Why was he on the streets? The 'prophet of God' who decapitated British woman in Tenerife was a violent character known for attacking passers-by

By Tom Worden for MailOnline and Tom Kelly for the Daily Mail
Updated: 13:42 GMT, 14 May 2011

• Attacker said he was a 'prophet of god'
• The homeless killer was released from psychiatric hospital three months ago
  
• Local mayor says killer was well known to police and intimidated passers-by
• He shouted 'This is my treasure' at the scene, sources say
• Attacker ran through palm tree-lined streets carrying victim's bloodied head
• Pensioner was 'stalked' by murderer in days before the attack
  

The homeless Bulgarian who decapitated a British woman in Tenerife yesterday thought he was 'a prophet of god', it emerged today.

Local mayor José Reverón said the 28-year-old man was a bizarre individual who was known to police and had a history of intimidating passers-by on the street for yesterday's horrifying attack.

Deyan Valentinov was reportedly released from a psychiatric hospital in February and had a history of violent behaviour before brutally killing the 62-year-old Briton in a shopping centre in Los Cristianos yesterday.

He was reportedly admitted to the psychiatric unit after knocking a stranger's teeth out on the street.

As Mayor Reverón said the incident was 'the most horrific crime to hit the resort in recent years', questions were raised about why Spanish authorities had allowed the attacker to wander the streets.

Horror: The man lies on the ground after being tackled by security guards as he ran down the street

Wrestled to the ground: The man had been running through the town brandishing the woman's head before being tackled by a motorcyclist

The Bulgarian is apprehended by police after Mrs Mills-Westley's killing

After the attack, the man reportedly ran out into the street covered in blood, carrying his victim's head and telling passers-by: 'This is my treasure'.

He also shouted: 'God is on Earth,' according to local news site CanariasalDia.com, quoting Mayor Reverón, who said the killer lived in a 'semi-abandoned' house.

Wine merchant David Scott, 41, said the attacker spent most days sitting 50 yards from the scene of the attack 'talking to himself and gesticulating wildly'.

'He was very disturbed and intimidating, the sort of person you would cross the road to avoid,' he added.

Canary Islands political representative Dominica Fernandez was quoted by the news site as saying that the alleged killer was disturbed and had 'chosen his victim by chance'.

The man, who had a previous record for causing bodily injury, struck at 10:30 am local time in the supermarket, which forms part of the Valdes Centre shopping center of Arona, police said.

Other news reports said the man had been in a psychiatric hospital for knocking out a man's two front teeth in a random street attack and had only been released in February but this could not immediately be confirmed.

Witnesses of the attack said the Bulgarian man stabbed the British woman a number of time before cutting off her head without uttering a word.

He then reportedly fled the store with the severed head in his hands, with blood dripping on the floor.

As the 28-year-old attacker ran through the streets of the holiday island carrying the victim’s head, security guards and a number of witnesses gave chase.

Haunting: The victim's head lies on the ground covered only by a sheet as stunned crowds held back by police tape look on

He was eventually cornered after a passing Italian motorcyclist, named only as David, hurled his helmet at the man’s face.

The knifeman stumbled, dropped the head and the biker jumped on him. He struggled to break free but was held by the motorcyclist and other pursuers until police arrived.

Security guards leapt on the attacker and held him until police arrived at the shopping centre.

'A man came running up with something full of blood in his hand and a private security guard behind him, and he threw it on the ground and it almost hit me,' a witness named only as Bernardo told Cadena Ser radio.

'What he had in his hand was a head.'

A source at the National Police, investigating, said: 'At the moment we are investigating whether he was carrying the knife when he entered the store, or whether he picked it up inside.'

Police were studying CCTV footage of the attack. The police source said the suspect was 'very well known' to officers in the area.

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

Gruesome: The victim's body is carried away on a stretcher from the shop where she was decapitated. Police arrived on the scene and sealed off the area

Murder scene: Police and medics hold a sheet around the head of the woman after it was dropped onto the ground by the attacker who ran away from the shop

Policemen secure the area around a supermarket: Dozens of people had come out of their apartments to find out what had happened

Colin Kirkby, a 50-year-old British journalist who witnessed the attack, told MailOnline that the man probably picked up the knife inside the shop – and there was no apparent motivation.

‘A middle-aged English couple in the shop said it came out of the blue and there was no real disturbance, there are security guards in the centre that would have been on the scene quickly,’ he said.

‘The shop sells cheap souvenir sword-like blades and I think if he had walked into the shop with the blade he would have been stopped by security and that’s what people are thinking.’

