DEMONSRATIONS across Spain have taken place today after the body of 26-year-old high school teacher Laura Luelmo was found among the rushes not far from her home in El Campillo (Huelva province).
Laura, from Zamora (Castilla y León) had only recently moved to El Campillo to take up a job teaching, and reportedly told her boyfriend on the phone that she felt 'uncomfortable' about one of her neighbours, a man aged 50 who was 'constantly leering at her' and would even put a chair in his doorway to ogle her whenever she passed.
After a search that began when Laura vanished after going out for a run on Wednesday, her body was discovered and it turned out she had died from a severe blow to the head – at least two or three days after she disappeared.
She may have been unconscious for this time after her injuries were inflicted.
Police initially suspected Luciano Montoya, 50, thought to be the 'ogling' neighbour, but he had been in prison in Ocaña (Toledo province) on the day Laura went missing.
They then investigated his identical twin brother, Bernardo, who turned out to be the man Laura felt 'uncomfortable' about.
Bernardo Montoya had been released from prison two months earlier after serving a sentence of two years and 10 months for two violent muggings against women in 2015.
Before this, he had served 17 years and nine months for murder.
Back in 1995, he had broken into the home of an 82-year-old lady in Cortegana, about 50 kilometres from El Campillo, and burgled the property.
He later went back and murdered the elderly occupant, forcing open a window and stabbing her in the back and neck with a machete while she was in bed, killing her.
The murder was to prevent her from giving evidence against him in court.
Sentenced in 1997, he was given leave in 2008, during which he attacked a 27-year-old woman walking through a park in El Campillo and stabbed her dog – a German Shepherd who successfully prevented his owner being assaulted.
The dog was badly injured but survived, and the attacker was sentenced to a further 18 months for threats.
Bernardo was a cocaine and heroin addict, and his twin brother Luciano has been convicted of various violent crimes against women.
The second suspect confessed to Laura's murder earlier today, saying he 'tried to rape her' but unsuccessfully, then hit her on the head and left her in the undergrowth, but insists she was alive when he last saw her.
His father 'apologised' to Laura's friends and family, and said if it had indeed been his son who had caused her death, he hoped he would 'pay for it'.
Women all over Spain have been protesting over the threat of violence faced by females everywhere – not just those in abusive relationships, but from random men perpetrating attempted or actual sexual assaults.
Girls daubed in red paint, so they appeared blood-covered, lay outside Salamanca University, where Laura graduated from, as others waved banners.
Although Spain is statistically one of Europe's – if not the world's – safest countries, with a very low violent crime rate, women's groups demonstrating today say they could have been Laura.
Her death comes just two weeks before the anniversary of another high-profile murder and attempted sexual assault victim's body being found – that of 18-year-old Diana Quer, who was abducted and strangled by a would-be rapist, a total stranger, who threw her naked body down a well in a Galicia warehouse.
Diana had been a total stranger to the man who killed her in the early hours of August 22, 2016, sparking a massive international missing persons search which ended with her body being found on New Year's Eve 2017.
A MAN declared dead at his home in the province of Tarragona was on his way to the funeral parlour when he turned out to be alive, according to police sources.
A NEW child protection law named after a British musician living in Spain has been approved in Congress and is set to be signed off by the Council of Ministers on Tuesday, June 8.
