A friend of the COUPLE called the Civil Guard to notify them of the attack.
As the scourge of gender violence continues to claim victims, it seems that this year it is especially prevalent on the Orihuela Costa. A woman was found dead this Friday in her home in Punta Prima’s La Ciñuelica urbanization. Her attacker was arrested after confessing that he had stabbed her to death in a “fit of anger.” Following an argument between the pair.
If officially confirmed, it would be the second sexist murder that has occurred on the Oriola coast in the last six months.
The Civil Guard received notification at 7:40 a.m. when a friend and neighbour of the victim notified the Police after the alleged murderer had called to inform him that he had killed his partner. The friend and the Guardia agents quickly attended the property where they were received by the aggressor, but they could not do anything for the woman beyond confirming her death.
The multiple injuries she had, according to police sources, correspond to a brutal assault with a knife.
The victim is a 76-year-old woman of British nationality. The aggressor, who is in custody, is an 82-year-old man of Norwegian nationality. They were not married and there was no history of gender violence between the couple.
During the remainder of the day the house was guarded by Benemérita agents while, inside, the forensic officers collected samples and took photographs of the crime scene, where they had earlier found the woman lying in a room in the middle of a pool of blood. At the entrance, a patrol car was waiting with the arrested man but as the media arrived, the agents took him to the police station to take his statement.
Very close by, two funeral home workers were waiting for the agents’ orders to remove the body, in a black van with the logo of the Institute of Forensic Medicine. With a police cordon shielding the move, two men took out the stretcher, with the body wrapped in a white bag, through the front door of the house to their vehicle.
The murder occurred in La Ciñuelica urbanisation in Punta Prima, located on the border between Orihuela Costa and Torrevieja. It is a neighbourhood with few shops and where there are many semi-detached chalets, inhabited mostly as a second summer residencies by foreigners, which makes it difficult for neighbours to know who is living around them.
In front of the victim’s home, the Racing Playas de Orihuela football club trains. The groundsman said he was dismayed to see the police deployment. “Just yesterday I saw her driving her car,” he said, surprised. “They were an older couple. Her husband passed away, I believe. We used to greet each other in English,” said the man, quite obviously distressed about the fatal outcome.
The investigation has now been put in the hands of the Torrevieja court. The Council is waiting for official confirmation from the Government Subdelegation that it would be a case of gender violence so that it can call political groups and members of the public to pay a tribute to the victim with a minute of silence.
Last March, another 62-year-old British woman died at the hands of her partner in an urbanization in Lomas de Cabo Roig, also in Orihuela Costa, in what was the first sexist crime of the year in the province of Alicante.
The aggressor, 69 years old and the victim’s partner, was registered in the VioGén system, but the case remained “inactive” as no complaint was previously filed by the deceased.
