In Lanzarote, that summer of 1973 left an absence that over the years would become one of the island's most painful stories. Alberto Pérez Elvira, whom everyone knew as Albertito, was 13 years old and the eldest of five siblings. He lived in San Bartolomé and, like so many afternoons, had left school ready to continue with the family routine, but on that July 2nd everything changed.
The school, the family home, and the restaurant run by his parents were very close, in the vicinity of the town square. Albertito had to go to the restaurant, where he usually helped his parents and ran small errands, but that afternoon he never arrived. Hours passed and concern grew until it turned into a search. His absence was especially strange because it was not a long or unfamiliar route for him.
During the early morning hours, the first and for decades only known clue appeared: his blue bicycle. It was found on the road between Güime and Playa Honda, approximately nine kilometers from where his route should have ended, with a flat tire. The bicycle was there, but Albertito was not. That everyday object has since become the last known trace of a child who seemed to have vanished.
The family tried to reconstruct those last hours from the few testimonies available. Among them was that of a taxi driver from San Bartolomé who claimed to have seen the boy walking in the area and to have asked him where he was going. According to the account later transmitted by the family, Albertito replied that he was going "down". The detail became important because it placed the child outside the usual surroundings of the town and in the direction of the area where the bicycle later appeared.
But after those first few hours, the questions that never found answers also began. Why had he gone to that area?, what happened between San Bartolomé and the place where the bicycle was found?, why was the vehicle there and where was the child?, was anyone accompanying him?, what happened next?
Subsequent investigations have gathered different hypotheses, some related to the possibility that Albertito had left Lanzarote, but none have been able to establish what really happened. The family has also pointed out the limitations of the means available in the seventies and the absence of the search devices that would be activated today in the disappearance of a minor.
And as the questions piled up, the days went by.
On October 2, 1973, exactly three months after that July afternoon, the 93rd day of Albertito's absence began, counting July 2 as the first day. The family continued to await any news, any clue, any indication that would allow them to know where their son and brother was.
It did not arrive.
Time turned that disappearance into an open wound. His mother continued to call him Albertito, the family name by which his siblings still refer to him today. Decades later, his sister Belén Elvira has kept the search publicly alive and has recounted on numerous occasions how that disappearance marked the family forever.
In 2018, many years after that July afternoon, an edict from the Court of First Instance and Instruction number 5 of Arrecife officially recorded the disappearance of Eugenio Alberto Pérez Elvira, born in Arrecife on December 22, 1959, and whose whereabouts have been unknown since July 1973, when he was 13 years old. The document demonstrates the extent to which the case remained open in the judicial sphere decades after the disappearance.
The story also did not disappear from public memory. The Lanzarote press revisited it on the occasion of the 50th anniversary, and national media such as RTVE recovered the case through family testimonies. In 2023, half a century later, the blue bicycle remained the symbol of a disappearance for which a definitive answer never appeared.
More than five decades have passed since that summer.
Albertito was 13 years old when he left school. Today he would have reached a very different age, but for his family, the image of the boy who left with his blue bicycle and never returned continues to exist.
In Lanzarote, his name became linked to a road, an abandoned bicycle, and a question that has remained intact since 1973: what happened to Albertito?
October 2nd of that year was only the 93rd day of an absence that would end up lasting for decades. For the family, however, it never stopped being a search.
Sources consulted
• La Voz de Lanzarote, information on the disappearance of Alberto Pérez Elvira and the 50th anniversary of the case. • RTVE, 'Diario de ausencias', documentation and testimonies about Alberto Pérez Elvira. • El Periódico, journalistic reconstruction of the case and family testimonies.
• Boletín Oficial del Estado, judicial edict of 2018 regarding the disappearance of Eugenio Alberto Pérez Elvira. • Diario de Lanzarote, retrospective information on the disappearance.
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