At three minutes to midnight on July 10, Bristol police received a call about a man who had left a blue suitcase on a bridge on the western outskirts of the city. Two of the suitcase’s wheels had come off and “red liquid” was leaking from the zipper, according to the caller.
When the first patrol arrived ten minutes later, the man had disappeared, screaming in Spanish and being chased by a cyclist.
More police patrols joined and in pictures from the city’s landmark, the Clifton Suspension Bridge, two of the police officers in reflective clothing can be seen shortly afterwards finding another suitcase.
In the bags were parts of two men, later identified as 62 and 71 years old. The men had recently separated but still lived together in a flat in London, eighteen miles away.
Got help carrying the bags
Two hours earlier, England had just knocked the Netherlands out of the European Football Championship when the suspect may have been seen for the first time that evening.
Witnesses who saw the match a few hundred meters from the bridge noted two men dragging an overflowing suitcase across the road.
– They set it down right at our feet, says witness Giles Malone Sky News.
The men were standing outside a bar with celebrating Brits and in the happy mood Giles Malone joked with them.
– That looked very heavy, do you have a body in there?
The bags were held together by straps and a passing woman who joined in to help with another bag said it was the heaviest she had ever carried.
The police have not officially confirmed that it was actually the bags with the murdered men, but according to information to Bristol Live the police believe that the man realized then and there that he could not carry them to the supposed final station himself and that he therefore called a taxi.
A taxi driver caught by the police on Thursday confirmed that he drove a man with two suitcases a very short distance before dropping him off on the other side of the bridge.
All three lived together
Police suspect the man managed to flee the city that night, despite being chased by helicopters with thermal imaging cameras from both the police and the Coast Guard.
The next day, the police entered the apartment of the murdered men. Their neighbors speak up The Sun that the area is in shock.
– They were so loving. Everyone greeted them, says a neighbor.
The police soon realized that the suspected killer, a 34-year-old man from Colombia, had lived in the apartment with the men. It is not known what their relationship was.
He was arrested on Saturday at a train station in Bristol and was detained on Monday. The crimes are also being investigated as hate crimes, but it is not known if the motive was homophobic.
– The investigation is at an early stage, but I still hope that people can find peace in the fact that we are not looking for any additional perpetrators at the moment, said Andy Valentine at the police to a press conference in connection with the arrest.