Daughters visit murder villa

Tony and Linda O'Malley were missing for six months

The daughters of a couple from north Wales who were abducted and murdered in Spain have visited the secluded villa where their parents were killed.

Nicola Welch and Jenny Stewart have been to the villa near the Costa Blanca where their stepfather Tony O'Malley and mother Linda were kidnapped and murdered while they were looking for a retirement home.

Spanish police believe 42-year-old Mr O'Malley, a car dealer, and his wife Linda, 55, a shop manageress, were kidnapped after going to view the property and held prisoner for two weeks.

How could somebody kill somebody and then put the family through that much heartache

Nicola Welch

When their £30,000 savings had been drained and their credit cards cancelled, the Llangollen couple, who were originally from Liverpool, were murdered and buried under concrete in a cellar of the villa in Alcoy, inland from Benidorm.

Their bodies were discovered in March, six months after they disappeared.

In an interview for ITV1's Tonight with Trevor McDonald on Monday, Mrs Welch said: "There were times and days where complete despair took over and you thought 'what do we do?' but you can't give up.

"How could somebody kill somebody and then put the family through that much heartache, and give them false hope that they are still alive, for his own gain?

Bernard O'Malley has criticised the Spanish police

"Not only had he taken their money they had worked so hard for to go and retire and buy a property in Spain, they had taken their lives away.

"How could somebody be so cruel?"

In the programme - scheduled to be shown on Monday - Mrs Stewart said that when her parents failed to arrive on their planned flight to Manchester Airport, the family began to fear for their safety.

She said: "They didn't come off and we stood there waiting and waiting and in the end another flight had come in from Alicante so I thought 'something's not right'."

Trial

Both daughters said they gained "some kind of peace" from visiting to the villa where their parents met their deaths.

Two Venezuelan men, identified by the Spanish authorities only as Jorge RS, 53, and his brother-in-law, Jose Antonio VG, 38, have been arrested over the killings and are expected to stand trial later this year.

But Mr O'Malley's brother, Bernard, has criticised the initial response of the Spanish police.

"I don't think the police in Benidorm took it seriously enough," he said.

"Given the details of the credit card transactions and no communications back home with the family, then that was, to us, proof that something had gone terribly wrong."