'Sorry' says 'Costa killer'

In custody: Tony King
13 April 2012

A British man who confessed to murdering two teenage girls on the Costa del Sol has written letters to his victims' parents begging forgiveness, it emerged today.

Barman Tony King told a reporter who visited him in a Spanish prison that he was "sick" when he killed 17-year-old Sonia Carabantes last month and 19-year-old Rocio Wanninkhof in 1999.

The 38-year-old, originally from Holloway in north London, admitted the murders after DNA samples linked him to the crimes, and has also confessed to raping at least three other women, according to Spanish police.

The keen bodybuilder was arrested on the Costa del Sol after his girlfriend told police he had returned home on the morning of Sonia's disappearance with blood on his clothes and scratches on his face.

The handwritten letters begging forgiveness from the girls' families were handed to a Sun reporter who visited King in Malaga prison, where he is being kept under 24-hour suicide watch and in an isolation cell for his protection from other inmates.

King writes in the letter addressed to Ms Carabantes' mother that he hopes she does not come to the trial as it might cause her further suffering.

"I want you to know that I didn't mean to run your daughter over with my car. I was drunk and didn't know what I was doing at the time.

"I am ashamed for what I have done and deserve to be in prison," he adds.

In the note addressed to Rocio Wanninkhof's mother he apologises for not owning up to the crime at the time.

"I also have a daughter that I love very much and am sick to my soul for what damage and pain I caused.

"I am sick and need help and beg for your forgiveness in this," King writes.

He adds that he confessed everything in the hope that the families could avoid the pain of another trial.

A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said he had so far refused consular assistance, but they would continue to monitor the case.

King changed him name from Tony Bromwich after he was jailed for 10 years in 1986 for a series of stranglehold attacks on women in north London.

The Old Bailey heard at the time that 19-year-old printing apprentice Bromwich used a piece of cord to render five women unconscious before sexually assaulting them.

He had been closing in on his eighth victim when officers caught him with a length of cord in his pocket, the court heard.

King is thought to have changed his name in 1995 shortly before moving to the Costa del Sol.

A handwritten note signed "Lynda Bromwich" - thought to be his mother - was pinned on the door of a house in Holloway, north London, yesterday.

It said: "I wish to say the following. I love my son unconditionally to the day I die. I do not believe everything that has been printed and I also know a lot of lies have been said.

"I will never say another word to the media again."

A second Briton suspected of being an accomplice in the murders was arrested on Saturday.

The man was identified as Robert Graham, from Manchester, and is reported to have served time with King in a jail in Britain.

British consulate officials were attempting to get in touch with Graham to offer assistance, according to the Foreign Office.

The murdered teenagers' bodies were both found strangled and naked after hundreds of locals helped in the search for them.

Miss Carabantes disappeared from her home town of Coin on the morning of August 14.

Her corpse was found five days later, naked and partially buried under rocks
Miss Wanninkhof's body was found three weeks after she disappeared in the nearby town of Mijas in October 1999.

DNA samples from one of King's cigarette stubs and a piece of his underwear matched DNA found under Miss Carabantes's fingernails, and DNA on a cigarette
stub found near Miss Wanninkhof's body, police said.

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