The Murder of Eva Blanco

Eva Blanco Puig

Eva Blanco Puig was a 17-year-old student from Algete, in the Madrid region. On April 20, 1997, she was returning home after spending the evening with friends. Her body was found the following morning near the municipality with evidence of a violent death and sexual assault.

The crime produced one of Spain's best-known long-running forensic investigations. Investigators preserved biological evidence that would become decisive only after DNA technology and analytical methods advanced considerably.

An investigation lasting eighteen years

The Guardia Civil pursued many investigative lines over the years. Early assumptions focused heavily on people close to Eva, but those approaches did not identify a prosecutable suspect. Investigators collected large numbers of voluntary DNA samples and continued re-examining the biological evidence as laboratory techniques improved.

The Guardia Civil later described citizen cooperation and new laboratory analysis as decisive. A technique that could estimate biogeographic ancestry from DNA narrowed the search toward a man of North African origin who had been in Algete around the time of the murder.

The DNA breakthrough

Investigators found close genetic relationships through samples supplied during the inquiry, enabling them to focus on Ahmed Chelh Gerj, a Moroccan-born Spanish citizen who had previously lived in Algete and had later moved to France.

French authorities arrested Chelh on October 1, 2015 under a European arrest warrant. After he was transferred to Spain, a direct DNA comparison matched his genetic profile to biological material recovered from Eva's body, according to the Guardia Civil investigation and contemporary reporting.

Charges, not a conviction

Chelh was held in pretrial detention and was investigated for unlawful detention, sexual assault and murder. This procedural posture is critical: he was a formally accused suspect, not a person convicted after trial.

He denied killing Eva. On January 15, 2016, during a judicial appearance, he offered an alternative explanation for the biological evidence. The court process had not reached a trial or verdict, and Crime by Region does not present that explanation as established fact or the prosecution's case as a final judicial finding.

Death before trial

On January 29, 2016, Chelh was found dead in his cell at Madrid II prison in Alcalá-Meco. Penitentiary authorities reported the death as suicide. The investigating court requested information about the circumstances and the suicide-prevention measures that had previously been applied.

The timing meant that the criminal accusations could never be adjudicated at trial. That same day, the investigating judge had moved the long-running investigation toward formal proceedings against him.

The case was archived

On February 15, 2016, the investigating judge formally archived the murder case after receiving Chelh's death certificate. Spanish criminal law extinguishes criminal responsibility upon the death of the accused. The closure therefore resulted from the defendant's death, not from a conviction, acquittal or judicial finding that the prosecution evidence was insufficient.

This is why the page is classified as Unresolved Judicially / Suspect Identified by DNA. Police publicly described the investigation as having identified the author, and the DNA evidence was strong enough to support formal prosecution, but no criminal court rendered a final verdict.

Current status

The investigation is historically regarded as a major Spanish cold-case DNA breakthrough. Yet the legal record remains different from an adjudicated murder conviction. For editorial accuracy, the site preserves both facts at once: investigators identified and processed a DNA-linked suspect, while the murder charge ended without trial because that suspect died in custody.