Marta was born in La Coruña on March 1, 1969 and is baptized shortly after with the name of Marta María de los Ángeles. Due to his professional activity, the family settled in Burgos in December 1970.

He attended primary school with good grades at the Colegio de Jesús María. With 8 years receives the First Communion, on June 19, 1977. He enjoyed great vitality and developed some sports hobbies, such as roller skating, athletics, swimming, emphasizing primarily in tennis, in which he won some trophies. At age 14 it is confirmed in the current parish of San José. He begins to go with his older sister to Club Arlanza ( Explanatory note: when it is said Club, we refer to a study and prayer center.) Marta went to study and pray, every day from 4 in the afternoon to 9:30 in the afternoon. Here, in Spain, to the centers of Opus Dei, they are familiarly called the Opus Dei Club),where a priest of Opus Dei takes the spiritual direction. In it he participates in recreational and formative activities, learning to play the guitar.

At the end of elementary school, he asks his parents to go to a public institute of Castilla, where in coeducation system begins (1983) the Unified Polyvalent Baccalaureate (BUP), as a bridge between the school and the university. It is open to the rest of the classmates, mostly of humble class. As in the previous stage, he gets good grades. From 2nd grade of BUP, he also attends classes at the Language School.

According to his mother, Marta was spontaneous, very affectionate and attentive. Her closest friend affirms that she was very noble, full of illusions and willing to help and encourage others. At age 17, both leave the Arlanza Club. In his youthful thoughts he believed that a Work Center guided him in a very preventive attitude and he wanted to learn from life on his own. She began to descend in religious practices, although she maintained a concern that, afterwards, led her to seek and yearn for God in a different way, but not without first going through a crisis. 

In the winter of 1988, for three or four months, he began to go out with a third-year veterinary student, a nice young man with a good presence, a relationship that he cut off due to the experience of weakness in a sporadic event, which he greatly regretted. It is said that the second conversion is that of affections. At that time he finished the difficult fourth year of English at the Language School and, in the summer, he went to a coastal town in England to perfect himself in the language, getting to speak it fluently.

In October he enrolled in the Complutense University of Madrid, in the field of journalism, image and sound. The above indicated a reflection, but she wanted to make her career free and become a famous journalist. In the Capital of Spain he adapts and takes his studies with ease and during the first two years he tries not to point out, although his faith was not asleep. She surrounds herself with a group of friends who know how to appreciate her frankness, cheerfulness and strong personality.

During the summer holidays of the second year (1990), he learns in his parish, which goes on Sundays to Mass, that he has scheduled a trip to Taizé. He consults his parents and, guitar on his shoulder, participates in the meeting. Marta discovered new aspects and, according to her mother, from there she returned irremissibly touched by the Lord. In fact, that touch of grace we know from a letter to one of his colleagues from the residence in Madrid: "When you discover something important in your life, and you fall into account of fundamental things, which until then passed unnoticed by your side, you are quite good, in peace ... "

The truth is that Marta wanted to make a confession in depth. Returned to her city, she went to a nearby parish and, without our knowing why, did not receive the absolution. In his spontaneity, did he find any prevention regarding Taizé? Was there any other disagreement of nuances and did the priest not be in an attitude of compliance? This is going to produce a very hard conflict of conscience, because what he most wanted was peace and in his character he suffered tremendously when he was not reciprocated in sincerity and affection.

Shortly after, playing in the house of some friends to the table tennis, she told them her situation, shedding tears, because she thought that God had abandoned her. One of those companions said "God loves you, you have done what you have done" and she presented her own experience with her parents, telling her that God is even better than the fathers of the earth. A few days later that family had a visit from a priest from the Neocatechumenal Way and the sisters invited her to their country house, near Burgos.

After the meal, the priest returns to the City and offers Marta the possibility of returning soon. When she saw herself before the priest, she began, in her usual frankness, to manifest to him what oppressed her from within. Listening attentively, he did not want his suffering to last longer, and asked him if he had any sin or lack to add, to prepare to receive forgiveness. When she gets out of the car, she runs again in search of her friends and asks them to present her in the Neocatechumenal Communities, because she also wanted to know the "Way", because "she wanted to give everything to God in gratitude".

From this moment begins a decidedly Christian life. Now she does not want to be a famous journalist so much anymore, as to do good. Their spontaneity is transformed into parrhesia (testimonial courage).

In September of 1990 the wedding of his older sister is celebrated. Among the guests there is a group of young people, who all relate to the esteemed Jesuit Fr. Carlos Conde in the youth apostolate tasks of the Catholic Circle of Workers. With one of those boys he initiates an exemplary love in which, we intuit, God was involved.

Facing the new course returns to Madrid excited and full of faith. With so much energy that, during the school year 1990-1991, he does with good grades 3 and 4. There he gets in touch with the Neocatechumenal Communities in the parish of Santa María de Monte Carmelo. An older compañera, who met her in them, says that a comment from Marta marked her when she saw how a 21-year-old girl said that she was saddened to see at Christmas that people were carrying bags, without discovering the true meaning of the Fiesta. In January and February they attended the catechesis, on Mondays and Thursdays, from 8.30 to 9.30 in the afternoon. When they finished they went back together running and laughing.

