Mother-of-three Katherine Travers was allegedly killed by the Marquis of Cirella who then turned the gun on himself at their mansion in a gated estate
A British woman was shot dead by her aristocratic Spanish husband who then turned the gun on himself in a murder-suicide at their mansion in an upmarket Madrid suburb, police believe.
Katherine Travers, a mother of three, was allegedly killed by Jorge Juliá Díez de Rivera at the gated estate in Pozuelo de Alarcon to the west of the Spanish capital.
Ms Travers, 59, was in the middle of a bitter divorce battle with the 66-year-old Marquis of Cirella, a retired pilot who had a licence to own three rifles and was a keen hunter.
The marquis, whose title dates back to the 17th century, was reportedly upset that Ms Travers had started a new relationship with a man in Britain.
Ms Travers, a flight attendant, had lived for many years in Spain but recently returned to start a new life in London.
The alarm was raised by a security guard at the residential estate where the shooting took place on Sunday 6 June.
The double death has shocked Spanish high society. “We are stunned,” a source close to the family told El Confidencial, an online newspaper. “This was a family who did not like scandals and who were wealthy. I don’t understand how things came to this.
“Katherine was a lovely woman, very pretty and caring.”
A Spanish police spokesman said: “We are treating this as a case of domestic violence with tragic results.”
Spain’s Equality Minister Irene Montero tweeted: “All my affection and support to the relatives of the woman murdered in Pozuelo. We want to be free from sexist violence.”
Seventeen women have been murdered in incidents classed as domestic violence this year in Spain and 1,095 since 2003 when records began.
The couple were alone in the property in an area called Somosaguas near an exclusive estate known as La Finca, where footballers including Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale own properties.
