'The Playing Card Killer' comes out on Netflix on June 9

A docuseries that offers an alternative perspective on the investigation and media frenzy that surrounded the most famous serial killer in Spain’s history.

The docuseries, directed by Amanda Sans Pantling and spearheaded by the producers of 'Where is Marta?', offers exceptional testimonies and unreleased material on the case twenty years on.

Today, Netflix announced the June 9 release date for 'The Playing Card Killer', a docuseries produced by Cuarzo Producciones (Banijay Iberia), the company behind Where is Marta?, directed by Amanda Sans Pantling with Marga Luis as Executive Producer. 

The docuseries deals with the story of the serial killer who sowed panic and terror throughout Madrid in 2003, a year that saw the highest crime rate in the country’s recent history. The project depicts the unprecedented media attention the case generated and dissects the investigation into the murders, incorporating new elements of the plot that go beyond the official account and timeline of events.

To accomplish this, the investigation team of 'The Playing Card Killer' led by Ricardo Pardo Liñares, managed to obtain exceptional access to testimonies and evidence (including material not seen previously). The series incorporates new testimony from survivors who are claiming their place in the story, sharing their experience of the investigation and providing a new perspective on the case that has never before been heard.

Collected in over 60 hours of recordings, the docuseries includes over 20 interviews of key figures in the case (including journalists, lawyers, survivors, and some of the suspect’s closest family members and friends). 'The Playing Card Killer' is a project that is rooted in an exhaustive process of production and investigation that has taken two years and given shape to a docuseries based on evidence and contrasting testimonies. Following on the heels of 'Where is Marta?' (the winner of the 2022 Iris Jury Award, which prompted a shift in the investigation of the case), the Cuarzo Producciones (Banijay Iberia) team, made up of over 40 professionals, has crafted an unparalleled portrait of the case and the investigation into the most famous serial killer in Spain’s history.

“'The Playing Card Killer' is a very interesting documentary from many perspectives: from a social perspective, the perspective of the investigation and the impact media pressure has on an event of this magnitude. We were interested in digging deeper into how so often the story we create around serial killers has nothing to do with reality. With the public’s attention consumed in building up a monster, all of the victims of this horrendous case were left by the wayside", explains Marga Luis, Executive Producer of 'The Playing Card Killer'.

Synopsis of 'The Playing Card Killer'

'The Playing Card Killer' is a docuseries that narrates, twenty years on, how Madrid’s last serial killer – and the most famous in Spain’s history – came to be. His unique modus operandi of identifying his crimes with Spanish playing cards, all in the suit of cups, ignited a media frenzy while also provoking public hysteria. Over its three episodes, the docuseries dissects a case interwoven with social panic, political tension and media pressure, along with an investigation that seemed to be grasping at straws: hurried arrests, chaotic hotlines, and failed police lineups, among other elements, which lend the narration the air of an authentic thriller. 

In a case in which the media sensation around the killer eclipsed the victims, the docuseries incorporates never-before-heard testimonies of survivors, who reclaim their place in the story to recount their experience of events that irrevocably marked their lives (in a story that, for some, remains unresolved).