A mother in Spain is using her late daughter’s private journal to pursue an investigation into a years-old sexual assault that was never solved.
Yolanda Ramos received the diary from her 25-year-old daughter, Noelia Castillo Ramos, on the day Noelia died by euthanasia in a Barcelona hospital in March.
The journal details a gang rape Noelia endured at age 21 in Salou, in Tarragona province, along with accounts of other sexual assaults she survived.
Before her death, Noelia had spoken publicly on television about multiple assaults, including a gang rape at a nightclub, but she never identified the perpetrators.
Spanish authorities have never named any suspects in connection with the attacks.
After reading the diary, Ramos said she gained a fuller understanding of her daughter’s suffering and filed formal complaints to seek accountability.
The diary describes meeting a waiter in Salou, being drugged and given alcohol, and raped by three men.
“Noelia spoke about the rapes on television, and on the very day she died, she gave me her diary. When I read it, I understood many things,” Ramos said in a recorded statement about the complaints.
Spain’s euthanasia law allows assisted dying for adults with serious, chronic, and disabling conditions that cause unbearable suffering.
Noelia became paraplegic in 2022 after jumping from a fifth-floor building in a suicide attempt linked to trauma from the assault.
Her father challenged the euthanasia in Spanish courts and appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, arguing her judgment was impaired by borderline personality disorder and the effects of the assaults.
Courts ruled that Noelia had the mental capacity to choose euthanasia.
Three days before her death, Noelia said, “I simply want to go in peace and stop suffering.”
“The happiness of a father, a mother, or a sister cannot take precedence over the happiness of a daughter,” she added.
