Hairdresser Murdered with a Hammer and a Disturbing Lipstick Message on His Mirror

"For meddling with other people's women." Alfredo Fernández's epitaph was written in lipstick by his own killer. A phrase etched on the mirror in his room, beside his body, in a flat that became a scene of horror. The chilling message was the thread the police pulled to try to solve what became known as the 'Avilés hairdresser murder' in Asturias. Twenty-five years later, the murder in Asturias remains a mystery. During the investigation, the National Police even arrested a colleague from the Asturias Superior Police Headquarters as the perpetrator. The officer was tried and acquitted by a popular jury. His handwriting matched—or didn't, depending on the course of events—with the message left by the killer after suffocating the hairdresser with a plastic bag and bludgeoning his head with a hammer.

The crime took place on April 29, 1999. That night, the hairdresser's widow, Purificación Rodríguez, returned home after closing her bridal shop in Oviedo. Upon opening the door of the flat at 79 La Cámara Street in Avilés, she discovered "the scene of a real massacre," as noted in the reports.

Blood splatters throughout the hallway, broken furniture, bloody handprints all over the house... And at the end, in one of the rooms, a body with a head covered by a plastic bag tied with a clothesline rope. Next to it, the phrase, written in lipstick on the sliding wardrobe mirror doors.

Alfredo Fernández was 58 years old at the time and had run a hairdressing salon in the Buenavista neighbourhood of Avilés for decades, at 21 Río San Martín Street.

With an affable and open character, honed over thousands of hours attending to his clients, he was well-known in the city. His violent death caused a real shock. It also sparked comments about his character. Once buried, speculation began in the town about the motive for the crime. The phrase on the mirror, suggesting a romantic issue, did not quell the embers. Nor did the fact that time passed without any arrests. All were conjectures. Assumptions. Suspicions. Suppositions... But no certainty.

One of the few certainties the investigators had was that the crime scene had been meticulously cleaned. The forensic inspection by the Scientific Police was fruitless. Only half a print was detected in a pool of blood in the hallway, although it was a partial silhouette of the heel and led nowhere. Nor did the print found on a bathroom tap. Initially, the discovery of the evidence was hopeful, but the disappointment was immense when it was found to belong to the forensic scientist who had attended the removal of the body. He had removed his gloves to wash his hands and left his trace at the scene.

The rest of the house was clean. Even the bag the killer placed over the hairdresser's head. Nothing, not a hint of biological traces. After subjecting the plastic to cyanoacrylate vapours and making it react to try to obtain some trace, they found nothing. Nor on the hammer (the murder weapon) or the rope used to secure the bag to the head, tools the killer apparently improvised, taken from the home itself. There was no clue to pursue through the laboratory. The task then was to piece together the victim's life.

One of the mysteries left by the investigation was determining whether the killer had keys to enter or if the victim himself opened the door. It was not forced, nor were there signs of forced entry. There were no organic traces on the doorbell or the lock... Did Alfredo know his executioner? Was the lipstick inscription a decoy to try to divert attention elsewhere?

As in all investigations, the police started with those closest. In this case, the widow. Alfredo and Purificación had been living separate lives for some time. She was very focused on her business in Oviedo, he on his hairdressing salon, they slept in separate rooms, saw each other little and got along well. Neither had shown their surroundings that there was any problem between them. She had an alibi on the day of the events. Moreover, the crime scene made it evident that whoever killed Alfredo had a certain stature and strength superiority. That avenue was quickly dismissed.

All the efforts made by the National Police proved fruitless. In Avilés, the passage of time dampened the comments about the crime. Other events in the town meant that the crime of Alfredo was less and less brought up. His hairdressing salon in Buenavista attracted less and less attention, less interest. The news was different, and the hairdresser had less and less prominence in conversations. Except for the investigators.

In 2003, the Asturias Superior Police Headquarters decided to resume the investigations. To review the entire case in search of some thread to pull. Of the little they had, if not the only thing, was the phrase written on the mirror: "For meddling with other people's women," in capitals and with a characteristic shape in the 's's. That was the avenue they focused on. As the investigators themselves later explained during the trial, they reviewed 50,000 ID card issuance records in Avilés and other towns in the region. A supposedly meticulous work by handwriting experts. The major surprise came in April 2004. A few days before the fifth anniversary of the hairdresser's murder, the police arrested a colleague, stationed at the Avilés Police Station, whose handwriting supposedly matched the message left by the killer on the mirror.

Comments returned to the town. Then came those from the security forces, where the news of the officer's arrest caused real astonishment. Stationed in the armoury, he was well-known among his colleagues for his union activity. He was a person who had never caused any problems and was not known to have any disagreements with the hairdresser. Neither with the hairdresser nor with anyone, apart from the friction related to his work from the union for the improvement of police working conditions.

From the beginning, he categorically denied the facts. He denied being the author of the graffiti that incriminated him and also denied knowing the victim. He only later acknowledged that his ex-wife had told him that when she passed by Alfredo's hairdressing salon, he would make lewd remarks. Such a supposed revenge of this magnitude for some unfortunate comments seemed excessive. Although the criminal mind often does not understand proportionality.

He admitted that his wife had told him that the hairdresser made her feel uncomfortable. He also acknowledged that his handwriting might match that of the killer, but he pointed out: "In school, they taught us to write like this, many people write very similarly. I was not in that house." The judicial process advanced after several dismissals during the investigation phase. Finally, the police officer sat in the dock of the Provincial Court years later.

A popular jury judged him. The prosecution did not present charges, considering that the existing evidence against him was insufficient to consider his guilt. The two accusations, one by the widow and the other by the victim's parents, sought a 25-year prison sentence for the crime of murder. One of these accusations was represented by lawyer Antonio Masip, former mayor of Oviedo and later a member of the European Parliament.

"I didn't kill Alfredo, I didn't know him at all, I didn't even know who he was," declared the accused, who claimed that on the day of the crime he had been caring for his mother, who suffers from Alzheimer's. He reiterated his innocence and asked the jury members for his acquittal. The doubt was raised by his ex-wife, who in her testimony as a witness recounted that he had been quite upset when she told him that the hairdresser made comments when she passed by the salon, although she noted that this episode had occurred long ago, in 1996.

Also testifying in the trial were the experts who conducted the handwriting report on which his arrest was based, as well as the defence expert, Tomás Martín Sanchez, who had been involved in high-profile judicial proceedings such as El Nani, the Gal, Anabel Segura, the Kios Towers, or Filesa. He denied that the phrase on the mirror had been written by the detained police officer and detailed a series of specifics and characteristics that ultimately convinced several jury members regarding the main evidence against him. The verdict was in his favour.

And also the subsequent ruling of the Asturias Superior Court of Justice (TSJA): in dubio pro reo, in case of doubt, in favour of the defendant. The accused police officer was acquitted. But he never returned to work in the security forces, preferring to put distance and change sectors.

The Avilés hairdresser murder remains unsolved 25 years later. For the National Police, the investigation led them to believe that the person who sat in the dock was the perpetrator of the violent act. For the justice system, it was not. The hairdressing salon in question remains intact, suspended in time, just as Alfredo left it on the day he was killed "for meddling with other people's women."