What Murder By The Coast Failed To Tell You About The True Story
While the true crime genre has engaged people for more than 60 years, going back to Truman Capote's best-selling "In Cold Blood" in 1966, the topic continues to fascinate. In book titles alone, the category soared from 976,000 print copies in 2016 to 1.6 million in 2018, according to Publisher's Weekly.
Fans can also devour the many podcasts and movies that cover murder and mayhem, including Netflix's recent documentary, "Murder By the Coast," which tells the story two murdered teens: 19-year-old Rocia Wanninkof and Sonia Carabantes, 17.
Wanninkof was supposed to meet friends at a carnival in 1999, went missing, and her remains were discovered 25 days later, about 30 kilometers away from her hometown in La Cala de Mijas, Spain, recounted Decider. Eventually, her mother's former girlfriend, Dolores "Loli" Vázquez, was convicted despite claiming her innocence and without physical evidence. During the trial, she was cast as a "dominant" and "predatory" lesbian, according to the Mirror, and the narrative convinced the jury she was responsible. But there was more to the story.
Life after prison
Then, in 2003, Carabantes vanished under similar circumstances. DNA at the crime scene indicated that sex offender Tony Alexander King was responsible for Carabantes' killing. It also matched DNA collected during the Wanninkhof investigation.
The documentary, directed by Tánia Balló, details the two disappearances and the media circus that Vázquez's trial became through newsreels, past footage and interviews. Balló only tells the story up to a 2013 Madrid press conference, but Screenrant offers that Vázquez's story and the consequences of the false accusation go further than that.
Vázquez (pictured above) experienced more than 500 days in jail before the new evidence freed her. She moved to the United Kingdom, joining her sister there. She got a job as a coordinator for a transport company, according to El Pais. Vázquez still suffers from the false accusation. She never received compensation for her lost time in prison or an apology from those who prosecuted her. She moved back to Spain in 2017 and currently lives in Betanzos (top photo).
The documentary "Murder By the Coast" is now streaming on Netflix.