Dutch volleyball player killed by blow to head in Murcia

Police have revealed that the international Dutch volleyball player who was found dead along with her partner in a lemon grove in the Murcia region was killed by a severe blow to the head.

Forensic experts say the Dutch pair suffered  blows so violent it lead to the ‘destruction of the central nervous system’, or such severe brain damage as to lead to instant death.

Post-mortems on the couple have confirmed their identity but further examinations will be needed to ascertain what was used as the murder weapon, the date and time of the killing, and whether the victims had any chance of defending themselves.

Ingrid Visser, 36, who was three months’ pregnant at the time and on a two-day visit to Spain for an appointment at a fertility clinic in Murcia, and LodewijkSeverin, 57, were lured to a house in nearby Molina de Segura which the killer, Juan Cuenca, had rented.

The 35-year-old Valencia resident owed Ingrid €80,000 from her two years as part of the CAV Murcia 2005 team which Cuenca used to manage until 2011, when Ingrid decided to retire from the sport and start trying for a child with divorced Severin, who has two adult daughters from a previous marriage.

Severin had been attempting to get his money back from Cuenca which he had invested in what the latter claimed was a marble quarry in Brazil, since he was disappointed with the fact there had been no return on his funds – mainly because, unbeknown to the Dutch couple, the quarry did not exist.

A female friend of Cuenca who has  acriminal record for fraud – was asked to give the Dutch couple a lift to the Molina de Segura house, where they believed Cuenca was going to pay them the money he owed.

According to the woman Cuenca sent her a text minutes later asking her to supply him with a chain-saw and several sacks of powdered limestone, plus mops and buckets, bleach and rubbish bags, which she thought was odd and she told him that she was unable to do so.

When she learnt of  the couple’s disappearance two days after she had taken them to Molina de Segura, the woman contacted the police.

Cuenca is now in Picassent prison near Valencia after being arrested in the city in wait for him when he went to meet  the two hitmen and pay them.

The hitmen escaped, but Cuenca told police where they lived and they were arrested soon afterwards.

The couple’s bodies were found chopped up, coated in powdered limestone inside plastic bags buried in shallow graves in a lemon grove in Alquerías, a remote hamlet just outside Murcia city.

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