Laurence Dollimore
A CLEANER has told police she fears she may have disposed of a body without realising.
It comes as police are investigating the cleaner’s boss Carmen Merino, 61, after she handed her friend a box which contained the severed head of her partner Jesus Maria Baranda, 67.
In an interview with police, the cleaner recalled how Merino asked her to come to the home in Castro Urdiales, Cantabria, to do a shift.
After not being hired by Merino for a ‘long time’, she was allegedly told to bring her car and park it in her building.
When she arrived, she found several big black and heavy bin bags sitting by the front door.
According to the statement, once she was done cleaning the house, Merino ordered the cleaner to take the bags in her car and dump them wherever she could.
The cleaner followed instructions without looking in the bags, which police now believe could have contained the severed remains of Merino’s partner.
It comes a week after the grisly discovery of his head in a box Merino had given to a friend for ‘safekeeping’.
Merino had given her the box in March, telling her it contained sex toys.
However when a bad smell began to eminate from the box, her friend, from Sevilla, decided to open it.
Police are now looking for the rest of the man’s remains in the Meruelo trash dump, one of the biggest in Cantabria.
They are not hopeful that they will find the body.
Tests have confirmed that the severed head belonged to Baranda and it had signs of having been manipulated, ‘possibly burned.’
One theory is that Merino baked the head before storing it in the box.
Tests are ongoing to determine the cause of death.
Merino is being held in custody on suspicion of murder while the motive of the crime remains a mystery.
