Cellphone of missing Spanish teen Diana Quer found

A shellfish collector in Spain’s northwestern Galicia region has found the smartphone of missing Spanish teenager Diana Quer who went missing more than two months ago.

The phone – a white iPhone 6 – was found on Thursday by the man as he hunted for shellfish in muddy ground under a viaduct in Taragoña – an area that was the target of intensive police searches carried out in September after cellphone reception data indicated it was last place where the device was used.

The phone is the first evidence to be found in the two-month search for the missing teen

The phone is the first physical evidence obtained by police of the teen who went missing after saying goodbye to friends at the local fiestas in the coastal village of A Pobra do Caramiñal in the early hours of August 22.

The case received national headlines with much of the attention focused on the young woman’s family situation.

Soon after the teen went missing, it emerged that a court was taking custody of Quer’s younger daughter away from the mother.

Local residents of A Pobra, where all three spent their summer holidays, reported hearing a loud family dispute shortly before Diana Quer’s disappearance, while some relatives have insisted that she was being “illegally detained” by her mother, although they did not use the term kidnapped.

In September, police grilled Quer’s mother for several hours, asking why she had not told them about her troubled relationship with her two daughters.

The Civil Guard has been working on the supposition that Quer was picked up by someone and driven from A Pobra to a house some 20 kilometers away in the direction of Taragoña. This route would have seen her passing the point where her phone was discovered.

A month after Quer disappeared without trace during summer holidays in A Pobra, police remotely accessed her phone to see if it contained any messages that would provide more information as to her whereabouts.

While the contents of the phone are largely known, its discovery marks a milestone in the investigation into the disappearance of the young woman signaling that something took place in her last known location.

English version by George Mills.