What happened to Rocío Wanninkhof? Netflix’s Murder by the Coast to explore case
Netflix's Spanish documentary reveals who killed a Costa Del Sol teenager – and it wasn't who the police arrested.
New crime documentary Murder by the Coast is now available to stream on Netflix, looking at the miscarriage of justice concerning teenager Rocío Wanninkhof's death in 1999.
In October 1999, the Dutch-Spanish 19-year-old was found murdered in her hometown Mijas, leaving both the local Spanish and British ex-part communities of the Costa del Sol in utter shock.
But what exactly happened to Rocío Wanninkhof? And who was the killer ever found? Here's everything you need to know.
Who was Rocío Wanninkhof?
Rocío Wanninkhof was a 19-year-old Dutch-Spanish teenage girl who was murdered near her home on the Costa Del Sol in Spain.
She lived with her mother, Alicia Hornos, her sister Rosa and Alicia’s former partner Maria Dolores Vázquez in a house in the La Cortijera area of the coastal town La Cala de Mijas, 10km from the popular tourist destination of Fuengirola.
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What happened to Rocío Wanninkhof?
On the night of October 9th 1999, Rocío left her boyfriend’s house to walk 500m to her home to get ready to go out. She was due to meet him and some friends at a fair in Fuengirola later that evening but never arrived.
Rocía’s mother Alicia found her daughter’s running shoes and blood stains on a path near their home the next morning. Rocío’s body was found on November 2nd, 30km further down the coast near Marbella. It was reported that she had been stabbed nine times and also beaten. It was believed she had been killed near her home and then her body had been taken to the location where it was found.
Was Rocío’s killer ever found?
A woman named Maria Dolores Vázquez, who had previously been in a relationship with Rocío’s mother, Alicia, was arrested and charged with Rocío’s murder in September 2000.
However, there was no physical evidence to place Vázquez at the crime scene near Marbella where Rocío’s body was found, or at the roadside near Rocío’s home where her running shoes were discovered. Despite this, Vázquez was convicted of Rocío’s murder in 2001 after a trial widely reported in Spanish tabloids, and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
While she was in prison appealing her sentence, a second teenage girl named Sonia Carabantes was found murdered near the town of Coín in August 2003. Police discovered that DNA from Sonia’s crime scene matched that of DNA from Rocío’s murder, proving that Vázquez could not be Rocío’s killer.
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A woman came forward to the Spanish Guardia Civil, saying she suspected her ex-husband Tony Alexander King of the crimes. Also known as Tony Bromwich, British ex-pat King had been the suspect in the 1997 assault of an au pair in Leatherhead in England and had also been known as the ‘Holloway Strangler’, having been sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1986 for a series of attacks in London.
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Police arrested King for Sonia’s murder. In November 2005, he was sentenced to 36 years in prison for what the local Sur newspaper reported the judge described as the “savage, cruel and inhumane” murder of the 17-year-old.
On 11th May 2006, King was sentenced to a further 19 years in prison for the murder of Rocío, and later in 2006 was sentenced to an additional seven years for the attempted rape of a woman in coastal resort Benalmádena that took place in 2001.
Murder by the Coast arrives on Netflix on 23rd June. If you’re looking for something else to watch, visit our TV Guide. Check out our Documentaries hub for all the latest news.
