The Murder at Ermita de la Trinitat
The true story about Saint Cecile & The Three Coins
On the evening of April 7th, 1872, Cecile de Marie was raped, murdered, and mutilated by one of the monks of Ermita de la Trinitat on her way home along the Moro trail between Valldemossa and Deia.
Miss Cecile worked as a young maid at the Bauzà estate in Deia and knew the trail that took her from her family home in Valldemosa, past the chapel, and down through the forest beneath the north side of the Talaia Peak, by heart. Every morning, through winter and rain, mud and snow, or beneath the burning summer sun, she carried the basket her mother prepared with bread, cheese, and olives, and every evening she returned with daily supplies from the local market.
The young monk Ernesto Sanches had been placed in the monastery as a favor from the Abbott to his father, Señor Mateo Sanches, who had grown impatient with the young boy’s incapability of choosing a craft.
Señor Sanches, a beloved stonemason at the time, refused to watch his son take over the masonry with neither interest nor skill. And after helping the monks repair the eastern wall, he allegedly pledged to the Abbott to relieve him of these painful thoughts and offer his son the firm hand of the secluded monastery.
