Spaniard guilty of murdering pilgrim
Stalked and killed tourist on popular path
For Denise Pikka Thiem, walking the Camino de Santiago, a popular pilgrimage route hiked by 200,000 people a year, was the last stop on a round- the- world trip.
But on Easter Sunday, April 5, 2015, Thiem, 41, disappeared, shortly after leaving the town of Astorga in Spain. Her disappearance launched a massive search and increasing agony for Thiem’s friends and family.
A local man, Miguel Angel Munoz, eventually fell under the gaze of police who suspected he had painted fake yellow arrows used to mark the pilgrimage route to divert unsuspecting pilgrims off the official track towards his house.
After his arrest, Spanish press reported that he had a history of harassing and attacking pilgrims along that stretch of the Camino.
This week Munoz was found guilty of killing Thiem.
Munoz was arrested five months after Thiem disappeared and led investigators to her partly buried body. He originally confessed to the killing but later retracted and claimed he only found the body.
Over t he span of t he three- week trial, the court heard the gruesome details of Thiem’s murder. Munoz initially told investigators that when he met Thiem, she was “aggressive” and acting suspicious of him, according to the El Mundo newspaper. Admitting he was drunk, Munoz said he picked up a stick and beat her over the head with it.
Munoz said he dragged her body from the road to a more secluded area when he realized Thiem was still alive.
He slit her throat so that “she wouldn’t suffer.”
He also said he cut off Thiem’s hands — which were never found — in case they contained any DNA evidence that could link police to him. He stripped Thiem naked and burned her clothes and her bag for the reason.
“I vomited,” Munoz told investigators. “I felt like a monster.”
Investigators t old t he court that they would have never found the body without Munoz’s help.
“Calm down, calm down,” Investigators said Munoz told them. “I’ ll take you ( to the body)."
Munoz did not testify, telling the court that he refused to answer questions from the prosecution and his own lawyer.
Having rejected the defence’s argument that Munoz was suffering from severe psychiatric issues, the jury also found Munoz guilty of stealing more than $ 1,100 from Thiem.
The judge will decide the sentence later.
Prosecutors have asked for him to be given up to 27 years in jail for homicide and five years for theft with violence.
Hiking the Camino was made more popular after the release of The Way, a 2010 film starring Martin Sheen.