It was early in the morning. In one of the rooms of the Decanos de Ávila nursing home, a special guest slept: Encarnación Polo Oliva (Seville, 86 years old). It had been years since anyone had called her Encarnita, the stage name with which she broke the mold of the copla, with a miniskirt, short hair and bangs in the puritan Francoist Spain of the 1960s. He sat in the canteen and greeted relatives who went to visit his parents, grandparents and siblings. Some knew who she was, but others only suspected, from the way she sat and waved, that this woman sharing a dinner tray on the outskirts of town had seen far more of the world than those windows showed.
In the night between last Thursday and Friday, a 66-year-old man, who had not been in the center for two days, broke into her room, according to police investigations, and strangled her. His body was buried Saturday at a funeral home in Avila, while some visited their loved ones in the center without saying a word. Not a single celebrity appeared in the walled city. And his death was immersed in silence and mystery, as if no folklore had died here.
He had been living in Decanos de Ávila since February, say sources from the company that manages this private residence for the elderly, DomusVi. A center with 190 places. He had moved to the city some time ago, after the pandemic, because his daughter, Raquel Waitzman, lives here.
On his tombstone rests a wreath of flowers from the Association of Relatives of Alzheimer’s Patients of Ávila. Also white roses and daisies from the AIE Artistic Society.
Waitzman asked in a statement Friday evening that the privacy of his grief be respected and warned that there would be no public statements. And his funeral, under a downpour in Avila, was attended by only a few acquaintances, in addition to his daughter and one of his closest friends, Antonio Albella, from the extinct Locomía group. If a neighbor passed by without having turned on the television or radio, he would not suspect that he was greeting one of the last precursors of the copla yeyé. Although I could sing some of his hits by heart like Paco, Paco, Paco.
The well-known television host José Manuel Parada complained this Saturday from Jerez about the 600 kilometers that separated him from the body of one of his best friends. “I found out last night at dawn, because I was at an event all day and couldn’t look at my phone, I’m still in shock. How could it have such a tragic and sad ending! “he told this newspaper in a telephone conversation.
“When I moved to Madrid many years ago, to start my career, Encarnita was my only family,” he said. “I spoke to her a couple of months ago, she was fine, I found her in a good moment, she told me about her pains and joys, we remember many beautiful things that we experienced together”, recalled the presenter, who lamented the silent farewell to a “great of Spanish music”. “In Spain it seems that we do not know how to bury our people, it is not well understood that the death of figures like her transcends the privacy of the family,” he underlined.
Polo had been out of the spotlight for more than a decade. She survived breast cancer, was defrauded of around 70,000 euros due to preference fraud and won the Bankia trial. Other media then published how the interpreter had had to pawn jewels. Not only was it little known, but it was in ruins. Only a peak of glory in 2009 served to revive his image: a viral video on YouTube, his song Paco, Paco, Pacowith the video clip of Beyoncé and Single Ladies in the background. Although she removed her name again and was heard again by more than three million people who never imagined she would do it again, it wasn’t enough. And in 2015 he complained in an interview with the ABC newspaper about the severe hangover after a few years of glory. “The television networks don’t pay, they want it to go free and this takes away my enthusiasm,” he acknowledged.
The man accused of suffocating her in her room is hospitalized in the ward of the psychiatric hospital in Ávila, according to sources in the Government Sub-delegation. The company that runs the center claims he has no evidence of previous violent behavior and that he is not considered a psychiatric patient. As they explain, he was in the process of adapting to the drug. He had only been there two days and was waiting for the medical and psychological team to “assess some adjustments.” “He had no relationship” with Encarnita, the same sources insist. They didn’t even share a room. The Junta de Castilla y León declined to provide any information on the crime, claiming it occurred over the weekend.
According to the account of the facts described by police sources, on the night between Thursday and Friday, the man left his room and entered the one occupied by Encarnita Polo. He pounced on her while she was in bed and suffocated her, they say, according to the testimony of the guards, who heard the noises and ran into the room. There they found Polo no longer breathing and the man above her, the same sources say. They tried to resuscitate her, but there was nothing else they could do.
Why the resident decided to chase Encarnita as soon as he entered the center is still a mystery.
This Saturday, in front of the door of the residence, Charo Práxedes went to visit, amazed, her 91-year-old brother. You couldn’t believe that something like this could have happened in the apparent calm of this place located in a chalet area on the outskirts of Ávila. “No one says anything, everyone prefers not to comment, there is absolute silence,” commented Práxedes upon leaving the visit of his brother, who claims to have discovered nothing.
About six kilometers away, there were no cameras or microphones in front of the door of the Isabelo Álvarez funeral home. Only a sign at the entrance warned passers-by that a mass would be celebrated there in honor of Doña Encarna Polo Oliva. The discretion requested by the family had been strictly followed. Even in the cemetery, where a dozen flower crowns remind you of Encarnita only if you get close. To find his gravestone you have to look at a much less discreet one, filled with blue and white roses, a floral sculpture of a heart that says “I love you,” which is not for Polo, but which is on its side and belongs to a young man killed months ago. There, in its shadow, lies Encarnita Polo, the last folklore.
