Andrea Berharano’s husband Jaime V turned himself over to the police the same day he reported his wife missing from their home in Burgos, in Castile and León, Spain
The husband of a missing mum has confessed to killing her and hiding her remains in a woodland area.
Andrea Berharano disappeared in the city of Burgos, in Castile and León, Spain, on March 16, with a major search effort launched after her husband, Jaime V, filed a missing persons report. Local media reported the search concluded when he confessed to the 34-year-old’s murder and led authorities to her remains.
He took national police to a wooded area near Salinillas de la Bureba – around 40 kilometres outside Burgos – where he revealed he had hidden her body. According to statements issued by government officials, he handed himself in on the same day he filed the missing persons report on Tuesday, two days after his wife went missing.
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El Mundo reports that Pedro de La Fuente, the Government’s deputy delegate, said the investigation had settled suspicions on the man from the outset. He confessed early in the morning, at around 3am, on the day he filed the report to having killed his wife at the home they shared in Burgos, and to moving and hiding her lifeless body.
Government representatives emphasised that Ms Berharano’s body was “very well hidden”, adding it was discovered in a “spot by the river”, in Salinillas de Bureba. The official said the area where the remains was discovered was a spot with “sentimental ties between the two”.
The husband and wife, both of whom were Spanish nationals of Colombian origin and shared an eight-year-old son, had no previous record of domestic violence complaints during the decade they lived in Spain. Local paper El Diario de Burgos reported that the husband and wife were in the process of separating before she went missing.
Ms Berharano worked as a laboratory technician in the Microbiology and Parasitology Department at Burgos University Hospital (HUBU). She had gone to work and returned from the hospital when she went up with her husband and took their son out for an activity.
An argument reportedly broke out between the two as they travelled home, and continued after they arrived at their apartment. Colleagues of the late technician had planned to hold a demonstration protesting her shocking murder earlier today at around 1pm local time (2pm GMT).
Jaime V was a professional soldier who was stationed at the Castrillo del Val barracks, around 15 minutes outside Burgos. The dad said he had gone to look for his son following his argument with Ms Berharano, and claimed his wife was no longer there when he returned home.
The alleged killer remains in police custody at the Provincial Police Station in Burgos, and will be taken to court in due course, local authorities said. In a translated statement via El Diario Montanes, Ms Berharano’s family remembered her as a woman who was “always smiling, always looking on the bright side”.
They said she dedicated herself to her son “from the moment he woke up until the moment he went to bed, and even while he was sleeping”. They added the mum “was destined for gratitude and happiness” before her shock disappearance and now confirmed death.
