The Latest: Cyprus army officer says he killed 7
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — The Latest on the slayings of Filipino women in Cyprus: (all times local):
7:30 p.m.
Two law enforcement officials in Cyprus say a double-homicide suspect told investigators he killed seven people, five women and two girls.
A police official said Thursday that the suspect, a 35-year-old army captain, reversed himself Thursday and admitted killing a 31-year-old Filipino woman who went missing in Cyprus in December 2017.
Police previously said the suspect had admitted killing two other women whose bodies were found in an abandoned mine shaft six days apart.
Authorities have been searching for the 6-year-old daughter of the first victim, also from the Philippines. The police official says investigators now think based on the officer’s statements that the girl is one of his seven victims.
A second police official confirmed the suspect claimed responsibility for seven killings.
Investigators plan to keep interrogating him to determine if he told the truth.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss details of the case.
—By Menelaos Hadjiicostis
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3:07 p.m.
A Cyprus court has extended for another two days the detention of a man suspected in the killings of two women after police connected him to another woman who disappeared 16 months ago.
The state-run Cyprus News Agency said investigators on Thursday told the court that a witness testified the suspect had photographs of 31-year-old Maricar Valtez Arquiola’s temporary residence permit that were taken the day she disappeared in December 2017.
The suspect, a 35 year-old Cypriot military officer, admitted to investigators under questioning that he met Arquiola the day before she vanished.
Authorities on Thursday continued searching an abandoned, flooded mineshaft where the body of 38-year-old Marry Rose Tiburcio was discovered on April 14. The body of another unidentified Asian woman was found in the mineshaft six days later.
Tiburcio’s 6-year-old daughter remains missing.
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