Cyprus authorities on Wednesday continued their search for three of the seven victims believed to have been killed by a suspected serial killer on the island.
A police search continued on the May Day holiday at two locations where the suspect said he dumped his female victims – including two children – in a red acidic lake at Mitsero and another lake, Memi, at Xyliatos outside the capital Nicosia.
British police experts have joined Cypriot counterparts in investigating seven known gruesome murders carried out by a 35-year-old Greek Cypriot army officer who confessed to the killings and told police where he dumped the bodies.
Police spokesman Andreas Angelides told the Cyprus News Agency on Wednesday that witness statements are still being collected while electronic data is also being examined.
He said the British team will conduct post-mortems – with Cypriot colleagues – on the four women that have been discovered so far and they will later meet investigators to discuss the case and the evidence collected.
The experts were requested by Nicosia to assist in a complex case dubbed Cyprus's "first serial killings”.
British police experts – including a forensic specialist and clinical psychologist — visited the scene where the search for bodies is under way but Tuesday's search ended without results.
The remains of an adult woman were found Sunday stuffed inside a suitcase at the bottom of a toxic man-made lake southwest of the capital Nicosia.
The suspect has allegedly confessed to killing five foreign women and two of their daughters in a crime spree that went undetected for nearly three years.
Angelides said the woman pulled from Red Lake, the fourth body recovered so far, has yet to be identified.
Police are still searching the waters at another lake for the body of a six-year-old Filipina girl, daughter of one of the murdered women.
Authorities have called for more sophisticated equipment to search the two lakes.
Police are also probing the cases of a missing Romanian mother and her young daughter as well as unidentified Asian woman also on the list of victims.
The case came to light on April 14 when tourists spotted the first body, that of 38-year-old Mary Rose Tiburcio from the Philippines brought to the surface of a disused mine shaft by unusually heavy rains.
That triggered a murder investigation which led to the army captain's arrest on April 18.
Days later, authorities found the body of a second woman in the shaft believed to be Arian Palanas Lozano, 28, also from the Philippines.
The suspect last Thursday led investigators to a well near an army firing range outside the capital where police found the body of a woman thought to be from Nepal.
