Spain's most famous ghost story, the Linares Palace legend, heads to HBO Max

If you grew up in Spain, you probably know the name: the Palacio de Linares, Madrid's most talked-about haunted house. Now its story is becoming a documentary series. Expediente Linares arrives on HBO Max Spain on 27 November.

It is written and directed by Israel del Santo, who has also made series about the Templars, the singer Lola Flores and the comedian Lina Morgan.

What is the legend?

According to the story, the first Marquis of Linares, José de Murga y Reolid, fell in love with a young woman of humble origins named Raimunda. When he told his father he wanted to marry her, the father sent him to London to stop the wedding.

There, José learned the real problem: Raimunda was his half-sister, the daughter of his father and a cigarette factory worker. The couple reportedly got a papal bull (a formal decree from the Pope) and married anyway.

They had a daughter, Raimundita. But the bull supposedly required them to stay chaste, so the legend says the parents killed the child and walled her up inside the palace. It is a dark tale, and it has been questioned.

Why does it still fascinate people?

In the 1990s, when the palace opened to the public, people began recording so-called psychophonies, voices said to be captured on tape. Some of those recordings were later dismissed as a hoax to promote an audio release.

Other parapsychologists kept digging. They found that security guards and other staff said they had heard, and even seen, Raimundita.

The series retells the alleged supernatural episodes and also looks at the media coverage they received, which the source describes as media or pseudo-media.

Where does the palace stand today?

In the early 1990s the case drew wide press and TV attention. In 1992, after restoration, the building became the seat of Casa de América, a cultural institution that is still based there.

Today you can take theatrical tours of the palace at dusk and late at night. Whether you believe in ghosts or not, you can now watch the whole story from your sofa from 27 November.