Margarita Landi, the Blonde with the Gun

With a smoking pipe in one hand, a notebook in the other, and a gun in her bag, Margarita Landi was often the first to arrive at crime scenes, sometimes even before the police. For 35 years, she was the most recognizable face of crime journalism in Spain—a woman who stood her ground in a tough man's world, empathized with victims, and kept the darkest details to herself. "When someone has said to me, 'You really sensationalize crimes,' I have been outraged [...] Life doesn't need the slightest bit of fantasy; it can offer much more than the human mind can imagine. The difficult part for a reporter is to keep all that quiet," Landi once wrote. Her unique life has been explored by writers Javier Velasco Oliaga and Maudy Ventosa in their book 'Margarita Landi. The Blonde with the Veil and the Gun' (Alianza).

Born in Madrid on November 19, 1918, María de la Encarnación Margarita Isabel (as she was christened) was the daughter of Alfredo Verdugo Landi from Málaga and Leonor Díez Gallego from Bilbao. She was a special child with the gift of speaking to ghosts, as she recalled. But her life took a tragic turn at age seven when her mother died; she became the maid of her father's mistress and experienced "abandonment and injustice" for the first time. The post-war years were also marked by poverty until journalism came into her life.

Her first notes were written in 1948 for 'La moda de España' magazine, where she mingled with aristocracy at parties and cocktails of the era. But a theft changed her destiny. "I feel immense gratitude towards the thief who broke into the house of the Marquise of Manzanedo and stole her valuable pearl necklace because it opened doors to a world I didn't know and would be mine from that moment," she recounted. Her coverage of that incident caught the eye of 'El Caso's' director. Initially juggling fashion and crime reporting, by 1953 Landi chose to focus on Spain's darkest weekly publication.

During Franco's regime, 'El Caso' was a unique publication permitted to reveal miseries that supposedly did not exist under Francoism. It was within its pages that Margarita Landi thrived, earning the trust of police officers. They nicknamed her 'Sub-inspector Pedrito' to discreetly inform her when someone else was present and watched her arrive in her black Volkswagen Karmann Ghia—another reason she was called 'The Blonde with the Sports Car.' Armed with a 7.65 mm Beretta pistol, Landi claimed she learned to handle weapons (including hand grenades) during the Civil War.

However, Landi did not seek gruesome stories at any cost. She understood that behind every crime were two broken families: that of the victim and that of the perpetrator who would spend many years behind bars. She always carried a veil for funerals. After leaving 'El Caso,' she moved to 'Interviú,' where she maintained her direct, sharp, and ironic style. A pop culture figure thanks to her TV appearances in the 90s, where her image with a pipe became iconic, she passed away on February 6, 2004, at 85 years old. She left behind a son, Ángel, who died exactly ten years after her, and an extraordinary life.