Cypriot police find body after confession of ‘serial killer’
POLICE in Cyprus found human remains yesterday in an investigation into a suspected serial killer thought to have gone on a killing spree that claimed seven female victims and went undetected for almost three years.
Police say the suspect, a career officer in the Cypriot army, has confessed to killing five women and the daughters, aged six and eight, of two of his victims. He connected with the women on an online dating site.
Four bodies have so far been found. Yesterday, the fourth one, a female corpse in a state of decomposition was found in a suitcase retrieved from a toxic lake close to an abandoned mine west of the capital, Nicosia, police sources said.
“After great and persistent effort and many difficulties, a travel case was pulled from the lake containing the body of a woman and a block of cement,” said Neofytos Shailos, head of Nicosia Criminal Investigation Department.
It appeared to belong to an adult, he told journalists.
Tourists stumbled upon the first victim, discovered by chance in a disused mining shaft, two weeks ago.
A mother and daughter from Romania are thought to have disappeared in September 2016, and the last of Metaxas’s alleged victims, from the Philippines, around August 2018.
The bodies of three women have been discovered in recent days. One has been identified as Mary Rose Tiburcio, 39, reported missing in May 2018. The other two bodies are thought to be those of a Filipino woman and one from Nepal, who went missing last year.
Police have been accused of failing to investigate the disappearances properly when they were first reported.