Juan Carmelo Santana found guilty of murdering a British couple on Fuerteventura has been sentenced to 39 years in prison

Juan Carmelo Santana found guilty of murdering a British couple on Fuerteventura has been sentenced to 39 years in prison for the killings. In a ruling released this Monday reported by the EFE news agency, 42 year old Juan Carmelo Santana has also been ordered to pay 30,000 € compensation to the couple’s son.The jury found the accused guilty on two counts of murder, and he was sentenced by the provincial court in Las Palmas to 17 years in prison for the murder of 58 year old Tina Jane Johnson, and to 22 years for killing her husband, Brian Johnson, aged 60.It happened in July 2006 in a flat in El Cotillo, near La Oliva, where the accused lived with his son in a flat he rented from the British couple. The Johnsons had gone there to ask their tenant for the three months he owed in unpaid rent. He is reported to have struck Mrs Johnson with his hand when she told him to look for somewhere else to live and, after pushing her to the floor, hit her on the head with a hammer. He then violently attacked Mr Johnson, also with the hammer, hitting him at least 10 times on the head.He kept their bodies hidden in the flat for an unknown length of time, and buried them beneath a pile of rocks in countryside in Malpaís de Mascona, not far from La Oliva.
The sentence noted that the accused had admitted to the murders, but that he also said he didn’t know why he had done it.