The José Bretón case or The Ruth and José case is the name given to the events related to the disappearance and death of the siblings Ruth Bretón Ortiz, 6, and José Bretón Ortiz, 2, on October 8, 2011 in the city of Córdoba, Andalucía, Spain. Both were killed by their father, José Bretón Gómez, who burnt their corpses without leaving any identifiable remains of the children. The case received a level of high media coverage, because the National Police's leading research official categorically denied after examination of the burnt remains that they could be human, classifying them as "rodent bones". Anthropologist Francisco Etxeberria offered his assistance to Ruth Ortiz's accusation lawyer, disputing the previous conclusions and revealing the human nature of the remains. On July 22, 2013, the Audiencia Provincial of Córdoba sentenced José Bretón to 40 years in prison for double murder. The kinship, the premeditation and the cruel character demonstrated by Bretón were aggravating circumstances. In March 2015 the sentence was reduced to a maximum of 25 years. Context In September 2011, Ruth Ortiz Ramos told her husband, José Bretón Gómez, with whom she had two children, Ruth and José, 6 and 2 years old respectively, about her intention to divorce him; José Bretón conceived the idea of murdering their children as a revenge against his wife. Bretón committed the crime on October 8, 2011, having picked his children up the day before to take to Cordoba to spend the weekend. Planning the murder In order to carry out his plan, José Bretón decided that the most appropriate place would be the estate of his parents, known as Finca de Las Quemadillas, in Córdoba. Also, he decided that the suitable date would be on October 8, 2011, because that weekend he would be with his children. For that purpose, he started a series of preparations. Thus, a medical psychiatrist, who had already treated him three years before and with whom he had recently consulted, had prescribed him the tranquilizers Orfidal and Motivan. José Bretón bought these on September 29, 2011, in order to be able to send the children to sleep and murder them easily. Between 5 and 7 October 2011, with the intent to make the corpses of his children disappear, José Bretón collected firewood and bought over 270 litres of diesel fuel in large quantities at a petrol station in Huelva. At the same time,