Marta initiates a true secular militancy. Now he does not mind expressing his convictions in his environment. The bunch of professors who teach him the teachings are of mixed ideology. In the frequent phone conversations with the parents he told them of moments lived in the classrooms in which, gathering rare courage, publicly showed the teacher his disagreement in vulgar phrases or comments, political suggestions or ideas contrary to Christian thought , which had nothing to do with the subject as such. On one occasion, he even found himself in the uncomfortable need to appeal to the rector with his complaint. The studies were easy for him, so he shortened by one year and advanced 5th subjects.

Marta, according to her friends, was a happy, happy, nice, dynamic, strong, communicative and good communicator girl. His slenderness attracted attention and his voice resembled that of Barbara Streisand, so a radio announcer offered him the best instruments to record some tapes, with a view to the practices of the Faculty. But that man is in love with her, which deeply disappointed her, returning what was done, feeling that appearance in her environment.

He decides to move to Burgos. Given that she had advanced subjects she would be close to her boyfriend, cultural animator, and save costs. Marta tried not to be inactive. Within his field of journalism continued his intellectual preparation and practical work: One of the things he did was cover the Tour of Burgos with the sports broadcaster Radio Popular.

From this time there are some articles by Marta in the press defending life, supporting peace, or against drugs, and always highlighting Christian values. It was also chosen to present a fashion show, aimed at positively influencing the field of women's fashion. To his parish he went especially on Saturday afternoons to listen to the Word in the Neocatechumenal Community and to accompany the songs with the guitar in the Eucharist.

Her boyfriend wrote in the editorial of his magazine, days after the murder: "Marta triumphed where she stepped: everyone wanted to be with her, talk to her, know about her, and she, although she deeply loved her family and those who We wanted, I had my eyes on God. The last notes, his articles ("if at least we were aware of what really matters in our life"), they are only the tip of the iceberg, of the greatness of his soul ".

He was not in the Neocatechumenate, but she took him to the celebrations, because "I was very attracted to the life I saw there." When asked why she had stopped dating her in October, she replies that she has no logical explanation. "Maybe in a moment I was overwhelmed by other things. Possibly it was Providence. I spent a state of mind, as if someone had withdrawn my affection so I could better bear what came. "

Marta was disciplined and, in the last months, after working in the morning (until December), from four to eight thirty in the afternoon she went to study at Club Arlanza, as a silent place. The next half hour was spent in prayer, almost always on her knees, in the little oratory, before the Tabernacle. Finishing this time, I used to talk to the Club manager, making her a participant in her ideas, goals and concerns. She told her how in her conversation with the Lord she urged him to make her see his will, since in the Communities she had risen in a cohabitation Eucharist to offer herself as "itinerant".

She was very attentive and affectionate, as indicated by the fact that, on New Year's Eve 1991, Marta arrived at the Club dressed in tails and was making the girls laugh for three quarters of an hour, and then she went with her friends. For the last feast of the Magi he had bought a guitar for his 11-year-old sister with great enthusiasm. As I was always willing to accompany and, on the afternoon of the same day 6, the manager of the Club was to remain there, came to be with her. They watched a video about the meeting of John Paul II with the university students and was impressed, proposing to go to Rome to the next meeting for Holy Week.

She began to prepare intensely for the February exams, but in recent days she had noticed that someone was following her, expressing her fears. On January 21, the day of St. Agnes, he prolonged his conversation with his confidant until 9.40, "I sensed something, I dismissed it" with an anecdote in the life of St. Teresa. Before leaving home, they went to the oratory to say goodbye to the Lord, "we genuflected before the Blessed Sacrament and left". When he left, he told him not to remove the books and notes from the table, because the next morning, after hearing the Holy Mass and receiving communion there, he planned to continue studying.

He missed the parents who, at ten o'clock at night, would not have returned home. It was snowing and a young man, known to the whole family, invited Marta to get into his car, he left her in front of his portal. The lock was broken and at around 10:00 p.m. the neighbor on the second floor heard a piercing scream. Five days it took to find Marta's body, about five kilometers from the City.

According to the forensic report, he died in the early hours of January 22, 1992. He had various erosions and bruises, strong hand pressures on his neck and, above all, 14 stab wounds to the left side of his chest, one of them in the center of the heart. The report and the sentence repeat that that happened for trying to evade the aggression. The accused of the crime had already been tried four times for abuses and violations, but without reaching homicide, when he ceded his victims to his pretensions.

The facts suggest that the young student of the fifth journalism, Marta Maria de los Angeles left a beautiful example, both in his life grateful to the love and mercy of God, and in the testimony of his courageous death to defend virtue.

Saturnino López Santidrián