An OAP holidaymaker brutally killed in his holiday flat was a priest heading on a cruise.
Father Richard Gross suffered a blow to the head before being suffocated.
Cops are investigating if it was a robbery that went wrong.
Neighbours had called the police the night before after hearing terrifying screams for around 10 minutes.
One woman said it sounded “like he was being killed.”
Officers arrived at the building, but did not find anything suspicious, because no one knew which flat the screams had come from.
The police were called back the next day after someone made the grim find, in Malaga, Spain.
Tragic Richard, 80, was from Wrentham, on the outskirts of Boston, Massachusetts, US.
He had arrived on holiday alone, just hours earlier, on 21 January to board a cruise the next day.
His rucksack and suitcase were missing from the flat, leading detectives to suspect he’d fallen victim to a violent robbery.
However, no residents recalled seeing anyone suspicious enter or leave the building on the night in question.
A post-mortem examination gave his cause of death as asphyxiation.
He became a priest in 1976.
Over the years, he worked at a number of schools and institutions as a chaplain, minister, and teacher.
He was affectionately known to his nieces and nephews as “Uncle Duke”, as reported by Need To Know.
His nephew, Dicky Barrett, paid tribute saying: “He was very good and loving to me and my entire family.
“I was 12 or 13 when I was an altar boy at his first Mass, which took place in his hometown of Wrentham, Massachusetts.
“He officiated 98% of the weddings and baptisms in my family since his ordination in the 1970s.
“He was an educator who taught History and Theology in educational institutions like Phillips Andover Academy and Boston College High School.
“On several occasions, former students of his, would approach me and tell me how much they enjoyed him as a teacher and how highly they thought of him as a person.
“I love you, Uncle Duke.”
An investigation into the case is underway, but no arrests have been reported so far.
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