Castle of Purity (criminal case)

Rafael Pérez Hernández (1905-1972) was born in Jalisco. Performing odd jobs for several years. Working on the railroads, he lost an arm in 1915. He married Sonia María Rosa Noé, a woman of Spanish descent, in 1938. The couple established in Mexico City, in an old house located at the intersection of Insurgentes Avenue and Godard street, at the north of Mexico City. The marriage was stable during the first seven years, but after that, the family lock up began.[3] The location was known as La casa de los macetones (the big planters house) by locals, since it sported big, old planters at its facade.[1] Rafael was known as a reclusive but otherwise quiet man who only left the house to distribute the rat poison he manufactured at his home.

Pérez and Rosa had six children named after ideals and personality traits: Indómita (Untamed), Libre (Free), Soberano (Sovereign), Triunfador (Winner), Bien Vivir (Well Living), and Libre Pensamiento (Free Thought).

Pérez Hernández kept his family isolated from the outside world from around 1941 to 1959. He attached wood planks to the windows so they could not investigate the street or interact with anyone. According to testimonies, the whole family, especially the children, were forced to work long hours to manufacture raticide under poor working conditions. Despite the pleas of the mother to Pérez, the children were not allowed to attend school. Contradictory statements have been made regarding the issue, as to say that Pérez trained his wife to homeschool their kids, or that Sonia alone was the one that taught them to read and write.[3]

Despite their names, the children were not allowed to leave their home, since Pérez thought that the outside world was evil and corrupted, and he was raising a new breed of pure, innocent, and good people with his improvised and twisted education and discipline.

On July 25, 1959, the police came to the house after a passerby picked up a piece of a paper bag outside the house; the paper had a note begging for rescue, and was supposedly Indómita's third attempt to call for someone's attention into the case.[4]

The crime became an instant media sensation, and Pérez was taken to Palacio de Lecumberri prison. He denied all charges, insisting he was a good father and that his family was trying to get rid of him to get all his money and possessions. The children were found malnourished, dressed in old, antiquated clothes and rags, and the house dirty and dilapidated. The whole family was confused and startled by the many stimuli from the outside world, they were barely literate and had almost no knowledge of the events outside their home.

After the media turmoil, there were some contradictory testimonies, like some neighbors stating that Pérez Hernández indeed took his children outside and they looked like a normal family; newspapers and other information platforms depicted Pérez Hernández as a deranged man that even had peep holes in the whole house to spy on all of them, or even more extreme, that they were subjected to inquisition-like punishments when they disobeyed the family patriarch.

Despite the magnitude of the crime and the event, the family received very little help from the government or institutions; they continued barely surviving and struggled to adapt to the outside world. They kept visiting Pérez in prison and even forgave him. Rafael Pérez kept insisting he was innocent, and a good and well-adjusted father. He committed suicide in 1972 in his cell.[5]

The case had such influence on Mexico's culture that it has been adapted to different media through the years:

• Arturo Ripstein directed El Castillo de la Pureza in 1972; a film starred by Claudio Brook and Diana Bracho.
• Luis Spota wrote La Carcajada del Gato (The Cat's cackle) in 1964, a novel loosely based on the case, depicting Rafael Pérez as a deranged polymath who tries to build an utopia inside the concentric walls of his maze-like house.

• List of child abuse cases featuring long-term detention