Rafael Escuredo has been pacing around the Segura family’s living room for hours. As a close friend of wealthy businessman José Segura Nájera, Escuredo took on the responsibility as the mediator between the Seguras, and the men who kidnapped their 22 year old daughter, Anabel.
The premise of “900 Days Without Anabel” is not too far from your average crime case: in the 1990s, a young woman was jogging alone until a white van approached and took her away. The kidnappers then proceed to taunt the family and ask for absurd amounts of ransom money (in this case, 150 million Spanish pesetas) through telephone calls in exchange for her return.
What really makes it unique, however, was the sheer amount of national attention the crime case received from the media, and the emotional impact Anabel’s story had on others. Ranging from marches in protest, to live television, Anabel Segura’s name and face were plastered all across Spain for over two years, which makes the case special from others.
The three-part docuseries aims to highlight the true story of Anabel’s kidnapping through various interviews, real audio clips, and scene reenactments. I watched the series in both its original, Spanish audio, and its English dub. I highly recommend watching the whole thing through in its original language, as the English dub tended to feel flat and robotic in tone.
“900 Days Without Anabel” Ratings by Shayna Migalang
I was impressed by how the directors were able to obtain quotes from the actual investigators; you could really feel the connection they had with Anabel, even almost 30 years after the case was solved. But with several mentions of Escuredo and Segura Nájera, I was also expecting them to make an appearance. I was able to piece together that they were either dead (Segura Nájera) or unable to make an appearance (Escuredo) at the time of filming, but a quick mention of this would’ve left me less confused.
At the beginning of each episode, a chunk of text reveals that each phone call played is the real audio from the kidnappers and Escuredo, and that it would be the first time these recordings would be released to the public. It was exciting as a viewer to hear the real audio, and as the series continued, I felt more and more absorbed in wanting to figure out who was behind those unknown voices.
The camera work is a bit stereotypical and much like your average true crime documentary, but there’s a reason why that is. There’s your typical close ups of evidence files and detectives hard at work, but they break it up through its timeline reenactments. My favorite scene was during a ransom collection, where the zoomed out angles and lack of brightness slowly built suspense over time. It felt like borderline horror, which was a change of tone that I accepted with open arms.
Despite these highlights, one of my biggest complaints about the series was its pacing. The title “900 Days Without Anabel” implies two and a half years full of riveting twists and turns. However, by the start of the third and final episode, the viewers had only reached around day 70. This made the final episode feel rushed despite not much going on in the case at that point. Additionally, the title already spoils the fact that this case was solved, leaving two possibilities: she’s alive, or she’s dead. The combination of these two flaws from the title alone made the overall ending to Anabel’s story to be quite anticlimactic. It left me wondering if three one-hour long episodes– as opposed to one whole documentary– were really necessary to cover it.
I highly encourage everyone wanting to watch this docuseries to go in with as much of a blind eye as possible. It isn’t bad by any means, the storytelling was intricate and my emotions ran high while watching it, which is why I’m hesitant to give a lower rating. If true crime is your thing, then you’ll definitely get a kick out of the docuseries as it’s a story you’ve most likely never heard before. Otherwise? You might be better off spending five minutes reading the Wikipedia article for this case instead.
