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Santiago del Valle, a convicted paedophile arrested in March for the murder of five-year-old Mari Luz Cortés, has told a judge that he disposed of the infant girl's body in a sewer around 300 metres from his apartment in Huelva.
Mari Luz's body was found in an estuary outside the city 54 days after her disappearance on 13 January.In his court testimony from 27 March, which was made public this week, Del Valle admitted to enticing Mari Luz into the entrance hall to his apartment block with a toy after seeing her alone on the street. He claims she fell as she climbed the stairs and hit her head."I didn't touch her," Del Valle, who was previously convicted for abusing his own daughter and another young girl, told the judge. He said he "became scared," stuffed Mari Luz into a shopping handcart and walked around 300 metres to a sewer cap. He dropped her inside.
"I didn't know if she was alive or dead," he said.The autopsy revealed that Mari Luz died from asphyxia. Del Valle's testimony differs substantially from that of his sister, who is also a suspect in the girl's murder. Rosa del Valle said that on the day of Mari Luz's disappearance, she had driven her brother to a shopping mall near marshland on the outskirts of the city. She said he took the handcart with him - something she thought odd given that 13 January was a Sunday.
El País newspaper today prints what it says is the statement made by Santiago del Valle in court in Huelva. He’s the man who is accused of killing the Huelva five year old Mari Luz Cortés on January 13th. The newspaper says that his version of events is denied by the police and other statements, but he claims that he threw down a small teddy bear through a window at the door to his home, and called her. The five year old picked it up and entered into the hall of his building. ‘This is what happens to me with small girls’, he said. ‘I can’t help it’. He then called her upstairs and says she was scared and fell down the stairs knocking her head and ending up unconscious. Del Valle told the court that there was no blood and he panicked. He got a supermarket trolley and put her inside, covering her head with a black jacket.He said he only had to travel 300metres when he found a drain which he opened and placed the child inside. He claims he did not know whether she was alive or dead, but he heard a bang as he dropped her inside the drain. ‘I don’t understand how she appeared in the river’, he said ‘I did not put her there’.
He then says he told his wife, who did not believe him, and the couple left for Sevilla the next day after they were attacked by some local gypsies and feared more attacks. He said his sister Rosa was not involved.Meanwhile members of Santiago del Valle’s family have now left the district after a series of attacks against them and their property. ‘We’ve done nothing and have nothing to do with my brother’, complained one before they left.
Francisco del Valle, the brother of the man accused of murdering five year old Mari Luz Cortes, has become the target of local anger and frustration.On Monday night, a crowd of around 100 to 150 people went to his house in El Torrejon, Huelva, and began hurling stones and other objects. The police intervened before the mob could break down the door.Francisco del Valle is now asking the authorities for assistance in moving to a ’safe’ location, somewhere outside the province of Huelva. He is asking the Junta de Andalucía to provide himself and his three children, aged 3 years, 10 years and 17 years, with temporary accommodation until they can make other arrangements. Francisco says that the recent events are having a traumatic effect on his family.The local authorities have pleaded for calm, emphasing that Francisco del Valle has been fully cooperative with the police during the investigation and does not deserve the treatment he has been receiving.
Del Valle denounced the events of Monday night but no arrests have been made. Police have, however, been maintaining constant surveillance of the house to prevent any further incidents.Juan José Cortes, father of the murdered girl, has stated that he was unaware of the incident until the next day, adding that was obviously borne out of anger and resentment. He said that although he was able to control his own anger, there were those who obviously could not. He expressed a wish for a speedy resolution to the situation.
Spanish police fired rubber bullets and clashed with protesters gathered outside a court Thursday in the town of Huelva for the arrival of two suspects in the disappearance and death of a 5-year-old local girl.
The crowds shouted «murderer» and hurled bottles and stones as the suspects _ a man and his sister _ arrived in a police van. Three police officers and two journalists were slightly injured. Two people were arrested.
«I insist in asking people to stay calm and to let the courts do their work,» Juan Jose Lopez Garzon, Interior Ministry delegate for the southern region of Andalucia, told reporters.
The detained man and his sister were arrested Tuesday in the central city of Cuenca.
