Joshua Parfitt
NEIGHBOURS have revealed that a British expat who allegedly murdered his wife in Estepona last night came round for a beer before going home to ‘put a lamb’s leg in the oven’.
Geoffrey Elton, 55, later that night stabbed Gloria Tornay Naranjo, 58, before turning the knife on his own wrists in a suicide attempt.
Their younger son, Alonso, 15, was reportedly locked out of the house and trying to get in as the attack took place.
“He held my granddaughter in his arms, but after a beer went back to put a lamb’s leg in the oven,” a neighbour told the Olive Press.
“Gloria was my best friend. I could confide in her about everything. She was honest, kind, hard-working.
“When my daughter told me today I just wailed ‘this can’t be true’, ‘this can’t be true’.”
Police were called at 11:45pm on Saturday to the property near the Forest Hills urbanisation where they broke down the door and found Tornay dead in the couple’s bed with multiple stab wounds.
Elton was next to her bleeding heavily from self-inflicted wounds, but was taken to the Hospital Costa del Sol where his condition stabilised.
The son was reportedly trying to get into the house through windows and the door but was unable to halt the tragedy from unfolding.
Though Tornay was found in bed the police found blood stains throughout the house, believed to indicate her attempts to escape.
“I just can’t understand it,” the neighbour, who did not want to be named, told the Olive Press.
“Geoffrey wasn’t a jealous man, nor machista, the only explanation is that he lost his mind.”
The couple’s elder son, Marco, 28, is currently living in America, she added.
Five minute of silence were observed in Tornay’s home of Montejaque at 12:00pm today.
“We would love to think that it is just a sad nightmare and that nothing that has happened is real,” Montejaque mayor Diego Sánchez wrote on council’s website.
He added that the observance of silence was ‘a sign of our rejection and public denunciation of gender violence’.
A minute of silence was also held at 6:00pm in Estepona’s Plaza de Blas Infante, organised by women’s group La Asociación de Mujeres Peñas Blancas de Estepona.
The association’s president Josefina Aragon, 69, told the Olive Press yesterday’s tragedy was the 13th murder of a woman by the hands of a man this year.
“Men capable of horrific violence can often show the complete opposite image outside the house — but no one can tell what happens indoors,” she said.
“There is something seriously wrong with the education men are receiving.”
The neighbour who described herself as Tornay’s best friend said the couple split up a few years ago, but were back together ‘within a month’.
“It’s normal for couples to have disagreements, but this is just inexplicable. My whole body is in shock.”
