DNA links Briton to teenager’s murder

25 November 2004

MALAGA-Spanish police have found traces of the DNA of double-murder suspect Tony King at the scene of one of the killings, it was reported.

The DNA traces of King were allegedly discovered near the body of 19-year-old Rocío Wanninkhof, whose corpse was found in November 1999 in Rodeo de Marbella, near Malaga in Andalucia.

A local Spanish newspaper, Malaga Hoy, has reported police had identified the DNA profile of King from a hair found on the body of Wanninkhof.

In September last year, DNA tests showed a link between the murder of Wanninkhof and that of another teenager, Sonia Carabantes.

King, 38, was arrested a year ago in southern Spain in connection with the murders of  Carabantes and Wanninkhof.

Carabantes, 17, was killed in the early hours of 14 August 2003 as she was on way home from a village fete in Coin, near Rodeo de Marbella.

King, who moved to Spain nine years ago, had previously alleged that a friend, Robert Graham, had killed Wanninkhof as part of a mafia plot over land deals.

Dolores Vazquez, an acquaintance of Wanninkhof, was convicted of her killing initially but the court ordered a retrial, judging the conviction unsafe after DNA testing showed up links between both that killing and that of Carabantes.

Graham was questioned and initially accused of providing a false alibi for King, but then freed as a statute of limitations had run out.

Wanninkhof disappeared on 9 October 1999.

The prosecutor has called for King to be jailed fo 34 years if found guilty of either murders.

King is expected to stand trial next year.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news