Staff Reporter
THE body of a 44-year-old man who killed his two-year-old son in a Barcelona hotel three weeks ago has been discovered by Catalan Police near the city’s airport.
It was the smell from the decomposing body of Martín Ezequiel Álvarez Giaccio that led police to its discovery in a densely wooded area on the perimeter of Barcelona’s El Prat airport on Wednesday afternoon.
Mossos d’Esquadra Inspector Josep Naharro, of Barcelona’s Criminal Investigation Division told a press conference that Alvarez had hanged himself from a tree using his own belt in an area that was difficult to access.
Naharro said: “It is possible that he didn’t want his body to be found, which made the search difficult”.
A manhunt was launched after the economist and finance manager killed his two-year-old son at the same hotel where he celebrated his wedding to his former partner.
He killed the child on the seventh floor of the Concordia hotel, located on Avenida del Parallel in Barcelona in an apparent act of revenge against the child’s mother with him he was involved in an acrimonious divorce.
Before committing the crime he had threatened her with a message saying “You will regret it”.
Alvarez, who had dual Argentine and Spanish citizenship, left no note of explanation, nor had he contacted friends or family.
Despite having no money, passport or plane ticket he took a taxi to El Prat’s Terminal 1, before disappearing into the wooded area surrounding the airport.
Álvarez was captured fleeing the hotel by CCTV, and subsequently a major manhunt was launched. Catalan police took the unusual step of publicly circulating the suspects photograph.
Mossos d’Esquadra spokesperson Joan Carles Molinero said: “It was done with the judge’s cooperation and it’s not ruled out in future investigations”.
The appeal resulted in more than one hundred calls reporting possible sightings.
On Wednesday local residents alerted authorities to a bad smell, and several drones and officers were sent to search the area.
After navigating a hard-to-access canal, officers detected a ‘slight rotting’ smell.
The body was found in an advanced state of decomposition and was initially unidentifiable. But fingerprints taken from the corpse confirmed the identity as Alvarez.
Police investigators also revealed that Alvarez, the subject of a three-week-manhunt, had taken his own life just hours after murdering his child.
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