‘Costa killer’ changes story

2 April 2004
MALAGA –Briton Tony  King who is accused of killing two Spanish girls changed his story Friday and claimed he was innocent.

King, 38, is accused of murdering Sonia Carabantes, 17, in August, and Rocio Wanninkhof, 19, in 1999 on the Costa del Sol.

Sonia was found strangled and beaten five days after she went missing on 14 August on her way home from a fiesta in Coin, near Malaga.

Rocio disappeared from her home in Mijas, near Malaga in October 1999 and was found strangled and naked. She had not been sexually assaulted.

But King dramatically changed his story Friday and claimed  the real killers of Wanninkhof were Dolores Vázquez and Robert Graham.

Vázquez was originally accused of  killing Wanninkhof  but after King’s arrest, she was released.

Graham has also been accused of taking part in the murder of Wanninkhof and Carabantes.

King, who has been held in jail since last September, was dubbed the ‘Costa killer’ after it was revealed that he went on the run from Britain after being wanted in connection with a number of attacks on women in his own country.

In 1998, Spanish authorities were warned by British police about King, who had changed his name from Tony Bromwich..

Bromwich, known as the ‘Holloway Strangler’  was convicted of a number of violent attacks on women in the 1980s in north London and served eight years and was released in 1995.

He is thought to have come to Spain in 1997, while police in Britain suspected he was behind a sex assault on a student.

King, who is being held in Alhaurín de la Torre prison, near Malaga, wrote a letter to the judge in the case to change his plea.

Javier Saavedra, King’s lawyer, told journalists: “This is the truth.”

He did admit to being in the same place as  Wanninkhof’s friends when she was murdered but blamed the crimes on  Vasquez and Graham, with whom he had been friends.

King claimed he had not wanted to have sexual relations with the teenager and to prove it he had offered to undergo hypnosis.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

                                  Subject: Spanish news