Mr Kirkby added that it was so surreal he thought the ‘scruffy’ man, aged in his 20s, was carrying a ‘joke’ head.

‘I could hear people shouting and screaming and the guy was walking along the footpath slowly muttering to himself carrying the head – it was very surreal,’ he said.

‘I couldn’t hear what he was muttering and seemed to be oblivious to everything around him and was sort of rambling.

‘He was holding the head by the hair and I couldn’t help but think of the image in the Clash of the Titans where a man is beheaded.

‘One of the things was there wasn’t a lot of blood everywhere and there was no weapon on him.

‘He was not the smartest looking of guys and not well groomed, I don’t know if he was sleeping rough.’

He added that when the man was bundled to the floor by security he was not screaming and thrashing to get away.

Trail: Blood stains remain on the pavement next to a white sheet after the atrocity in the tourist resort

Resort: Residents gather in the palm-tree lined streets next to the shopping centre where the murder took place

'PEOPLE WERE SCREAMING...IT WAS LIKE A SCENE FROM CLASH OF THE TITANS'

Colin Kirby, a British resident living in Tenerife, described the horrific scene.

‘I am trying to be calm about this, it just seemed bizarre and unreal,’ he wrote on Tenerife Magazine.

‘I was walking down towards the Los Cristianos cultural centre about 40 minutes ago, there was a crowd at the top of the ramp into the Chinese cheap shop and a medic rushing into the shop.

‘I thought someone had fainted or something and walked on, then I heard screaming and looked behind and saw a scruffy, unkempt man of about 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.

‘People had to be held back as they tried to rain kicks on the man, then the roads filled with screeching tyres and more police.

‘When I saw the man holding the head the first thing that popped into my mind was the scene from Clash Of The Titans where the hero holds up the Gorgons head but his was real. And someone has just reminded me that it is Friday the 13th, what a bizarre and scary start to the day.’

Araceli Perez, 33, who works nearby, said: 'He must be insane because he was running away with his head in her hands.'

An eye-witness told local radio: 'I was parking my car outside the supermarket and I saw this man running out with something bloody in his hands.

'It was a head. He had it in his hands. The security guards chased him and threw him to the floor and overpowered him.'

The witness said the head rolled along the ground as the suspect was apprehended.

Another witness said: 'I saw him running down the street. We thought at first he was carrying a mannequin's head.'

There were conflicting reports that the weapon may have been a machete, a sword or even a spade.

The shop where the woman was killed sells knifes and machetes. It is understood he used one of the weapons in the store to carry out the attack.

Police said a homeless Bulgarian man, with a criminal record, had been arrested on suspicion of murder. He had been sleeping rough in a semi-derelict house.

Originally it was reported the victim was a Chinese immigrant working at a mini-market in the Valdes shopping centre in the heart of Los Cristianos.

But it later emerged she was a British woman who had been shopping in the store. It is believed he had been following her in the days before her murder.

British consular staff were thought to be trying to locate next of kin for the woman, who is thought to be an expatriate living in Tenerife.

A spokesman for the local ambulance service said: 'We received a call from a member of the public at 10.25am saying a woman was being attacked by a man with a large knife.

'Two ambulances were sent to the scene but there was nothing that could be done to save her life.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office in London said: 'We are aware of reports that a British woman has died in Tenerife and we are urgently investigating those reports.'

Spanish authorities said the unnamed victim was a 62-year-old British woman who lived in Tenerife. She appeared to have been well liked by locals.

Los Cristianos is located in the heart of the most popular tourist region of Tenerife, in the Canary Island’s south, just 15km from the nearest airport.

Considered the quieter sibling of nearby party resort Playa de las Américas, the town has long been a favourite amongst older British holidaymakers and ex-pats.

The first tourists arrived in Los Cristianos in the 1950s, attracted to the resort’s promise of year-round sunshine – average temperatures hover around 22 degrees - and two sandy beaches.

Enlarge  

Popular: Millions of British tourists flock to Los Cristianos every year but this is understood to be the first attack of its kind on a holidaymaker in the area

Heated: Tenerife is in the Canary Islands, located west of Africa and south of Spain. The woman was killed in southern Tenerife 

The town has a population of around 19,000 (Tenerife’s total population is around 800,000).

Around two million British tourists holiday in Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands every year, with around 80 per cent of that figure made up of returning visitors.

Once one of southern Tenerife’s most important ports, Los Cristianos has been subject to sprawling development in recent decades as the town has become increasingly popular among European tourists.