Two of serial killer’s victims buried in Philippines

The remains of two women killed by serial killer Nicos Metaxas in Cyprus arrived in the Philippines on Saturday evening, media in the Philippines reported.

The bodies of Mary Rose Tiburcio, 39, and Maricar Valdez Arquila, 30, arrived in Manila and were received by their families and officials.

According to the media, Tiburcio worked as a domestic worker for 13 years in Cyprus and Arquila for four before they were murdered.

Tiburcio’s daughter Sierra who was also killed by Metaxas was taken to Romania for burial upon the request of her father, The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.

Maricar Valdez Arquiola

Funeral services for Tiburcio and Arquila were held on Thursday in Cyprus.

Services for Arquila were held at the St. Catherine Church in Limassol; those for Tiburcio were held at the Terra Santa church in Larnaca.

The services were attended by friends and relatives of the deceased, as well as officials.

Tiburcio’s body was the first found, in a mine shaft in Mitsero on April 14 this year. She and her daughter, six-year-old Sierra, had gone missing in May 2018. Sierra’s body was the last to be found at Lake Memi in Xyliatos in June.

Arquila’s body was the third body to be retrieved from the ‘red lake’ at Mitsero. The woman had gone missing in December 2017.

In June, the Nicosia court imposed five consecutive life sentences on Metaxas for the premeditated murder of five women and two concurrent life sentences for the murder of two girls aged 6 and 8, daughters of two of the victims.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.