Crazed knifeman decapitates British woman in busy Tenerife shopping centre and runs through the streets with her head

By Tom Worden
Last updated at 6:50 PM on 13th May 2011
269 Comments

Attacker ran through palm tree-lined streets carrying victim's bloodied head

The homeless killer had recently been released from psychiatric hospital
Pensioner was 'stalked' by murderer in days before the attack

A British woman was today decapitated by a madman with a machete on the holiday island of Tenerife.

The crazed killer stabbed the 62-year-old a number of time before cutting off her head without uttering a word in a shopping centre in Los Cristianos, in Tenerife.

Witnesses said he then fled the store with the severed head in his hands, with blood dripping on the floor.


Horror: The bloodstained man lies on the street in Tenerife after beheading a British woman in a shop in the holiday resort


Wrestled to the ground: The man had been running through the town brandishing the woman's head before being tackled by a motorcyclist


Brave: Witnesses said he was only felled after a biker (centre of picture) flung his helmet at him

As the 28-year-old attacker ran through the streets of the holiday island carrying the victim’s head, security guards and a number of witnesses gave chase.

He was eventually cornered after a passing Italian motorcyclist, named only as David, hurled his helmet at the man’s face.

The knifeman stumbled, dropped the head and the biker jumped on him. He struggled to break free but was held by the motorcyclist and other pursuers until police arrived.

Colin Kirkby, a 50-year-old British journalist who witnessed the attack, told MailOnline that the man probably picked up the knife inside the shop – and there was no apparent motivation.


Haunting: The victim's head lies on the ground covered only by a sheet as stunned crowds held back by police tape look on


Gruesome: The victim's body is carried away on a stretcher from the shop where she was decapitated. Police arrived on the scene and sealed off the area


Murder scene: Police and medics hold a sheet around the head of the woman after it was dropped onto the ground by the attacker who ran away from the shop


Policemen secure the area around a supermarket: Dozens of people had come out of their apartments to find out what had happened

‘A middle-aged English couple in the shop said it came out of the blue and there was no real disturbance, there are security guards in the centre that would have been on the scene quickly,’ he said.

‘The shop sells cheap souvenir sword-like blades and I think if he had walked into the shop with the blade he would have been stopped by security and that’s what people are thinking.’

Mr Kirkby added that it was so surreal he thought the ‘scruffy’ man, aged in his 20s, was carrying a ‘joke’ head.

‘I could hear people shouting and screaming and the guy was walking along the footpath slowly muttering to himself carrying the head – it was very surreal,’ he said.

‘I couldn’t hear what he was muttering and seemed to be oblivious to everything around him and was sort of rambling.

‘He was holding the head by the hair and I couldn’t help but think of the image in the Clash of the Titans where a man is beheaded.

‘One of the things was there wasn’t a lot of blood everywhere and there was no weapon on him.

‘He was not the smartest looking of guys and not well groomed, I don’t know if he was sleeping rough.’

He added that when the man was bundled to the floor by security he was not screaming and thrashing to get away.

An eye-witness told local radio: 'I was parking my car outside the supermarket and I saw this man running out with something bloody in his hands.

'It was a head. He had it in his hands. The security guards chased him and threw him to the floor and overpowered him.'


Trail: Blood stains remain on the pavement next to a white sheet after the atrocity in the tourist resort


Resort: Residents gather in the palm-tree lined streets next to the shopping centre where the murder took place

'PEOPLE WERE SCREAMING...IT WAS LIKE A SCENE FROM CLASH OF THE TITANS'



Colin Kirby, a British resident living in Tenerife, described the horrific scene.

‘I am trying to be calm about this, it just seemed bizarre and unreal,’ he wrote on Tenerife Magazine.

‘I was walking down towards the Los Cristianos cultural centre about 40 minutes ago, there was a crowd at the top of the ramp into the Chinese cheap shop and a medic rushing into the shop.

‘I thought someone had fainted or something and walked on, then I heard screaming and looked behind and saw a scruffy, unkempt man of about mid 20s holding a head by the hair.

‘It had blood on it and I thought at first it was a sick joke stunt, the man was muttering and shouting and more people started screaming as I quickened my pace.

‘Security staff and police came running towards the man and he ran across the carriageway and was heading up the road to the traffic lights.

‘After several lunges, someone brought him down on the grass and they restrained him as help arrived.

‘People had to be held back as they tried to rain kicks on the man, then the roads filled with screeching tyres and more police.

‘When I saw the man holding the head the first thing that popped into my mind was the scene from Clash Of The Titans where the hero holds up the Gorgons head but his was real. And someone has just reminded me that it is Friday the 13th, what a bizarre and scary start to the day.’

The witness said the head rolled along the ground as the suspect was apprehended.

Another witness said: 'I saw him running down the street. We thought at first he was carrying a mannequin's head.'

There were conflicting reports that the weapon may have been a machete, a sword or even a spade.

The shop where the woman was killed sells knifes and machetes. It is understood he used one of the weapons in the store to carry out the attack.

Police said a homeless Bulgarian man, with a criminal record, had been arrested on suspicion of murder. He had been sleeping rough in a semi-derelict house.

Originally it was reported the victim was a Chinese immigrant working at a mini-market in the Valdes shopping centre in the heart of Los Cristianos.
But it later emerged she was a British woman who had been shopping in the store. It is believed he had been following her in the days before her murder.

British consular staff were thought to be trying to locate next of kin for the woman, who is thought to be an expatriate living in Tenerife.
Local media named the man under arrest as Deyan Valentinov D, only giving the initial for his surname as is customary in Spanish newspaper reports.

Dominica Fernandez, Madrid's representative in the Canary Islands, said the killer had 'chosen his victim by chance'.

The horrific murder took place at around 10.25am in the shopping centre in Avenida Juan Carlos I.

A source at the National Police, investigating, said: 'At the moment we are investigating whether he was carrying the knife when he entered the store, or whether he picked it up inside.'

Police were studying CCTV footage of the attack. The police source said the suspect was 'very well known' to officers in the area.

Local reports said he had spent time in the psychiatric unit at the Hospital de La Candelaria following early violent outbursts.

He is said to have once punched a man in the street in a random attack, knocking out his victim's two front teeth.

A spokesman for the local ambulance service said: 'We received a call from a member of the public at 10.25am saying a woman was being attacked by a man with a large knife.

'Two ambulances were sent to the scene but there was nothing that could be done to save her life.

A spoeksman for the Foreign Office in London said: 'We are aware of reports that a British woman has died in Tenerife and we are urgently investigating those reports.'


Popular: Millions of British tourists flock to Los Cristianos every year but this is understood to be the first attack of its kind on a holidaymaker in the area


Heated: Tenerife is in the Canary Islands, located west of Africa and south of Spain. The woman was killed in southern Tenerife

Los Cristianos is located in the heart of the most popular tourist region of Tenerife, in the Canary Island’s south, just 15km from the nearest airport.

Considered the quieter sibling of nearby party resort Playa de las Américas, the town has long been a favourite amongst older British holidaymakers and ex-pats.

The first tourists arrived in Los Cristianos in the 1950s, attracted to the resort’s promise of year-round sunshine – average temperatures hover around 22 degrees - and two sandy beaches.

The town has a population of around 19,000 [Tenerife’s total population is around 800,000].

Around two million British tourists holiday in Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands every year, with around 80 per cent of that figure made up of returning visitors.

Once one of southern Tenerife’s most important ports, Los Cristianos has been subject to sprawling development in recent decades as the town has become increasingly popular among European tourists.

Video: British woman decapitated in Los Cristianos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9SOAhdq ... r_embedded

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... chete.html