Mari Luz Cortes vanished Jan. 13 when she left her home in the southern town of Huelva to buy sweets. After weeks of searches, police found her remains March 7 in an estuary near the city.The case was major news in Spain given that the child had disappeared in an area about two hours' drive from the Portuguese town where British girl Madeleine McCann went missing in May of last year while on vacation with her parents.
Lopez Garzon said the detained man is the main suspect. He had been a neighbor of the dead girl, Mari Luz Cortes, but had left Huelva shortly after her disappearance. He was arrested weeks later but released for lack of evidence.
The General Council of the Judiciary, an oversight board, said Thursday it had ordered an inquiry into why the suspect had been free despite having been sentenced twice in recent years for child abuse. Santiago del Valle García, the man being held in connection with the death of five year old Mari Luz Cortes was arrested in Cuenca, along with his wife and his two brothers, although del Valle is the only one to remain in custody.In his original statement, Santiago del Valle García apparently confessed to killing the young girl but later amended his statement to say that although he taped the girl’s mouth and was present when she died, her death was accidental. This latest version claims that Mari Luz had willingly accompanied him and died as a result of falling down some stairs. He admits putting tape over her mouth and then removing the body using a shopping trolley.Meanwhile, the McCann family are keen to question Santiago del Valle García in relation to the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine last May 3rd.
Mari Luz´s father, Juan José Cortés, gave a press conference on Wednesday thanking officers for their work in the investigation into his daughter’s death, and commented that he would not wish the pain he suffered in the 54 days she was missing on anyone else, not even on ‘my daughter’s murderer.’
arrests took place in Pajaroncillo, Cuenca, where del Valle and his wife recently moved to avoid reprisals, according to reports. Del Valle has a previous criminal record for sexually abusing one of his daughters, EFE says, and was suspected by Mari Luz’s family from the very first moment. He was in fact arrested in Granada in the early stages of the investigation but released for lack of evidence.
The Civil Guard now have four suspects for the death of Mari Luz Cortés, the five year old from Huelva who disappeared from her home in the El Torrejón district of the city on 13th January on a short trip to the local sweets kiosk, and was found dead 54 days later.
The main suspect is named in reports as Santiago del Valle, who was a neighbour of the Cortés family until recently, and lived on the route she would have taken to the kiosk. He was arrested along with his wife on Tuesday. It’s understood the wife has now been released with charges, and she and del Valle’s brother and sister are said to be charged with covering up the crime.He is reported to have confessed to police to his involvement in the child’s disappearance, and said she fell and died accidentally when she was with him ‘at her own choice.’ El Mundo gives a few more details on his confession, that he claims she died when she hit her head after falling down the stairs at the entrance to his block, and that he panicked and hid her in a shopping trolley. He is also said to have admitted that he covered her mouth at one stage.His arrest is said to have come thanks to evidence from the autopsy results on Mari Luz’s body, after she was found floating in the Ría de Huelva on 7th March. There has been no confirmation of what that evidence is, but EFE said the results showed there were no signs of sexual assault, and that asphyxia was the cause of death. She had suffered a broken rib, which could have been the result of a struggle or an attempt to keep her quiet.The suspects are expected to appear before the investigating judge in Huelva on Thursday.
Santiago del Valle García, 52, has confessed to the murder of Mari Luz Cortés, according to news sources. He had already been questioned in Granada but was released for lack of proof. Santiago G. and his wife and sister, who had been neighbours of the Cortés family in Huelva, were detained in Cuenca, to where they had moved well before the body of little Mari Luz was found downriver from the family home.Del Valle had always been the prime suspect in the case but police lacked evidence against him. According to police sources quoted in the newspaper, he had a history of child molestation, even on his own daughter, and had left the El Torrejón district of Huelva to avoid possible reprisals from indignant neighbours. His wife, whose name does not appear, was detained for questioning with her husband although she is not a suspect; his sister could be accused of collaboration in the execution of a crime.
