UK experts scan lake in Cyprus serial killer case

 

British forensics experts helping to tackle the Cyprus serial killer case visited a toxic lake where a suitcase was found with a decomposed body inside.

Earlier, the Cypriot police chief and leading investigators briefed the experts from Scotland Yard on the investigation into the killings of seven foreign women and girls.

The toxic lake is where the suspect 35-year-old Cyprus army captain Nikos Metaxas told investigators he dumped three of his victims after putting them inside suitcases.

The body of an adult woman inside a suitcase weighed down by a cement block was retrieved Sunday from the lake. But authorities have had difficulty locating the other two suitcases, despite using a robotic camera, because of very poor visibility in the lake that is part of a disused copper pyrite mine.

A high-tech sonar device will be employed in the coming days to provide detailed images of what lies at the bottom of the lake. It will also be used at another reservoir where the suspect told investigators he dumped a child’s body, the daughter of one of his victims.

Only one victim has been positively identified — 38 year-old Mary Rose Tiburcio from the Philippines. The suspect says that he dumped Tiburcio’s 6-year-old daughter Sierra in the reservoir.

Investigators said the other victims include two Filipino women, a Romanian woman and her 8-year-old daughter and a woman believed to be from Nepal.

In the meantime criticism mounted of how Cypriot police initially handled the disappearances of several victims.

 

Via AP