Police divers retrieved a suitcase containing the decomposing remains of a woman from the bottom of a lake in Cyprus on Sunday, 28 April.
The suitcase was weighed down by a concrete block, the chief of Cyprus' Criminal Investigation Department said. A Greek Cypriot army officer, named locally as Nicos Metaxas, has reportedly admitted killing seven people.
Last week two women were found murdered and dumped in a mineshaft. The women are believed to be Mary Rose Tiburcio, 38, and Arian Palanas Lozano, 28, both from the Philippines. Tiburcio's six-year-old daughter Sierra is still missing.
— CyprusNewsReport.Com (@cnrcy) 26 April 2019
Investigators say Tiburcio and the suspect had a relationship for two months before she went missing in May 2018. They reportedly met on a dating website.
Metaxas, a 35-year-old army captain, has reportedly told detectives he dumped three of his victims into the toxic lake, which is part of a defunct copper mine 20 miles west of the island's capital, Nicosia.
— Rem🌱 (@mysticalrem) 26 April 2019
Police believe the victims are Maricar Valtez Arquiola, 31, from the Philippines, Florentina Bunea, 36, from Romania and her eight-year-old daughter Elena Natalia.
Arquiola has been missing since December 2017, while the mother and daughter vanished in September 2016.
The chief of the Criminal Investigation Department in Cyprus, Senior Inspector Neophytos Shailos, said a coroner who examined the body at the scene said it was in an advanced stage of decomposition and it would be some time before it could be identified.
A second suitcase has also been found in the lake and police are searching for a third which they believe is in the water.
If convicted, Metaxas would be the first serial killer in the history of Cyprus. He reportedly preyed on foreign women who came to work on the Mediterranean island, a popular holiday spot for northern Europeans.
— Ertan Osman (@SonOfAlashia) 21 April 2019
On Thursday, 25 April, the suspect reportedly admitted killing five women and two of their daughters.
One of his victims has been named as Ashita Khadka Bista, from Nepal.
Police Chief Zacharias Chrysostomou has ordered an internal probe to determine whether investigators had failed to properly investigate the women's disappearances amid public criticism that authorities did little to search for the women when they were reported missing.
