VALENCIA (SPAIN)
Daily Mail [London, United Kingdom]
January 26, 2024
By Stewart Carr
Fr Alfonso López Benito, 80, was found dead at his apartment in Valencia
The body of an elderly priest accused of paying male migrants for sex was discovered naked in bed in his Spanish apartment.
Alfonso López Benito, 80, a former canon of Valencia Cathedral, was found deceased on Tuesday by a friend and janitor who had gone to pay him a visit.
A postmortem found he had died by suffocation and had likely been dead for several days.
A 40-year-old South American man has been arrested on suspicion of murder. Described as a Peruvian immigrant, he was said to have tried to use the priest’s bank card in a local bar.
Police have theorised that Fr Benito’s death could have been the result of a violent argument between lovers.
Fr Benito had allegedly been asked by the Archbishop’s office in Valencia to stop bringing lovers to his home, which was owned by the Catholic church.
Neighbours are said to have complained about the noise from the late priest’s encounters.
According to local media reports, there were no signs of a break-in and no obvious signs of injury on the body, leading them to suspect the killer was not a stranger.
However, someone had been using Fr Benito’s phone to send messages to his friends and associates in the period after his death, raising investigators’ suspicions.
Initial messages claimed he was going to leave Valencia for several days on a personal errand.
A later message was reportedly sent to the janitor after the body had been recovered.