Women’s bodies found in abandoned mineshaft as ‘unprecedented’ killings shake island amid hunt for six-year-old girl

Greek Cypriot National Guard officer allegedly admitted strangling the mother after they met on dating site

Chief of Cypriot police Zacharias Chrysostomou, centre, at the flooded mineshaft (AP)

Detectives in Cyprus are searching for a six-year-old girl whose mother’s decomposed body was found in an abandoned mineshaft, together with that of another woman.

Mary Rose Tiburcio and her daughter, Sierra Graze Seucalliuc, went missing in May last year. Believed to be either 38 or 39, the Filipino national’s corpse was discovered just over a week ago. Her daughter remains unaccounted for.

Several days later, the body of a naked and bound woman was pulled from the flooded shaft in Mitsero, west of the island’s capital Nicosia. It is thought she was a 28-year-old, also from the Philippines, who vanished last year, although her identity has not been confirmed.

A Greek Cypriot National Guard officer, who allegedly told investigators he had strangled the mother after they met through a dating website, is being questioned by police. The 35-year-old suspect was remanded in custody last week.

Underwater cameras have also been deployed to search a lake near the mine for the girl’s body.

Nicosia CID chief Neophytos Shailos told the Cyprus Mail that the suspect met Ms Tiburcio through online dating site Badoo.

A 30-year-old man arrested in connection with the crime was released on Saturday. It is believed he was a colleague of the suspect who had used his photograph on the dating site.

Ms Tiburcio was reported missing in May by her roommate, who told police she had gone to meet a man she had met online, taking her daughter with her.

Police chief Zacharias Chrysostomou said the murder investigation would be conducted meticulously so that the case was watertight in court.

Officers have said they are close to solving the case.

Women from the island’s Filipino community held a candlelight vigil in the capital Nicosia in memory of the victims over the weekend.