The phrase seemed like something out of a childhood nightmare. However, it was uttered with absolute seriousness by a girl barely four years old:
“Dad’s not dead, he’s under the kitchen floor.”

From those words, what until then was a simple case of disappearance turned into a criminal investigation that today keeps an entire community in suspense.

A strange report

Police Chief Luis Ramos was reviewing the list of incidents and reports received, as he did every morning. Among the papers, one caught his eye: “Missing husband. Complainant: Mrs. Francisca Díaz.”

The name of the alleged victim, according to the report, was a local journalist: Marta Gómez , known in the neighborhood for her reserved nature and occasional contributions to the regional newspaper. The strange thing was that the complaint hadn’t been filed by Marta, but by her neighbor, Francisca. Even more disturbing: Francisca had arrived accompanied by the couple’s young daughter, a girl named Victoria, who was barely letting go of an old teddy bear.

“She didn’t want to bring the girl,” Francisca explained, her voice breaking. “But the girl said something very strange. You have to hear it for yourselves.”

Victoria’s voice

Luis Ramos leaned toward the girl. His fatherly tone contrasted with the tension that permeated the room.

“What’s your name?” he asked.
“My name is Victoria,” she whispered, barely audible.

The boss watched her patiently before asking the key question:
“Do you know where your dad is?”

There was a long silence. Victoria’s dark eyes trembled, and finally, with chilling clarity, she answered:
“Dad is under the kitchen floor. Where the tiles are the lightest. Dad is cold.”

The air grew heavy. A young officer gulped. Francisca put her hand to her chest. And Ramos, his face hardened, understood that this was no longer a routine case.

The order to dig

Ramos immediately called his deputy, Lieutenant Ricardo Muñoz.
“I want a preliminary team at that house in less than an hour. And bring Marta Gómez here. I need to see her with my own eyes.”

Thirty minutes later, Marta arrived at the barracks. She didn’t look like a distraught widow or a desperate wife. She was wearing a white blouse, black pants, her hair tied back, and her gestures were surprisingly firm.

“My husband travels a lot for work,” she said without hesitation. “I don’t understand why they make things like this up. Victoria is just a child, and Doña Francisca has a habit of dramatizing everything.”

His voice was controlled, almost cold.

The discovery

Meanwhile, in the family home, the officers began searching every corner. The kitchen was spacious, with cream-colored tiles. At first glance, nothing seemed out of place. But upon closer inspection, a young investigator noticed something: in the center, next to the table, there was an area where the tiles were a lighter shade, as if they had been laid more recently.

When he struck it with a metal bar, the hollow sound confirmed his suspicions. Ramos, who had arrived on the scene, gave the order.

“Lift up that floor.”

Silence reigned as the officers broke the tiles. Dust rose in clouds, mixing with the pungent smell of damp earth. And then, after a few minutes of digging, one of them stopped dead in his tracks.

A piece of cloth.
An arm.
The truth they all feared materialized before them.

The body under the tiles

The body of a man, half wrapped in a sheet, was found buried just half a meter deep. The advanced state of decomposition did not prevent him from being identified as Marta’s missing husband.

The scene was so overwhelming that some officers had to go outside for air. Francisca, the neighbor who had raised the alarm, burst into tears when she saw the little girl’s words confirmed.

Victoria, meanwhile, was carefully removed and taken to a childcare center. “Daddy’s asleep under the floor,” she still murmured, with an innocence impossible for the adults present to comprehend.

The interrogation

Back at the police station, Marta Gómez was confronted with the evidence. But neither the body found nor her daughter’s testimony managed to break her apparent serenity.

“I didn’t do anything,” he repeated. “He left. If someone put him there, it wasn’t me.”

The investigators, however, were clear that the woman’s coldness was more disturbing than any confession. Her statements were evasive, with no trace of grief or surprise.

A local prosecutor confirmed to the press that Marta was the prime suspect and that an investigation would be opened for homicide and concealment of the body .

A neighborhood in shock

The news shook the city. Neighbors who knew the family described Marta as reserved and distant, and her husband as a kind man, always attentive to his daughter.

“We never imagined something like this,” said a nearby merchant. “The little girl always came smiling with her father. And now it turns out she was underground all this time.”

The regional press dubbed the case “The Crime of the Light-Colored Tiles.”

An open enigma

Despite the discovery, many questions remain unanswered. What motivated the man’s death? Was it a crime of passion, a settling of scores, or something darker? Why did the girl, barely four years old, know exactly where her father was?

The psychologists who interviewed her maintain that Victoria couldn’t have invented a detail as specific as “the lighter-colored tiles.” Someone, at some point, must have spoken in front of her. Or perhaps, as some fear, she witnessed the scene.

The echo of a phrase

Beyond the forensic evidence, the judicial hypotheses, and the sensational headlines, there remains the disturbing echo of an unforgettable phrase:

“Dad’s not dead, he’s underground.”

Words that broke the silence of a disappearance and uncovered a crime buried in the kitchen of a seemingly ordinary house.

Today, while justice moves forward and the community tries to recover from the shock, Victoria remains under special protection. Her testimony, as innocent as it is devastating, will be a key element in a trial that promises to be as dark as the grave discovered beneath the pale tiles.