Mari Luz disappeared on her way back home from buying a packet of crisps on January 13th and was the subject of a wide search throughout the country, with European extensions. Her body was found accidentally on March 7th by workmen at the Cepsa refinery in Huelva. Autopsy reports indicated that she had been murdered very near, or on the date she disappeared.The man being quizzed by Spanish police is reported to have convictions for child abuse and indecent assault on minors, and is already said to have confessed to Mari Luz's murder. man has been arrested in Huelva in connection with the disappearance and death of the five year old Mari Luz Cortés, whose body was found floating in the Ria de Huelva last March 7. She had vanished when going to buy some crisps on the previous January 13 in the Torrejón district of Huelva.The Government Sub-delegation offices in Huelva have confirmed that an arrest was made yesterday, and that this person is now in police custody answering questions.The identity of the arrested man has not been given, and a reminder was given that reporting restrictions are in force in the case.Mari Luz's body was found floating in an estuary in Huelva near the Portuguese border on March 7 shortly after the posters went up around Spain.
Police believe five-year-old was suffocated before being thrown into river
The autopsy on the body of Mariluz Cortes shows the five-year-old died only hours after she went missing on January 13.Police recovered her badly decomposed body from a river estuary in Huelva on March 8 – almost two months after she disappeared while buying sweets near her home.Tests revealed Mariluz had suffered a broken rib before her death, leading police to believe she was grabbed from behind.
Marks on her face show her mouth and nose were covered until she suffocated to death.Police have ruled out the possibility that the five-year-old died as a result of accidentally falling into either of the two rivers that run through the city.
Officers are now searching the banks of the Odiel and Tinto rivers to discover the location she was thrown in to the water.Her body was found fully-clothed and tests revealed no sexual assault had taken place.The girl’s parents - Juan Jose Cortes, 34, a former professional footballer, and Irene Suarez – had maintained from the first day of her disappearance that she had been abducted.The case has drawn parallels with that of missing British toddler, who disappeared in May last year. Huelva is a short drive from the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz from where Madelaine McCann disappeared in May last year while her parents were dining with friends.
Thousands gathered outside the Huelva crematorium on Monday to pay their last respects to the five year old. Amongst them was the entire team of the Recreativo de Huelva football club, where Mari Luz’s father once worked. Also there was the Mayor of Huelva, Pedro Rodríguez, who spoke of his pride of being the Mayor of a city which, ‘once again, has shown their solidarity and generosity’ towards Mari Luz’s family. Rodríguez mentioned two comments made to him by the young girl’s father, Juan José Cortés, which have stuck in his mind: the first, ‘I am not going to die without knowing what has happened to my daughter,’ and the second, EFE said, after she was found, ‘Now I no longer have to look for her.’ Five year old Mari Luz Cortés was buried in her home town of Huelva on Monday, three days after her body was found floating in the Ría de Huelva estuary, and 57 days after she disappeared during a short trip to the local sweets kiosk from her home in the El Torrejón district of the city.The five year old’s body left the crematorium shortly before 2.30 pm and was carried in a silent procession on foot for the half-hour distance to the municipal cemetery where Mari Luz was buried.It’s now been confirmed that two autopsies have taken place on her body, the second was held at the request of the family. There has been no news on any results as yet.Mari Luz’s body was found in the common estuary of the Tinto and Odiel Rivers on Friday afternoon, by an employee at the Cepsa refinery. She was dressed in the same clothes she was wearing when she was last seen, on the afternoon of 13th January this year.
Headlines in the Spanish press confirm the worst fears that the body of Mari Luz the little girl from Huelva has been found by a petrochemical worker on the salt marshes outside Huelva.La Guardia Civil confirma que el cadáver de la niña localizado en Huelva es el de Mari Luz.the Civil Guard today located in an undetermined point of the Huelva coast the body of a girl who could be Mari Luz, the girl from Huelva who disappeared from Huelva in the 13 of January. Sources of the Subdelegation of the Government in Huelva said to Europe Press that someone sighted a body floating in the sea and gave warning to the Civil Guard, who, with a boat, is at the moment towing the body to the 'Muelle de Levante'. The same sources indicated that, although there is no confirmation, the first indications aim that the body is the one of the of five years old, Mari Luz
