The Netflix docuseries The TikTok Killer unearths the harrowing disappearance of Esther Estepa, a nomadic soul who vanished while travelling through Spain. Central to the mystery is José Jurado Montilla, an elderly man whose online persona as a friendly traveller hid a history of extreme violence. As viewers watch the timeline unfold, the series juxtaposes his cheerful travel clips with the grim reality of a police investigation closing in.

The documentary highlights how a lifetime of c******* behaviour eventually collided with the transparency of the digital age, and beautifully, the docuseries gave a reality check.

Before he became a social media personality, José Jurado Montilla was already known to Spanish authorities as a prolific and dangerous c*******. In the late 1980s, he was linked to four separate h******* and received a staggering sentence of 123 years in prison.

He maintained his innocence throughout his trial, famously claiming that the fatal s******* of his neighbour was an act of self-defence rather than a calculated move. Despite the severity of his crimes, a change in legal circumstances led to his release in 2013 after he had served only twenty-eight years of his original sentence.

For the following decade, his whereabouts remained a complete mystery to law enforcement, leaving a ten-year gap in his history that investigators now find deeply suspicious. It was during this period of newfound freedom that he crossed paths with Esther Estepa, leading to a tragedy that would eventually bring his past back into the light.

His online presence provided a window into his life that eventually allowed the public to see through his facade.

Under the username El Titi, Montilla refined a following by posting videos of his travels across the scenic landscapes of Spain. He presented himself as a laid-back, elderly adventurer, often filming himself eating local cuisine or hiking through remote areas.

In one specific scene from the documentary, he is shown smiling at the camera and inviting his followers to enjoy life, a moment that appears deeply sinister given the context of his c*****.

However, the documentary reveals that this carefully curated persona often slipped, exposing a much more volatile and disturbing personality. Viewers can agree on the fact that he used to visit his c***** scenes again to document it with fake narratives, as pointed out by Esther Estepa's mother, as shown in the interviews of the docuseries.

Ultimately, his habit of documenting everything became his greatest mistake, as his phone contained a digital map of his movements and interactions. The very videos he posted to gain validation from strangers were used by forensic experts to pin down his location at the time of Esther's disappearance.

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The search for the truth was driven largely by the persistent efforts of those who knew the victim best.

When Esther Estepa stopped communicating, her family refused to accept the initial lack of urgency from local law enforcement. Because she was an adult with a nomadic lifestyle, authorities were slow to classify her disappearance as a criminal matter, forcing her loved ones to launch their own investigation. Her mother became a central figure in this effort, maintaining contact with Montilla while secretly gathering information to provide to the police.

One of Estepa’s friends spent countless hours analyzing Montilla's TikTok uploads, noting that his accounts of their travels did not align with the geographical data in his videos. This collective effort eventually forced the police to take a closer look at the man Esther had been travelling with. The family’s refusal to be silenced created a bridge between the digital world of TikTok and the physical reality of the crime scene.

On top of everything, the accused himself attempted to manipulate the narrative by pretending to join the search for the missing woman.

In a display of extreme manipulation, Montilla began posting content where he appeared to be searching for Esther Estepa after she went missing. He filmed himself visiting the locations they had supposedly frequented together, asking his audience for information and acting as a concerned friend. The documentary captures the chilling irony of these videos, as he was essentially performing for the camera while knowing exactly where she was located.

His performative grief was designed to deflect suspicion and position himself as a victim of the same mystery that was haunting Estepa’s family.

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Alas, the discovery of digital evidence on his personal device provided the definitive link to the crime.

After Esther Estepa disappeared, her mother began receiving text messages from her daughter’s number that seemed to explain her absence. These messages claimed she was safe and simply needed space, which briefly provided a false sense of relief to her grieving family. However, the tone of the writing was cold and lacked the personal nuances that Esther typically used when communicating with her mother.

It was Estepa's older sister who first realized that the messages were fraudulent, noting that the vocabulary and sentence structure were entirely uncharacteristic of her sibling.

The documentary reveals that Montilla had been using the phone to impersonate the victim in a desperate attempt to delay a formal missing persons report. Following his May 2024 arrest for the murder of David, Montilla remains behind bars awaiting trial for both d*****. Despite the mounting evidence presented in the Netflix series, he continues to maintain his innocence and denies any involvement in the killings.

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What do you think about the facts covered by Netflix in its latest docuseries The TikTok Killer? Let us know in the comments.