Manhunt for son after police rescue elderly woman from living among dead cats and squalor in Bilbao

An 84-year-old woman has been admitted to Basurto hospital in a seriously weakened physical and psychological condition after police in Spain's Basque Country region found her locked in a room in her farmhouse in Bilbao. The woman was being held hostage, living among rubbish, excrement and dead cats, by her 60-year-old son, I.A.A., whose whereabouts are unknown. The man has a criminal record and is under investigation for the crimes of detention, abandonment of a family member and animal abuse.

According to sources, I.A.A.'s neighbours have been living in fear. He was tried for the murder of a young man on Monte Pagasarri in January 1996, but he was acquitted. He has also been accused of attempted murder for chopping off a young man's finger with an axe in January 2021. His criminal record contains other violent acts.

The Ertzaintza police are currently trying to locate him so that he can be tried for the crimes committed against his own mother. The Basque Country security forces received a worrying call on 14 October, in which a worried neighbour told them that he and other neighbours had not seen the elderly woman for several months. The shutters of her room had not moved that whole time and they feared that something might have happened to her.

The police went to the scene and surrounded the house. Nobody answered when they rang the doorbell, but they heard screams coming from the back of the house. As they approached the window, they heard an elderly woman calling for help. "I can't get up," she said. She was also repeating disjointed phrases, which led the police to assume that she had some kind of senile dementia.

The house had a stable, the external area of which was covered in a layer of cow droppings, as well as dead and rotting cats and birds. Fearing that the woman's life might be in danger, the police entered the house. Inside, they found an accumulation of objects. The stench made breathing impossible. The old woman was living among rubbish, faeces and pools of urine. There were also half a dozen dogs kept in deplorable conditions. The animals had wounds and tears and were barking out of fear.

At the back of the house, the police saw a door tied with a rope, as if to prevent whoever was inside from getting out. Once they cut it and entered, they discovered the old woman. Had they not intervened, the woman could have died within days. She was lying on a mattress, with furniture strewn across the floor preventing her from moving. She was surrounded by waste, faeces and urine.

An ambulance was mobilised to the scene. The woman was taken to Basurto hospital, where she will be treated for the physical ailments caused by having been bedridden for a long time. She was found with ulcers all over her body and, as the police suspected, probably suffers from some form of dementia. Once she recovers, she will be taken to a nursing home.

The police have not been able to find the perpetrator. They suspect that he may have fled upon seeing the police arrive at the house. The investigation remains open. In the meantime, several of the dogs found in the house have been taken to the municipal shelter.