On 24 January 2003, Galán shot 50-year-old Juan Francisco Ledesma in the head in front of his 2-year-old son.[1] On 5 February, the body of 28-year-old airport cleaner Juan Carlos Martín Estacio was found shot in the head. An ace of cups was left nearby.[2] Later the same day, Galán entered Bar Rojas in Alcalá de Henares and shot 3 people: the bar owner, 38-year-old Teresa Sánchez García survived multiple gunshots; her 18-year-old son Mikel Jiménez Sánchez and 57-year-old customer Juana Dolores Ucles López were killed. On 7 March 2003, 27-year-old Santiago Eduardo Salas was shot in the face by Galán, but survived. Salas's friend, 29-year-old Anahid Castillo Ruperti, was able to escape unharmed. A two of cups was dropped at the scene.[1][3] On the evening of 18 March 2003, Galán shot and killed 40-year-olds Gheorgi Magda and his wife Diona, a Romanian couple, in Arganda del Rey in Madrid as they walked home from work.[4][5] Galán left two more tarot cards — the three and four of cups — at the scene. It was not originally his intention for playing cards to be his "signature". He only began leaving cards after the media sensationalized the fact that a card had been found by a victim's body.[4]
Aftermath
On 3 July 2003, while severely inebriated, Galán surrendered at a police station and confessed to being "The Playing Card Killer." His confession included details about pen markings on the cards that were not public. Upon sobering up, he recanted, but ballistics irrefutably linked spent cartridges in his residence to the murders. It was reported that in some of the murders, Galán had wished his victims good morning and ordered them to kneel before shooting them.[1] He killed his victims with a Tokarev 7.62-caliber TT-33 that he had bought while he was in the army in Bosnia.[5][3] He smuggled the gun into Spain by hiding it in a television set.[3]
He will be released in 2028 after 25 years in prison. [1]