Walter Finch
By Walter Finch and Alberto Legarraja
THE discovery on a steep area of scrubland and cork oaks near one of the Costa del Sol’s most prestigious golf courses was disturbing in the extreme.
On the borders of La Quinta golf and Los Halcones urbanisations, in Benahavis, the local gardener, Bartolo Gallego, initially thought it was a toy ball.
But when he looked closer, he realised it was a skull, that of a woman, with a number of teeth still intact.
“It was a real shock and I soon discovered two or three more bones, plus a bag of clothes and a big suitcase nearby,” he told local TV station Area.
Having taken photos he sent them to the boss, who immediately called in the police, which were soon on the scene.
All the remains were taken to the garage of the home, where they were loaded up for analysis, with the official DNA results expected back this week.
According to the gardener, who had been heading to his vegetable garden, forensic experts put the remains as those of a woman between 25 and 35 years old, who had died around 10 to 15 years ago.
What Gallego didn’t realise was that he might have stumbled across the body of decade-long missing Latvian expat, Agnese Klavina.
The 30-year-old had vanished after being abducted from the disco Aqwa Mist in Marbella in 2014 and never been seen again.
However, as the Olive Press revealed at the time, she had been forced into a car by British pals, Westley Capper and Craig Porter, who had driven her up the hill to Benahavis.
We acquired photos of the pair posing in the nightclub, while later, chilling CCTV caught the exact moment Agnese was ‘forced’ into their Mercedes outside the disco at 5am.
Capper, a well-known local gangster, owned up to four multi-million euro villas in the area, at least two for sale.
One, had a walk-in fridge/freezer, which he told potential buyers was ‘where we keep the bodies’.
However, when he was finally charged over her abduction he insisted she had asked to get out of the car on the ‘Ronda road’ in Benahavis and he had not seen her again.
He refused to confirm what had been in a heavy suitcase carried onto a yacht in Duquesa Port the following day.
Capper, who died of Covid in 2021, and Porter had claimed that they were driving Agnese to another party but she changed her mind and asked them to drop her off near her house.
Porter told the court he fell asleep in the back of the Mercedes before Agnese got out.
Since a body was never found, the pair were ultimately convicted in 2019 of the lesser crime of ‘coercion’ after a judge ruled that they had not unlawfully detained her.
Capper had been facing up to 16 years behind bars as CCTV showed him ushering Agnese into the car.
Porter, who was seen holding the door open, was also cleared of illegal detention.
Instead, Capper was sentenced to two years in prison and Porter got six months.
The verdict caused anguish for the friends and family of Agnese, who felt that the accused had gotten away with her murder.
“All lines of investigation are open and it is a possibility that the bones found belong to her,” a high-ranking Guardia Civil told the Olive Press yesterday.
“But it is not possible to identify who the victim is until we have the results from the DNA test,” He added: “I can only confirm that the suitcase with the bones was found at the Urbanizacion Halcones in Benahavis.”
The DNA of the ‘lovely, bubbly’ waitress is among a database of dozens of missing women around Spain and it is hoped there will be a match.
It is believed that the body had initially been cut up and buried in a red suitcase, but animals, probably wild boar, somehow pulled it out and strewed it around the garden.
Capper and Porter went on to have numerous run-ins with the law in Spain over the following years.
In 2016, Capper dodged jail again after admitting to being behind the wheel in the hit-and-run death of mother-of-three Fatima Dorado.
Unrepentant Liverpool-native Porter was in the car with Capper – but he also avoided going down.
A judge gave them both a suspended sentence in 2020 over the death.
Capper allegedly paid compensation to Dorado’s family before his sentencing – a deal dubbed ‘blood money’.
READ MORE:
- Westley Capper implicated in disappearance of Latvian model Agnese Klavina in Spain’s Marbella dies ‘from COVID’
- British expat Westley Capper avoids jail for hit-and-run killing of Bolivian mother on Spain’s Costa del Sol
- Agnese Klavina’s family to take case to Supreme Court after ‘shock verdict’ sees Marbella based Brits accused of kidnap ‘walk free’ on lesser charge
