A 61-year-old man was arrested in Montserrat (Barcelona) for the murder of his sister, who had been missing for ten years.

The Guardia Civil arrested him after her remains were found on his property buried under the floor of an outbuilding. The remains exhibited signs of a violent death.

The police investigation began several months ago when they received information about the disappearance of J.S., who was 53 at the time of her death. The first thing they had noticed, however, was that she had never been reported as missing.

After making enquiries all over the country where she had relatives there were no signs of life; i.e., DNI renewal, tax returns, social security payments or a functioning bank account in her name. Nobody had seen her, either, since 2012.

All of her relatives, who live in different parts of the country, had had no news from her in these last ten years. It was at this point that after receiving a visit from the police, one of them decided to report her as missing.

The only person who had supposedly maintained contact with her was the accused, as they shared the same family property in Olesa de Montserrat until she disappeared.

The police then concentrated their investigation on the suspect, dropping other lines of investigation, such as a possible change of identity, for example, which is when they decided to search the premises with a LADAR (ground searching radar). They covered the whole of the outside; i.e., garden and found nothing. They then used sniffer dogs specialised in finding dead bodies, one of which was attracted to a pile of building rubble inside the shed.

Removing the rubble they found a hole in the floor, filled with water and inside the skeleton of a woman. testing DNA samples the remains were identified as those of the missing sister. Her brother was immediately arrested and is remanded in custody awaiting an appearance before a judge.

(News: Montserrat, Barcelona, Cataluña)