British woman ‘decapitated’ in Tenerife supermarket
A British national has been stabbed to death in a busy supermarket in Tenerife. The killer is understood to have been tackled to the ground as he fled the store.
The Spanish authorities said on Friday a woman was beheaded in a supermarket in the popular holiday resort of Tenerife.
According to witnesses a homeless Bulgarian man was captured by security guards after he ran out of the store in Los Cristianos with the head in his hands.
The Foreign Office confirmed the victim was a British woman, believed to be in her 60s.
A regional government spokeswoman said the killer is understood to have obtained a knife from inside the store to launch his attack.
Witnesses have described seeing the man tackled to the ground after he carried the head out of the supermarket.
Araceli Perez, 33, who works for Ocean Properties, said the victim was reportedly British but of Chinese ancestry.
Tenerife media were saying the killer had previous convictions for violence, Miss Perez said.
“Guards from the commercial centre jumped on him and the head was rolling on the floor,” she said.
“Many people saw that on the street. Then he was caught by the police.
“He must be insane because he was running away with her head in his hands.”
Footage on the internet showed people gathered around the supermarket as the police tried to clear the scene.
In a video posted on YouTube, witness Colin Kirby of Tenerifemagazine.com said: “There was a Hispanic-looking guy walking behind me, looking very scruffy, muttering to himself, carrying what I thought was a joke head by the hair.
“The blood – it just made me think, Clash of the Titans. I thought: the guy’s a nutter, it’s a joke.
“I’d gone a bit further, the Chinese come running out the other shops, running down towards the big shop where he’d come out.
“The security guards came out, they chased him across the road. By this time he’s empty handed. They got him on the other side of the road, just by the cultural centre. A couple of people tried to get him, they flattened him, got him on the ground.
“The police arrived. The security and the police had to hold people off – they were queuing up – they were trying basically to kick the hell out of the guy.
“Now the place is a madhouse. There’s police, ambulance, security and big areas roped off.
“I spoke to an English couple who were in the shop. They said they couldn’t believe it. They said this guy just walked in, pulled a big knife and started stabbing at her. I still find it hard believe it was a real head – it looked like some prosthetic thing you see in a movie. It’s just bizarre.”