*Daily Telegraph: Bulgarian in Tenerife Announced Intentions to Kill

Views on BG | May 16, 2011, Monday // 07:58
Bulgaria: *Daily Telegraph: Bulgarian in Tenerife Announced Intentions to Kill Authorities carry the body of the UK woman decapitated last Friday by a deranged Bulgarian man in the Spanish resort town of Tenerife. Photo by BGNES

By Andy Bloxham, and Fiona Govan in Los Cristianos, Tenerife

May 16, 2011

Deyan Valentinov Deyanov, a 28-year-old Bulgarian, asked the store owner in Tenerife for a large knife and was caught on security camera spreading his arms to demonstrate the size he required.

When asked what he needed it for he said "I'm going to kill someone", and drew a finger across his throat.

The shopkeeper, who said he recognised the man as a vagrant who slept in a derelict building nearby, refused his request and threw him out of the shop.

Within half an hour, Deyanov had entered another supermarket where he encountered Jennifer Mills-Westley, grabbed a knife from the shelf and cut off her head in a random attack.

He had confronted her earlier in the day forcing her to seek refuge in a social security office but he followed her into the shop. Locals said Deyanov had become increasingly aggressive in recent weeks after splitting up with his girlfriend.

As recently as February, when he was discharged from a psychiatric hospital, he had told police that "in God's name" he was "planning something big".

One British expat who gave his name as Mike, said Deyanov had been shouting abuse at passers-by until 4am and had flicked lighted cigarettes at female holidaymakers. "Everyone had started to avoid him," he said.

Others said he was a habitual user of marijuana and was often seen muttering to himself. In one incident he attacked a security guard who was patrolling the beach area, knocking out three teeth.

A shopkeeper, who gave his name only as Carlos, described how on the morning of the attack the Bulgarian borrowed a pen to scrawl a note, and wrote: "I am God". The security video footage shows the man searching the shelves of the hardware section of the Avenida Supermercado on the seafront in Los Cristianos.

The visit to the shop was at around 10am on Friday. By 10.25am Mrs Mills-Westley, a retired road safety officer from Norfolk, was dead.

Witnesses at the Chinese-run discount supermarket in the Valdes shopping centre, a 10-minute walk from the seafront, said he had severed her head with a long, thin, very sharp blade, the traditional knife used for carving Spanish ham.

After the attack, involving at least 14 blows of the knife, he severed her head and ran with it from the store carrying it by the hair. Police are examining the footage from the first supermarket alongside video from the shop where the crime was committed.

It is understood Deyanov arrived on the island towards the end of last year and had initially found work giving out fliers for a Chinese restaurant.

In recent weeks he had been living in squalor in a derelict building in the centre of the tourist area. Among the piles of rubbish and old mattresses he had fashioned a makeshift shrine out of breeze blocks and made an icon of Jesus.

In the early hours of Sunday, Deyanov was remanded into custody following a secret court hearing and detained in a psychiatric unit.

The grandmother of five had lived in Tenerife for at least 10 years, dividing her time between the Canary Islands, Britain and France. Relations arrived on the island on Saturday. Her body was expected to be repatriated to Britain on Wednesday.

*The title has been changed by NOVINITE.com

**The victim had not been from Chinese background as previously reported.

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Tags: decapitating, decapitate, Deyanov, Deyan Valentinov, british, Murder, beheaded, beheading, Canary islands, Spain, Tenerife, Jennifer Mills-Westley

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