The victim in Friday morning’s gruesome killing in Los Cristianos has now been named as 60-year-old Jennifer Mills-Westley, a resident of Tenerife, originally from Norwich, Norfolk.

According to the Spanish El Dia newspaper, Jenny, as she was known to friends, lived in the Port Royale complex and did voluntary work for a charitable organisation helping to find missing persons.

She leaves behind two daughters and five grandchildren.

The Tenerife governing Cabildo have sent a message of condolence to the deceased’s family and have emphasised in a press release to the British media that this is an isolated incident and that Tenerife is a safe destination for tourists.

The La Opinion newspaper have a Spanish eye witnesses report that the English woman went to the security guard on the door of the Valdes Centre

Unemployment office at around 10.15 am, crying that a man was following her and asking for help. The guard let her into the government offices as the man arrived at the door shortly afterwards.

The security guard then got the man to leave the vicinity and the woman waited inside for a few minutes.

Once the coast was clear, Jennifer left the unemployment office and went towards the Chinese discount store a few hundred metres away, where it seems she was a regular customer.

She was going around the store shopping when her attacker came into the premises, and took a large knife from a display and attacked her without uttering a word, stabbing her repeatedly in the neck and then finally decapitating her.

In an updated statement this morning Arona councillor José Alberto González Reverón, told of CCTV images which showed the attacker stabbing the victim “countless” times and then proceeding to cut off her head and leaving with the gruesome trophy in his hand.

Chinese shop workers chased after him shouting for help as the man, now identified as 28-year-old Bulgarian national Deyan Valentinov Deyanov. ran down the road carrying the bloody head and calling out: “I am the justice of the lord and I come to meet out justice”

Wu the daughter of the Chinese shop proprietor did not arrive until a few minutes the slaying, but has since confirmed to reporters that the knife used in the attack was from the shop, “it was the kind used for cutting Serrano ham” she said.

As stunned crowds of passers-by looked on, the aggressor held the bloody head of the deceased in his hand as he fled about 50 meters before dropping the gory object which rolled along the pavement.

He attempted to flee but was brought down by an Italian passer-by, Davide Bálsamo, who struck at him with his motorcycle crash helmet.

Deyanov was pinned to the ground by security guard Juan Antonio Hernández Delgado and at least 10 bystanders according to Mari Carmen Pérez who went on: “He stank of alcohol and was covered in blood.”

Police arrived quickly and the man was taken into custody.

The security guard was taken away in an ambulance suffering from shock.

Deyan Valentinov Deyanov is described as an indigent living in a semi-abandoned house who had been released from

the psychiatric ward of the Santa Cruz Our Lady of Candelaria Hospital 3 months ago.

According to Juanma Delgado, a shopkeeper of one of the units near the Chinese Bazaar “just a few months ago the attacker asked a man for the time and because the poor man didn’t have a watch Deyanov struck him in the mouth and knocked 2 of his teeth out” Delgado went on “he’s homeless, he sleeps in the street near the old beach in Los Cristianos”

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Update 13 May 17,00h. Police sources have identified the murder suspect as 28-year-old Bulgarian National Deyan Valentinov D. (surname not released) who has a police record for previous minor altercations.

He is described a an indigent living in a semi-abandoned house who had been released from the Psychiatric ward of the Santa Cruz Our Lady of Candelaria Hospital 3 months ago.

The deceased is believed to have been a customer at the Valdez Centre lower floor discount shop in Los Cristianos.

Update:16,00h The BBC have now reported that officials in Tenerife identified the victim as a 62-year-old British woman.

This fact has been confirmed by a National Police Spokesperson.



originally published 13 May

A woman was horrifically murdered in the Valdez Centre, Los Cristianos this morning.

An Emergency services press release has confirmed that the attack took place at 10.25am

As stunned crowds of passers-by looked on, the alleged aggressor held the bloody head of the deceased in his hand as he fled towards a nearby park where he was tackled to the ground by a security guard and later detained by police officers.

Eye witnesses spoke of disbelief, assuming it was some kind of publicity stunt, but unfortunately police have confirmed the woman was indeed decapitated.

Manuel Reverón, Arona local councillor for citizen security initially confirmed that the man entered the Chinese low cost shop and struck a shop assistant, of Chinese extraction, several blows to the neck with a large knife, cutting off her head. This information was contradicted by a National Police Statement which gives the victim as a 60 year old British woman.

There are unconfirmed reports that the aggressor, of Bulgarian origin, was mentally unstable.