Police find the dead body of woman who went missing 9 years ago in Torremolinos

The National Police have reported that they have found the body of a young woman hidden in a wooden box concealed in the wall of an apartment in Torremolinos on the Costa del Sol. It is thought to be that of 22-year-old Sibora Gagani who was reported missing in July 2014 by her family in Italy, who last spoke to her almost nine years ago.

The body was found in the walls of the apartment that the young woman shared with her partner at the time, Marco R aged 45, who is accused of murdering her, and who is also charged with stabbing a more recent girlfriend, a 28-year-old woman called Paula.

After his arrest, Marco confessed to killing Sibora and hiding her body behind a wall, which led investigators to carry out another search of the property that they had previously inspected without finding anything.

However, on this occasion, the SGLI's special systems unit used X-ray equipment to meticulously search the apartment until they found the remains and confirmed that Sibora's body was cleverly hidden inside a wooden box between the walls with flowers on her chest, along a blanket covered in blood wrapped in plastic which has been taken away for DNA tests.

Once the body was removed, it was transferred to the Institute of Legal Medicine (IML) in Malaga, where an autopsy will be carried out to confirm her identity and cause of death.

After Sibora's disappearance in 2014, Marco contacted the young woman's mother and told her that she had suddenly decided to return to Italy. However, the circumstances surrounding her disappearance raised many unknowns: her mobile phone was switched off, she did not communicate with her family, and shortly before her disappearance, she had confessed to her mother that their relationship was not going well and that Marco "had treated her badly."

For this reason, Sibora's family, and the investigators, had always been suspicious about Marco R. "We always knew 100% that he had killed her," says the victim's sister, Kseva Gagani, to the EFE news agency.

Marco R, who is already in custody in prison, had a history of gender violence, although none of the previous complaints came from these two victims. They were filed by two previous girlfriends, and one of them even resulted in the imposition of a restraining order by the authorities.

Currently, the family is waiting for the DNA tests to confirm that the remains found belong to the young woman in order to travel from Italy to Spain to carry out the necessary administrative procedures.