- Murder of Jennifer Mills-Westley
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The murder of Jennifer Mills-Westley occurred on Friday 13 May 2011 in Los Cristianos, Tenerife.
Contents
Background
Mills-Westley was a 60-year-old grandmother of five from Norwich, England, who had retired to the Spanish island of Tenerife in 2006.[1] She owned two two-bedroom apartments on the Port Royale complex in Los Cristianos, one of which she rented to tourists.[2]
Murder
Mills-Westley's murder was widely publicised in the British and international media due to its horrific nature, in which a homeless man stabbed and beheaded her in a busy shop on Avenida Juan Carlos in the town centre. Officials said the man appeared to choose his victim at random before stabbing her in the neck fourteen times and then carrying her severed head out into the street.[3][4][5]
The attack began at around 10:20 a.m. when the man suddenly started stabbing Mills-Westley without warning and with a large knife, possibly a ceremonial samurai sword. He then cut off her head, and carried it out into the street while shouting: "This is my treasure," and "God is on earth."[6] He then threw the head to the ground and was tackled by a security guard before police arrived.
Suspect
Police later named the suspect as 28-year-old unemployed Bulgarian Deyan Valentinov Deyanov. He was reported to have lived rough in a semi-derelict beach house and had a police record for violence towards strangers in the street. Three months prior to the attack on Mills-Westley, he had been released from a psychiatric unit at the Hospital de la Candelaria after a short stay following an unprovoked attack on a security guard who had been patrolling the seafront at Los Cristianos.[7]
Two days prior to killing Mills-Westley, he was detained but released soon after by police for harassing women at a nightclub in nearby Playa de las Américas.[8]
Although officials were initially quoted as saying the attack was random, later reports in the British media suggested that Mills-Westley had sought help in a nearby office just before she was murdered, telling staff that she feared she was being followed by a man who was then told to go away by a security guard.[9]
In the years prior to the attack in Los Cristianos, Deyanov was understood to have travelled between Edinburgh and Bradford in the UK, Cyprus and Tenerife, and Flint in north Wales where he had relatives. He had not returned to his family in Ruse, Bulgaria, since stealing family money and possessions to pay for addictions to heroin and gambling.[10] In the summer of 2010 he spent some time in a psychiatric unit at Glan Clwyd hospital in Bodelwyddan, northeast Wales.[7]
He is now being held at a psychiatric unit in Tenerife and is charged with murder.[7]
References
- ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13401045
- ^ http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/246749/Tenerife-murder-Hide-me-plea-by-beheaded-gran-
- ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/13/woman-beheaded-tenerife-supermarket-spain
- ^ http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/05/13/501364/main20062627.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody
- ^ "Man beheads British tourist in Spanish supermarket". Stuff.co.nz. Associated Press. 14 May 2011. http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/5004991/Man-beheads-British-tourist-in-Spanish-supermarket/. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
- ^ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1386762/British-woman-beheaded-Tenerife-machete.html
- ^ a b c [1]
- ^ http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/notw/_news/1298430/Jennifer-Mills-Westley-was-chopped-at-14-times-by-killer-in-Tenerife.html
- ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13403303
- ^ http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/05/23/beheading-monster-deyan-deyanov-told-ex-lover-choose-who-dies-you-or-your-baby-115875-23149820/
Categories:- Crime stubs
- 2011 deaths
- Murder in 2011
- People from Norwich
- 2011 in England
- English murder victims
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