Carmen Broto Buil

María del Carmen Brotons Buil, more commonly known as Carmen Broto (9 April 1922 – 11 January 1949), was a Spanish prostitute whose murder shocked Spanish society in the late 1940s. At the time of her death members of the establishment were implicated in her murder. Some sources indicate that the speculation that powerful people were involved in her death resulted in an abbreviated inquiry to her murder. Carmen Broto was nicknamed Cascabeles.

On the afternoon of January 10, 1949, Manau called Broto to say he was about to marry his girlfriend Pepita and move to Mallorca, but he wanted to spend one last night partying with her. Viñas panicked and hit Broto on the head with a heavy wooden mallet. As Broto fought her aggressor, Manau stopped the car, and Broto took the opportunity to escape. She had barely taken a few steps before falling unconscious, and her assailants dragged her back into the vehicle. They immediately drove to the garden in Calle Legalidad, the agreed place to meet Manau's father, checked that she was dead, took her jewelry, and buried her. leading to speculation of Broto's murderers' motives. Rumors circulated that merchants, industrialists, a high-ranking Francoist officer, and even an ecclesiastical dignitary were behind her killing. The police had investigated based on a robbery, on the orders of the Public Prosecutor. In an attempt to stop these rumors, Interior minister Blas Pérez issued a reporting ban to the press.

In popular culture The murder of Carmen Broto was the subject of multiple reports, novels, and films. The director and producer Pedro Costa dedicated an episode of the anthology television series La huella del crimen, starring Silvia Tortosa and Sergi Mateu, to the murder.

The event was also fictionalized by Alberto Speratti in his work El crimen de la calle Legalidad (Barcelona, Martínez Roca, 1983).

Juan Marsé was inspired by this crime for the plot of his novel Si te dicen que caí (If they tell you that I fell), adapted for the cinema by director Vicente Aranda.