1888 remains a well-known case in Spanish history, still discussed today.