Killers letters to victim’s mother not investigated

MALAGA Public Prosecutor will not investigate the letters sent to Alicia Hornos by the man accused of killing her daughter, Tony Alexander King. King, who was sentenced to 19 years in prison for the death of Rocio Wanninkhof in 1999, sent her two letters from Herrera de La Mancha Prison in Ciudad Real, in which he claimed Dolores Vazquez, Alicia’s former lover, is the girl’s killer.

The letters, which amount to 23 pages, have been translated into Spanish, but the prosecutor believes they bring no new information to the case. Rocio’s mother explained that the letters implicated Dolores Vazquez and Robert Graham. Vazquez was found guilty of the crime in September 2001 and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

However, she was released in February 2002 after appealing to the Andalucian High Court of Justice. A further trial against her was suspended when King was arrested in September 2003 and confessed to his involvement in the death.

In the letters, the convict, who is also sentenced to 36 years in prison for the murder of Sonia Carabantes in Coin in August 2003 and seven years for the attempted rape of a young girl in Benalmadena, claims he took part in the crime in exchange for money, but that he only moved the body and wrapped it in plastic.

On October 9, 1999, 19-year-old Rocio, left her home to visit her boyfriend in Mijas. At about 9:30pm, she left his house to go home and get ready to meet him later at the Fuengirola fair. She was never seen alive again.

When she failed to return home, Alicia asked her other daughter, Rosa, to contact Rocio’s boyfriend, Antonio. He said he had not made it to the fair but that Rocio had been seen there by other friends, so she had probably spent the night at one of their houses.

The restless mother went for a walk and found Rocio’s blood-stained clothes. Rocio’s badly-burnt body was found three weeks later.

An autopsy revealed that she had been stabbed once in the chest and eight times in the back, although, on account of the poor condition of the corpse, it could not be determined if she had been sexually assaulted.

DNA linked King, who had a criminal record and was imprisoned for sex crimes in the UK, where he was known as the Holloway Strangler, to her murder.