Case file · Cryptid
Romasanta, the werewolf of Allariz
Manuel Blanco Romasanta, a Galician peddler, was tried at Allariz in 1852–53 for killing at least nine people; he claimed a curse turned him into a wolf (lobishome).
1853 CE · 42.19, -7.80 · status: official
The account
The court rejected the excuse and sentenced him to death; the queen commuted it after a French hypnotist argued he suffered from lycanthropy. It is Spain's first documented serial-killer case and the best-dated lobishome account.
The researched reading
A serial killer who claimed to be a werewolf. Either an excuse or a delusion, and probably partly both.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Undetermined | 40% | The share the reading had given to fabrication on doubt rather than evidence: the record does not settle it either way. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 35% | He may genuinely have believed it. Clinical lycanthropy, a delusion of turning into an animal, is a recognised if rare psychiatric syndrome, and a French hypnotist argued this case to the queen. |
| A cultural story | 15% | Galician lobishome lore gave him the vocabulary for his claim, and the press amplified it. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 5% | The court rejected the werewolf story as a self-serving excuse. Romasanta led his victims away on the pretext of finding them work, and rumours said he sold their fat. These are human crimes with human motives. |
| Something known, misidentified | 3% | Some deaths were at first blamed on wolves. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 2% | No evidence of transformation, and the court found none. |
| An unknown or out-of-place animal | 0% | There was no animal. |
Official position: The court at Allariz convicted Romasanta of murder and rejected the curse as an excuse; Queen Isabella II commuted the death sentence.