Main suspect in Marta trial showed officers where body was allegedly left

The former head of the police's Specialized Violent Crime unit (UDEV) on Wednesday told the court hearing the case of Marta del Castillo, the missing 17-year-old allegedly raped and murdered in Seville in 2009, how the primary suspect in the investigation, Miguel Carcaño, showed officers the point where he and Samuel Benítez supposedly dumped the girl's body in the Guadalquivir river.

Carcaño, who earlier in the trial admitted to the murder of Marta del Castillo but changed his story from previous versions that had included rape prior to the killing, had maintained that he did not know where the body was. The policeman told the court that during a transfer to hospital, Carcaño decided to voluntarily tell him and other officers that he had committed the crime and that he wanted to take them to a bridge over the Guadalquivir.

"Miguel remembered a detail: a broken ford where there was a road sign on the ground. When we lit up the bridge, we saw the mark." Carcaño then told the officers, according to the witness: "This is exactly the place where Samuel and I threw the body in the river."

The officer's testimony gives veracity to the first statements given by Carcaño that he disposed of the body of Del Castillo in the Guadalquivir. He later changed his story to include other sites, such as the Seville dump. Also on Wednesday, the head of the police's Minor's Group told the court that there was no scientific evidence linking Benítez to the crime.

Two other officers on Wednesday confirmed the initial statement of Javier García, alias "El Cuco," who has been cleared of charges of rape and murder but jailed for his part in covering up the crime. Both officers told the court that on the night of the crime García entered the home of Carcaño and saw a shape covered in a gray blanket and alongside it, standing with his arms folded, another of the four defendants, Javier Delgado.

Delgado told García that something "very serious" would happen to his family if he said anything, one of the officers said. The second officer related how García broke down during a transfer and confirmed seeing the body of Marta in Carcaño's apartment. According to the police, García's story was "crystal clear." The parents of Marta hope that the latest turns in the trial will cast light on the events of that night. Carcaño's girlfriend and García's mother are both due to testify on Thursday and Marta's parents said they will be "expectant, because they will be reminded they cannot lie."

García's mother appeared on a television show at the weekend, which Marta's mother, Eva Casanueva, described as "shameful." She intends to meet with the public prosecutor to ask that the money paid to García's mother be handed over to the state to cover some of the costs of the search for her daughter's body.