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Police in Mazarrón have named two men accused of murdering Ecuadorian friends José Patricio Chango Heredia, 43, and Edwin Guillermo Cambal Chicaiza, 32, in a shocking crime that has gripped Camposol. Investigators are now hunting for at least one more person believed to have been involved in the brutal killings.

 

The latest court ruling from the judge in Totana confirms that a third accomplice remains at large.

 

Last Friday, the second suspect, Bayron Alexis S.A., known as 'Nike', was remanded in custody on two counts of homicide after 65 days on the run. He joins Carlos Andrés A.M., nicknamed 'Poli', who has been held in pretrial detention since September.

 

According to the judge's findings, both men lived together for a time in the house on the Camposol urbanisation where the bodies were discovered. The investigation suggests they worked with at least one other person to carry out the deadly attack.

 

The judge believes there is evidence that the group "stabbed them [the victims] with a knife until their lives ended and, subsequently, they hid their bodies in the basement of the house, which was accessed through a hole located in one of the rooms of the house and which was covered with tiles, under a layer of concrete."

 

In a particularly chilling detail, the court heard that Nike spent the night "in the room where the hole was located that gave access to the basement where the human remains were found."

 

The trail of evidence began when a witness came forward to tell the judge that on April 17, Poli tried to sell a Citroën C5 belonging to one of the victims. He even sent the witness a photograph of Chango's identity card via WhatsApp. That same day, the witness said Carlos approached him accompanied by Nike and a third unknown man, described as "taller and thinner than the other two, and also black."

 

Another witness revealed that the pair had tried to sell them the same vehicle earlier, but they had turned down the offer.

 

The arrests came after the Guardia Civil located the bodies in a house in Camposol on August 31, after 139 of agonising searching by the families of the victims.

 

The two friends vanished on the same day, a Tuesday in April, after finishing their work shift. The recovery of the bodies, which had been dismembered and were in an advanced state of decomposition, required what police sources described as a "complex operation."

 

Police continue to search for the third accomplice and the murder weapon.

 

Image: Guardia Civil