As every day, on May 7, 1980, María José Bravo and Javier Rueda, neighbors of Loiola, 16, attended the Asepeyo clinic of Madrid Avenue to cure a burn in the work of Rueda. However, that day was no other, as while they were sitting on the Paseo de Zorroaga they were assaulted.

The family of Olaia Rueda (Loiola, 1984) has lived this event very closely, as he was the brother of his father, Javier, and his mother, Bravo. This is how Rueda told the event: “My uncle Javier had amnesia. The only thing he remembered was that, after turning around the Vaina, they sat down, lit a cigarette, and all of a sudden, María José turned his head and screamed. Supposedly, they hit his uncle's head, we don't know what, and believing he was dead, they threw him down the hillside."

According to Rueda, his uncle woke up "with the rain" and, as he could, climbed the hillside, with his head completely bloody. A man who was walking saw her and took her to the nuns' residence, close to her, and then transferred to the hospital. Rueda explained that in the vicinity of the scene of the attack there was a house and that there are "several contradictions" about it: “We’ve always thought they had seen something, but they were threatened. One of the contradictions is that the family saw his uncle and called him to the residence, where the nuns waited for him on arrival. When they asked their relatives, they said they had seen Javier, but they believed that he was running and that he had a mercadromina in his head.”

Javier was admitted to the ICU hospital and the parents of the two youths filed a complaint for sexual assault. Many neighbors sought Bravo, but they did not find him. At noon the next day, Radio San Sebastian said Bravo was alive and his parents received a phone call, an unknown voice told them: “Hello, Mom, don’t you know me? I’m your daughter, Dad, I’m in Amara, in the Plaza de las Armerías.” The National Police found Bravo's lifeless body this afternoon, near the place where Javier's awakening occurred. Bravo was naked from the waist down, and the autopsy confirmed that he was raped and beaten in the head so he was slightly injured.

The far-right police group Spanish Basque Battallon took over the murder and, seeing that Javier was alive, threatened him and his family with the murder of a police officer. Rueda recalls that the neighbors supported the family: “They started to call the hospital and the neighbors started to be on guard; even when my uncle was at my grandparents’ house they continued to be on guard.” Likewise, Rueda explained that the officers of the Municipal Police went on numerous occasions to the location of Javier: "When his uncle left the hospital, he went home to many policemen, forcing him to make the journey of the event. Supposedly, they did it by trying to solve the case, but they wanted to drive it crazy. Eventually one of my aunts went to the Civil Government and told them that they would no longer take Javier. They themselves said that they had to keep on researching, “perhaps because it was ETA.”

After the murder, there was a massive demonstration departing from the centre of Bilbao to Loiola, and at the end of the day the police went against the demonstrators. “At María José’s house, for example, smoke pots were thrown. Police charges are not understood because it was a peaceful demonstration,” Rueda stressed. Bravo's relatives also asked the police to bring his clothes to him, but were informed that they had been lost.

The family, marked forever

Javier had made an almost normal life for a few years, but his head died and died almost eight years later.

Thus, the event forever marked the family, “there was no talk, but it was always a theme around us, a silence that screamed,” Rueda stressed. He also explains that each one has brought pain in a way: “Grandma, for example, was always crying behind the door and kissing the photos; then I learned that she wanted to talk about it. His grandfather, though, didn't talk about it, he had it very far inside. As for my aunts, one of them ended up crying when the subject came out, and the other one wanted to talk, but, of course, I couldn't. My father has taken her with anger, had and still hates a lot. We are three sisters and we were talking to each other, because it was a theme that you saw. Our mother also told us a few things, but few. In addition, he has always let us do everything, but he wanted to know at all times where we were and how we would return.” “I think what I am, to a large extent, is because of what has happened,” added Rueda.

Rueda has insisted that we have to change that Bravo and Javier are not yet considered victims: “At least it wouldn’t be wrong for him to be considered a victim.” On the other hand, according to Rueda, the family has never understood why they faced the 16-year-old couple: “It’s clear to us that it wasn’t by chance, because they always did the same way. There are no culprits and there will never be; they may be alive, but the case will not open up to anyone.”