The Bulgarian woman, who was found strangled to death in Spain by a German serial killer, was in her third month of pregnancy, relatives said.

Lorry driver Volker Eckert confessed to killing a Bulgarian "prostitute" in Spain and another four women at the end of last week. He was arrested in Cologne on a Spanish warrant after an alleged six-year killing spree across the continent.

"I find it very hard to talk about her death. I returned from Spain just a few days ago," Severin Erol, husband of the Bulgarian victim, told 24 Hours daily.

His wife, Miglena Petrova, worked as a waitress in a restaurant in the town of Dobrich. They did not have kids.

Erol is furious at media reports, who say Miglena was a prostitute. "I beg you to stop writing Miglena was a prostitute. We were expecting a baby, for God's sake!"

Miglena's body was found abandoned beside a football pitch outside the northeastern Spanish town of Hostalrich. It was in vain that her husband tried to learn more about the last hours of her life as local police kept saying that was confidential information.

Spanish police identified Eckert as a suspect after his tanker truck was filmed leaving the spot in north-eastern Spain where the corpse of the murdered Bulgarian woman as found earlier this month.

The photographs allegedly found in his truck featured both Petrova's corpse and that of another victim killed in Spain.