This Friday morning, the National Police arrested a man, previously convicted of two deaths, as the alleged perpetrator of the crime of the suitcase, which appeared last week with a body inside lying on Espedrigada Street, in Vigo.
Sources familiar with the proceedings have confirmed to Europa Press that this Friday the man was arrested, who would be an old acquaintance of the agents.
Specifically, José Manuel Durán, O Chioleiro, who was released from prison a year ago after serving a 17 and a half year prison sentence for the death of his neighbor. In addition, the man had already been in prison before for sexually assaulting and killing his grandmother in 1988.
Upon his release from prison, in February 2023, he returned to the Pontevedra town of A Lama, putting the neighbors on alert, since it meant breaking the order that prevented him from approaching the relatives of his last victim. For this reason, he was also arrested and later released.
All this after this week the Police searched for this individual after living with a woman in a room rental apartment in Vigo, located a few meters from where the body appeared.
According to sources familiar with the investigation, O Chioleiro would have rented a room within this property to live with his partner. He would have left her room in the month of September, while she, who is around 60 years old and of Spanish nationality, had already lost track of him months before.
For this reason, the agents carried out a search of said apartment, located at number 83 Fragoso Street in Vigo. During it, signs were found on a mattress that could show that a violent event had occurred there.
From there, the search began to try to locate the whereabouts of this man who rented the room with the woman, whose characteristics would be compatible with the body found in the suitcase.
On the other hand, the police continue with efforts to try to identify the body through various methods, both through its DNA and through the reconstruction of fingerprints, since it was found in an advanced state of decomposition.
The investigation began after the body of a woman appeared inside a suitcase last week in Vigo. This suitcase was found by a delivery driver on Thursday afternoon, in a lot full of weeds, and very close to a house, on Espedrigada Street in the Olívic city.
Upon noticing the bad smell, the worker notified the Emergency Department and the National Police verified that, inside the suitcase (which was wrapped in plastic similar to that used to pack luggage at airports), there was a woman’s body.
The body is in very poor condition due to decomposition and the investigators believe, upon seeing the conditions of the body and based on the testimony of the neighbor of the nearby home, that the suitcase had been there at least since last August. The autopsy performed on the body shows that he received a fatal stab wound, which confirms the homicidal death of the victim.
