Bloody Business Cards

Alfredo Galán was always unremarkable. Born in the small town of Puertollano, Spain, he blended into the background of life. As a child, he showed no remarkable talents or inclinations—he was quiet, introverted, and always on the fringes of every group. His classmates remembered him not for his brilliance or charm, but for his stillness, a silence that few ever questioned.

In high school, he served as class president, but he was never truly connected to his peers. He was a leader only in name, standing at the front of the classroom, speaking in a tone that was polite but distant. His eyes, however, held something more—a kind of vacancy, a coldness, that no one could explain.

When he joined the Spanish Army, Alfredo found a world where structure and control reigned, but it also introduced him to a darker side of himself. He served in Bosnia, witnessing the brutalities of war, and there, something in him clicked. It wasn’t the camaraderie of the soldiers or the thrill of combat—it was the raw power of violence itself. It was the ability to control life and death with a single action.

But when he returned to Spain, the horrors of war didn’t fade. They festered in him, twisting into something darker, more perverse.

It began slowly, like a whisper, building in the recesses of his mind until it consumed him. January 24, 2003, was the day the world would first feel the shadow of his madness. Alfredo stood alone, the cold night air biting at his skin. His target was an ordinary man, Juan Francisco Ledesma, just another passerby in the quiet streets of Madrid.

“Good morning,” Alfredo greeted him, his voice unnervingly calm, before pulling the trigger. The bullet found its mark, and Ledesma fell, dead before his son could even comprehend what had happened.

Alfredo felt no thrill, no rush. Only a strange sense of satisfaction, as though something inside him had finally been put right. But it wasn’t enough. Not yet.

The next killing was different. This time, after the violence, Alfredo left something behind: a symbol. The Ace of Cups—a tarot card—was carefully placed next to the victim's body. The media, always hungry for a story, latched onto this detail. They speculated wildly, calling it a signature, a clue, a piece of some larger puzzle.

But Alfredo was not playing a game for them. The card was a part of something much deeper. It was the beginning of his ritual, a pattern of death that would unfold over the next several months.

As he moved from victim to victim, he felt the terror he instilled grow. And so, with each new killing, he left behind another card—a silent message to the world that he was still in The game .

On February 5, 2003, Alfredo entered Bar Rojas in Alcalá de Henares. Inside, the atmosphere was heavy with the smoke of cigarettes and the low hum of quiet conversations. Alfredo moved through the bar like a shadow, unnoticed, but always watching. He approached Teresa Sánchez García, the bar owner, and without warning, he shot her, sending her to the floor in a sprawl of blood.

Before the panic could truly set in, he turned his gun on her son, Mikel, and then on another victim, Juana Dolores Ucles López. His movements were fluid, practiced, and the room fell silent as the final echo of the shots lingered in the air.

Alfredo left a card on the counter: the Two of Cups. Another clue, another piece in his twisted collection.

As the days passed, Alfredo’s killings grew more calculated. On March 7, he shot Santiago Eduardo Salas in the face, leaving him to bleed out while his companion, Anahid Castillo Ruperti, barely escaped with her life. The card—the Two of Cups—was left behind, as always, symbolizing his growing fixation on this dark game he had created.

By March 18, Alfredo’s rampage had reached a crescendo. In Arganda del Rey, he murdered Gheorghe and Doina Magda as they walked home from work, leaving two more cards—the Three and Four of Cups—beside their bodies.

It was no longer just about the killing. It was about control, power, and the belief that he was the one pulling the strings. The media had dubbed him “The Playing Card Killer,” but Alfredo saw himself as something greater—an artist, a puppeteer, manipulating life and death with a simple flick of his wrist.

By July 3, 2003, Alfredo’s world began to unravel. Drunk and delirious, he walked into a police station and confessed to being the "Playing Card Killer." He spoke with chilling clarity, describing his murders in vivid detail, recounting how he had left the tarot cards as his signature.

But even as he confessed, there was an eerie sense of detachment. He didn’t speak of guilt or remorse—only of the control he had felt in each death.

Despite his drunken confession, the evidence was undeniable. Ballistic tests matched the bullets used in the killings to a Tokarev 7.62-caliber TT-33, a gun he had smuggled from Bosnia.

Alfredo was arrested, but in his mind, the game was far from over. The cards were still with him, haunting him in the dark corners of his cell. He was trapped, but the game he had started had no clear end.

Sentenced to 142 years and three months in prison, Alfredo Galán was locked away. But even behind bars, the shadow of his actions lingered. The cards, once his instruments of death, now became his prison—haunting him in the silence of his cell, whispering in his mind.

For some, the story ended there, but for others, the myth of the Playing Card Killer continued. The cards, some said, still carried a curse—one that would bring doom to anyone who dared to touch them.

Perhaps, in some way, Alfredo’s game had never truly ended. And in the quiet moments, in the darkness of his cell, he would still hear the shuffle of cards—a reminder that even in captivity, the shadow of the killer was never truly gone.