Ubrique killings: father detained

UBRIQUE (Cádiz) – The Guardia Civil this week arrested the father of the two young people he is alleged to have killed last Monday, and who had fled to the mountains around the village. Juan M.F., 53, was found after a large search had been in operation for three days, after the bodies of his two children, a woman of 20 and a 16 year old boy, were discovered at their home. According to Guardia sources, the man, who works in the local leatherworks industry for which Ubrique is famous,  had thrown the knife//with which he allegedly committed the crimes, into a local stream. Its discovery led to his hideout in the mountains where he was arrested.

Motive may have been maintenance money

The crime caused a great commotion in the village, with neighbours and family friends, including numerous school friends of the boy, congregated at the doors of the house where the bodies were found.

According to some of these, the man, who had been widowed about a year ago, had wanted to bring his new partner to live at the family home, to which the children thoroughly objected.

Friends of the woman say that she had to stop her studies in Seville a year ago, when her mother died after a very long illness, to take care of her young brother.  She had several times applied for financial help from the village’s Social Services, because her father ‘never cared for them’.

An uncle of the victims told the media that ‘nobody ever thought this remotely possible’, adding that the alleged perpetrator had never seemed to understand that he was legally obliged to give his children maintenance money’ and that this was probably the motive behind the killings.

Ubrique declared two days of official mourning, and the Council expressed its ‘utter rejection and repulsion’ at the crime.