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A Dutch former volleyball player and her boyfriend who were murdered in Spain died from blows to the head, a court official said Friday, citing autopsy results.
The bodies of Ingrid Visser, 35, and her partner Lodewijk Severein, 57, were found buried in a lemon grove in Murcia, southeastern Spain on May 27.
“The first results from the autopsies confirm the violent death of the two people from brain trauma, from a blow to the head,” a spokesman for the court in Murcia said on Friday.
The official said the results supported the police’s belief that the bodies are those of the Dutch couple, although DNA tests to confirm this were not yet finished.
A court in the eastern city of Valencia has remanded in custody three people arrested there in the case — a Spanish man of 36 and two Romanians aged 47 and 60.
Court officials said the Spaniard was arrested on suspicion of “double homicide”. Media reported he was the former manager of a volleyball club that Visser used to play for.
The couple disappeared on May 13 shortly after checking into a hotel in Murcia.
Spanish media, citing sources close to the investigation, reported that the two were found in a shallow grave, cut into pieces.
Murcia police chief Cirilo Duran said on Monday that investigators suspected the couple had “business disagreements” with the suspects that led to the killing.
Visser was part of the Netherlands’ gold medal-winning team at the European Championship in 1995 and played for a volleyball team in Murcia between 2009 and 2011.