An American woman, 44, has been found dead in an apartment in Spain, while her husband has been arrested, in a case local sources have claimed is related to the couple's "extreme sexual practices".
The 44-year-old's body was found in a tourist flat in Malaga on the country's Costa del Sol on Saturday, April 6, after her husband called the police.
Paramedics arrived at the property in Malaga's Plaza Enrique García-Herrera after receiving a report of an unresponsive woman, where they then certified her death.
Spanish National Police then took charge of the investigation to ascertain the 44-year-old's cause of death.
Spanish National Police took charge of the investigation into the death, which evidence reportedly suggested was the result of "extreme or risky sexual practices"
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The tourist's body was then transferred to the Institute of Legal Medicine where it is set to be forensically examined.
Authorities swiftly arrested the 50-year-old husband after evidence at the scene indicated "an accidental death during extreme or risky sexual practices", according to local outlet La Opinión de Malaga, citing sources close to the case.
While the case was initially being investigated as a reckless homicide, new investigative procedures have suggested gender-based violence contributed to the 44-year-old tourist's death.
The couple had spent several days in the tourist accommodation, while a search of the apartment allegedly revealed certain substances which led investigators to believe the couple had been engaging in 'sex games' while on drugs, sources told Diario Sur, another Malaga-based paper.
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Paramedics found the 44-year-old's body in an apartment in Malaga's Plaza Enrique García-Herrera
Yesterday, the 50-year-old was seen by a judge at Malaga's ninth Investigative Court who ordered him into provisional detention without bail.
The reported belief that sexist violence may have contributed to the American's death means the case will be taken to one of Spain's Courts for Violence Against Women.
And if the death is proven to be gender violence-related, it would be the third of its kind in Malaga this year alone.
Bizarrely, the two recorded cases in 2024 have seen the attackers kill themselves as well as committing the original crimes.
The news comes as Malaga, which sits in the Spanish region of Andalusia, is suffering from a drought which could see other tourists banned from using water in rental properties for up to eight hours a day.
Recent local rainfall was only enough to fill an average of 35 per cent of reservoirs in the Malaga region, according to the Olive Press.
With a surge of travellers expected to visit the Spanish hotspot in the coming weeks, authorities and locals are urging visitors to obey local restrictions, which have been levied on water usage for gardening, pools in tourist rentals, and communal pools.
It follows February's reports that official bodies in Andalusia were in conversations with hotels to install meters in rooms in a bid to cut back on water consumption - which could force guests to take showers instead of baths.