The Guardia Civil have staged a reconstruction of events after a 36-year-old Russian woman was allegedly killed by her partner in Rincón de la Victoria, before he drove the body some 40 kilometres and tried to burn it on a bonfire in Maro, on Monday evening.

Police officers took the accused, a 53-year-old Spanish man, who was being held in custody, back to the property for a three-hour investigation of the house and garage.

Officers believe there was a fight between the couple at the apartment they had rented for three months in the Nuevo Rincón area, and the Russian woman died at the hands of her partner. It is understood he used a trolley to take the body, covered in cardboard so no-one would see it, to the basement garage where his car was parked.

Nerja bonfire

A neighbour helped the suspect lift the body into the car after being told the girl had hit her head and that he was taking her to hospital. However, the witness was not satisfied with the answer and he saw that there were traces of blood in the parking area, so he called the emergency services on 112 at around 6pm. Police quickly arrived on the scene, but the man had already left, and a description of the vehicle was circulated to other officers.

Shortly after 7pm the emergency services received another call when a Nerja resident found a body burning on a bonfire in a ravine in the Maro area, between the Aguila Aqueduct and the A-7 Mediterranean motorway bridge.

The suspect was arrested just ten minutes later, when he returned to the garage of the Rincon apartment block where he lived. SUR sources have said that he acknowledged that he had killed his partner and that he had tried to dispose of the body on a bonfire in Maro.

Although there is no record of previous violence between the couple, it has transpired that they were recently questioned by Local Police in Rincón de la Victoria, after they spotted them at a municipal park at 2am in the morning. Officers said they found it suspicious that the couple was in the park at that time, but the pair said everything was fine. When the police saw the two again, later, they noticed that the woman slapped the man’s hand away when he was going to grab her by the waist. Police questioned the pair separately and even asked the woman if she had any injuries, but she brushed it off as part of a couple’s normal heated discussion.