A CLERK IN A BANK OF ASTORGA HAD HER SUSPICIONS AND PUT THE POLICE ON THE RIGHT TRACK
Diario de León
http://www.diariodeleon.es/noticias...echoso-posibilito-identificacion_1007879.html
The cashier was surprised that Miguel Ángel appeared with $ 1,000 in hand and that he wanted to exchange these for euros. It was a spring morning in the branch office of Cajamar that is located on the Plaza de Santocildes of Astorga. Not many days had passed after the disappearance of Denise, but the widespread concern about her absence had not yet been fully unleashed.
Between the references that were available about the suspect, known for some minor incidents in the region and the way he presented himself at the bank, somewhat lost in thought, the assistant decided to take precautions.
She asked him to wait a few seconds and under the pretext of complying with the law, made photocopies of the banknotes. She gave him just under 900 euros as change and watched him leave. She kept the papers and presented herself at the police station of the National Police of Astorga to submit the matter to the attention of the agents.
That was how already in April, after the necessary checks, the investigation had the certainty that the suspect in the death of Denise Pikka Thiem, MAMB .. had access to the money that the pilgrim carried on her at the time of her disappearance. Enough to arrest him? The CNP decided to let the man do the talking and set out to follow his steps.
A laborious bureaucratic investigation had confirmed that the serial numbers of the bills matched those that Denise had withdrawn at her departure in North America.
But the police did not want to risk making an arrest in vain, given that this intervention would have no legal support. Even with the pressure of time, the tracings were methodical. There was nothing unusual in his unusual life. No new track. He did not make mistakes that would have allowed to close the circle.
No sooner the investigation had been scaled up than the alleged perpetrator took off. He took a bus at the station of Astorga earlier this week and got off in Asturias.
The reason for his predilection for hostels in Camino de Santiago has not yet been clarified. He knows them with finesse, knows their surroundings and has references of many of them. Like any other pilgrim, he appeared in Grandas de Salime. And there, in the environment of the region of Los Oscos, almost on the border with the province of Lugo, he was arrested. He miscalculated his movements and took money from an ATM with hiscredit card. Immediately the alarms went off and the National Police of Luarca and Oviedo arrested him.
With the point of a gun in his neck and with a baton to his throat but without resistance, the alleged perpetrator of the pilgrim assumed that the flight was over. He was sitting on a terrace of a cafe.
He was drinking coffee in the company of other people, mostly pilgrims. The emboldened character that defined him when he roamed through Valdemanzanas shifted into the background. He assumed that there was nothing he could do and within hours confessed to the crime and offered to take the officers to the area where the body was found.
BBM
Pilgrims on the Camino Primitivo may have spent the night in the bed next to the murderer of Denise Thiem. Or so it seems. One wonders how many people he robbed while posing as a pilgrim.
Already in April the Police knew with certainty about this suspect and left the family & friends in total limbo.....
