The Homicide group of the National Police of Santa Cruz de Tenerife has arrested the alleged perpetrator of the sexual assault and murder of a woman committed in 2017 in the Añaza neighborhood, after more than nine years of investigation.
A police note indicates that the events occurred on October 19 of that year when a woman was approached by surprise while she was about to get into her vehicle, which was parked in a communal garage in the Añaza neighborhood, to go to her job in the municipality of El Rosario.
The victim, who was sexually assaulted and subsequently murdered, could barely defend herself against the great violence exerted by the alleged perpetrator, who was 22 years old at the time.
016 telephone line for all types of violence against women
During the first months, the lack of direct witnesses and the absence of a clear aggressor profile hindered the progress of the investigation, which focused on males with previous convictions for sexual offenses residing in the area.
However, the decisive clue arrived six months after the tragedy, at which point a woman was again assaulted inside a building in the neighboring neighborhood of Santa María del Mar, with the exception that on this occasion the victim managed to call for help from neighbors, which caused her captor to flee.
At the scene, officers recovered a handkerchief abandoned by the aggressor, the analysis of which, carried out by Scientific Police, yielded a DNA sample that was coincident with the one obtained at the crime scene in the Añaza garage.
This evidence allowed investigators to focus all their hypotheses on establishing a direct link between both incidents and determining the possibility that the perpetrator resided in the vicinity of both neighborhoods, the note indicates.
According to the Police, for the identification of the perpetrator, novel techniques for analyzing the biogeographical origin of the collected samples had to be used, applied by the University of Santiago de Compostela, which provided an approximate physical description of the perpetrator.
Genetic screening techniques were also used to construct a family tree that would lead to identifying the alleged perpetrator, which required the consultation of archives and parish registers from the early 19th century to the present day, in addition to the participation of the DNA biology laboratory of the General Commissariat of Scientific Police for the resolution of the case.
Once the perpetrator was arrested, his home was entered and searched to gather data for the full clarification of the events. The detainee was placed at the disposal of the judicial authorities and his imprisonment has been ordered.
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