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Serafín de Alba lived on an isolated rural property in southeast Spain. He rarely had visitors, so when an old friend came around and asked for a favour, he was happy to oblige. However, in the days after Juan and his two associates had disposed of their garbage, the flies swarmed his lemon grove. Serafín wondered if something more sinister was going on…
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Meanwhile, family and friends of Ingrid Visser and Lodewijk Severein were deeply concerned. The Dutch couple with close ties to Spain failed to return home from Murcia, after what was supposed to be a two-day administrative trip. The couple was reported missing and an intense search ensued, involving law enforcement from Spain, the Netherlands, and Interpol. As the investigation unfolded, the gruesome truth of what happened to them emerged…
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Ingrid Louise Visser was born in Gouda, the Netherlands on the 4th of June 1977. Already at a young age, she needed no introduction in the world of international Volleyball. With 514 international matches under her belt, and stints in countries like Brazil, Italy, Spain, Russia and Azerbaijan, 35-year-old Ingrid was a household name. In 1995 she won the European Championship and also played at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. After 17 years of professional sport, however, Ingrid was ready to retire.
Her partner, Lodewijk Severein, a retired Volleyball player and manager for the national women’s Volleyball team was also well-known.
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The couple met through the sport and knew each other for a while before starting a romantic relationship in 2005. Both had been married before, also to Volleyball players, and Lodewijk had two daughters with his first wife. Lodewijk was about 20 years older than Ingrid, but the age difference was not an issue for the two kindred spirits.
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Although he was heavily involved in the sport of Volleyball, he was also a successful entrepreneur. It was reported that Lodewijk had sold his business, internet provider HHC!Net for millions of euros, and he was able to live comfortably.
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In 2009, Ingrid moved to Spain to play volleyball for a club called Club Atletico Voleibol (or CAV) Murcia. Murcia is located in the south-eastern part of Spain. It sits inland from the Mediterranean coast, about 40 kilometres (or 25 miles) from the sea. Murcia is surrounded by mountains on all sides except the east, where it is open to the Mediterranean. It is a charming city with about 500,000 residents and is known for its beautiful Baroque and Gothic architecture as well as its rich history and culture. Residents enjoy a laid-back lifestyle and has a vast variety of tapas bars.
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The club was owned by a local businessman and marble quarry owner, Evedasto Lifante. Lifante is a larger-than-life character, flamboyant businessman, mayor of Barinas. At the time, he drove a Maserati and with money pouring in from his marble quarry, established a world-class women’s volleyball team, with prolific international players. He spared no expense and built an accommodation complex for the players, with a pool and all amenities to make them feel at home. Players were offered a handsome €90,000 per year and the team excelled.
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However, when Spain’s building industry collapsed, so did Lifante’s finances. The club was declared bankrupt and Lifante withdrew, giving Juan Cuenca the responsibility of sorting out the finances. He had all of Lifante’s bank account details and passwords, and Lifante trusted him. It was before the end of Ingrid’s second season when the club was declared bankrupt and like some other players, she lost out financially.
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In 2011 Ingrid returned home to the Netherlands. Still, Murcia held a special place in her heart and she visited the area a couple of times after moving back home. Lodewijk joined her on these trips and they were both very much at home in Spain.
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Ingrid was more than just a sport star, however, and despite the turbulent end to her volleyball career, she managed to finish her law degree. With her Volley balling days behind her, she was looking forward to starting her second career. But she also hoped to start a family with Lodewijk. The couple visited a fertility clinic in Murcia, where their IVF journey began in March 2013.
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Lodewijk was always looking for business opportunities and invested in multiple Dutch companies. However, he also felt that there were possible ventures for him in Spain. He maintained contact with Ingrid’s volleyball club manager and technical director, Juan Cuenca Lorente, and was intrigued when Juan proposed a business idea. He had devised a scheme to resell the club owner Evedasto Lifante's marble quarry in the sierra north of Murcia for a sizeable profit and they would pocket a large fee. An evaluation projected that, if the entire 259 hectares of the mine were explored, it could be worth 35 million euros.
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Lodewijk sent and advance (of an undisclosed amount) to his new Spanish business partner in order to launch the venture. Nevertheless, he also decided to take it upon himself to track for potential purchasers for the quarry and reached out to his connections in Brazil, Morocco, the Netherlands, and Romania.
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Together, Lodewijk and Juan planned to establish Gramar Stone Trade Ltd in the tax haven of Gibraltar, where they would deposit the sale's proceeds and where Juan would also pay Ingrid €60,000 in residual salary, which he still owed her as club manager. The money owed to Ingrid was a sore point. Whenever they went to Spain, they tried to retrieve it. They approached Evedasto Lifante, but he claimed Juan Cuenca was the one to talk to. Juan always assured them the money would come, and threw it back to Lifante, saying he’d talk to the former club owner.
