A MAN has been arrested on suspicion of murdering his wife, after he fled to Alicante airport.
The suspect is thought to have killed the 42-year-old woman who was found in her bed, naked and with a rose on her chest.
The events happened Thursday night, before the man bought a plane ticket to his and his wife’s native Ecuador.
Guardia Civil officers who attended the house in Torre-Pacheco believed the woman had been suffocated, but an autopsy has not yet been carried out.
The woman’s friends notified police after she did not come into work, but there were no indications prior to her death that she was at risk from sexist violence.
She had, however, denounced her husband in 2009 for an assault, and subsequently received a restraining order that expired in October 2010.
The suspected killer is now in custody, while residents in Murcia have now held a minute’s silence for his wife.
If confirmed as a case of macho violence, it would be the first in Murcia this year, and the 20th across Spain.