Francisco Rodríguez Betancort's family documents search for remains

The family of Francisco Rodríguez Betancort, the last Republican mayor of Los Llanos de Aridane, has documented the long search for his remains following his assassination during the Spanish Civil War in 1936. After being buried in a mass grave in Pino del Consuelo, Fuencaliente, his descendants conducted clandestine searches in the 1990s that eventually led to a pioneering judicial intervention in Spain.

New research for the upcoming documentary ‘Consuelo 94’ has uncovered judicial files, forensic reports, and previously unreleased recordings. These documents detail a scientific process involving a judge and a forensic doctor to recover and individualize remains, treating them as individuals rather than a mass of bones. This procedure is noted as a significant historical precedent for exhumations in the region.