British store worker, 62, beheaded by man in Tenerife

A MAN randomly attacked and beheaded a 62-year-old woman in a supermarket on the Spanish resort island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

The suspect, believed to be a homeless Bulgarian man with a police record, was detained by security guards after he ran out of the Chinese supermarket in the Valdes Shopping Centre with the blood-soaked head of a British woman in his hands.

“Guards from the commercial centre jumped on him and the head was rolling on the floor,” said Araceli Perez, 33, who works for Ocean Properties, adding the victim was reportedly British but of Chinese ancestry.

Another witness told broadcaster Cadena Ser that he saw the man drop the woman’s head on the pavement after coming out of the store.

“I parked my car and saw a man running out with something bloody in his hands and a security guard chasing him. He threw it to the ground, it almost hit me and what he had been carrying was a woman’s head,” the unnamed witness said.

Local media named the man under arrest as Deyan Valentinov D, only giving the initial for his surname as is customary in Spanish newspaper reports.

Local news reports said the suspect had spent time in the psychiatric unit at the Hospital de La Candelaria following violent outbursts.

Regional interior ministry delegate Dominica Fernandez said the suspect is believed to have entered the shop, stolen a knife which he then used to assault and behead the woman, whose identity hasn’t been released.

Fernandez told journalists the attack appeared to be random and that the man was well known in the area.

The events took place shortly after 9am in the southern town of Arona, about 15 kilometres north of the beach resort of Los Cristianos.

Local councillor Manuel Reveron said: “Apparently this gentleman without any motive or any reason entered the shop and then cut this woman’s neck and took the head in his hand outside up to the sidewalk where the security guard was able to throw him on the ground and then we covered the site.”

A British resident living in Tenerife, Colin Kirby, said he heard screaming and looked behind him and saw a scruffy, unkempt man in his mid-20s holding a head by the hair.

“It had blood on it and I thought at first it was a sick joke stunt, the man was muttering and shouting and more people started screaming as I quickened my pace.

“Security staff and police came running towards the man and he ran across the carriageway and was heading up the road to the traffic lights.

“After several lunges, someone brought him down on the grass and they restrained him as help arrived.”

A woman who works at an estate agents on Avenida Juan Carlos near the murder scene said she drove past shortly after the killing.

The woman, who did not want to be named, said: “It is horrific. This man had a real wild moment and attacked this woman.

“There doesn’t seem to be any relation between them,” she added.

The woman, who has lived on Tenerife for 30 years, said: “This is a real one-off.

“It was right by one of the big Chinese ‘everything-is-a-pound’ stores.