| Police said yesterday that they had intensified their search for a man suspected of killing female tourists in northeastern Brazil.
Maranhao police were combing the state's beaches for more clues to the identity and whereabouts of a middle-aged man suspected of killing two women, from Spain and Germany.
A Brazilian woman was also missing, and authorities believed she could be a victim of the same killer, Benedito Cardoso, an officer with the state's homicide unit, said.
"Everything indicates we are dealing with a serial killer," Maranhao's public secretary, Raimundo Cutrim, said. "The women were travelling alone, were beaten to death and were found buried." Police said the tourists had been seen with the same man.
Nuria Fernandez, 27, from Spain, was found on Friday on an island off the coastal city of Sao Luis. Eight days earlier, the body of German Marianne Kern, 49, was found at a nearby beach, police said.
About 15 officers were searching for Valeria Augusto Veloso, a Brazilian who disappeared last week from the same region, Mr Cardoso said.
On Saturday, police arrested a man who allegedly used Kern's credit card after her body was found. He said he got the card from a man whose description fitted that of the suspected killer. |
