The suspected killer of a well-loved priest has been arrested more than two months after the harrowing crime.
US tourist Richard Gross was found dead with a “severe” head blow in a holiday flat.
Residents of the block had called the police the night before after hearing terrifying screams for around 10 minutes.
One woman told local media that it had sounded “like he was being killed.”
Officers arrived but did not find anything suspicious because no one knew which flat the screams had come from on 21 January.
But they were called back to the building the next day after someone made the grim find in Málaga, Spain.
It soon emerged that the victim was 80-year-old Gross from Wrentham, south west of Boston, Massachusetts, US
The Jesuit priest had arrived in the city alone, just hours before his violent end, to board a cruise the next day.
A post-mortem examination gave his cause of death as mechanical asphyxiation by suffocation.
His alleged killer was arrested in Seville on Tuesday (25 Mar) during a routine check, as reported by Need To Know.
His suspected accomplice, a 27-year-old Moroccan, was arrested on 31 January.
Both men are now in custody.
Detectives believe the pair selected Gross as their target because he was “vulnerable.”
They followed him after he got out of a taxi and jumped him as he opened the door to the rental flat.
One strangled him to death while the other kept a lookout.
The pair then made off with his rucksack and suitcase.
They say both men have a history of property crimes.
Gross 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”.
After his death, his nephew Dicky Barrett paid tribute to him on social media, writing: “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 that 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.”
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