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In May 2013, Ingrid and Lodewijk planned a short trip to Murcia – only for two days. They left Eindhoven for Alicante on My 13th and their return ticket was booked for 7:30am on May 15th.
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The purpose of the trip was a check-up at the fertility clinic, and a meeting between Lodewijk and Juan Cuenca regarding a financial matter. They rented a Fiat Panda at Alicante airport and drove the 75 kilometres to Murcia. They stayed in Murcia for the first night and had booked a room closer to the airport (due to their early departure time) for the second night. When they arrived in Murcia, Lodewijk texted both his daughters, and said that they had arrived safely and that everything was okay. Ingrid chose to leave her phone off while they were in Spain and did not have contact with anyone after they left the Netherlands.
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They had plans to meet Juan Cuenca that night at the Princípe de Asturias, where Ingrid used to play her home games for CAV Murcia. Lodewijk dreaded the meeting with Juan because he knew it would not be pleasant. Months had passed since Lodewijk had sent Juan the money, and the Spaniard had made no progress with registering Gramar Stone Trade. This placed a lot of pressure on Lodewijk, seeing as Russian investors he had brought to the party, were getting restless.
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They demanded to see what was happening with their money, and Lodewijk urgently needed Juan to play ball. The sale could not take place before the company was registered, and Lodewijk was worried about the radio silence from Juan.
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Lodewijk had flagged his concerns in an email, written in English, sent in April:
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“I miss the daily info from you. I just wait and wait and nothing happens. You say what I want to hear, but you are not transparent about the money. I think we had better not see each other until you have transferred the money to me.”
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Juan did not reply. A week later Lodewijk sent another email:
“Let me explain my situation. Yesterday I had a meeting with one of the investors in our project and they don't trust me anymore. They withdrew and sued me for the losses they have already suffered. They seized my company through the court, and I myself have lost a lot of money because of this. So my situation is quite disastrous. This week I don't want any more promises but the money!"
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Juan reached out to Lodewijk, mainly in an evasive manner, and tried to pacify him. Lodewijk was relieved that Juan responded and maintained contact with emails and phone calls up until their date of arrival in Murcia.
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Lodewijk confided in his Dutch business partner, Peter van Baan, that he worried he would run into ‘Russian mafiosi types’ while in Spain. Peter warned him to be careful and Lodewijk took it to heart, and asked Juan to get him a firearm for protection. Juan sent a photo of a Walter-5, to which Lodewijk simply replied ‘Nice’. However, it has not been established if the firearm ever made it into Lodewijk’s hands.
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On the weekend of May 18th, Ingrid and Lodewijk had not returned home from Spain, and friends and family became concerned. They tried texting, calling and emailing both of them, but did not get any reply. A family member of Ingrid’s knew that they had an appointment at the fertility clinic in Murcia and called to hear if they had any information. It was disconcerting to learn that Ingrid and Lodewijk never showed up for the appointment. The friend urged the clinic to alert authorities, which they did.
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A search was launched by Spanish police, and they learned that Ingrid did not show up for her ultrasound at the fertility clinic. They had also not checked out of their hotel and all of their belongings were still in the room. Despite booking and paying for a hotel room in Santa Pola for the evening of the 14th of May, they did not show up. And the next morning they did not board their Ryan Air flight back home either.
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No one knew where the couple could be… Two Dutch tourists, both fair-haired and over 1.9 metres tall would be easy to spot in a town like Murcia, which is not much of a tourist hotspot. Besides, being the local volleyball club’s star player, Ingrid was well-known around town.
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Ingrid and Lodewijk’s families were in constant contact with Spanish authorities. Because their rented Fiat Panda had not been located at that time, they theorised that the couple had been in an accident. The winding roads around Murcia could be treacherous and investigators feared the worst.
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Police asked family members if the couple had mentioned any names – who were they going to see or meet in Murcia? Or maybe outside of town – could they have had an accident on the way there? The closest family came to recalling a name, was that Lodewijk had mentioned meeting Juan Cuenco Lorente. Ingrid’s family and friends felt from the start that he had something to do with their disappearance and was even able to send photos of him to police.
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It did not take police long to find the connection: Juan Cuenco Lorente from Valencia – former club manager at CAV Murcia. Police called him and asked if he had met with Lodewijk, and Juan said that they tried to arrange a meeting but had not confirmed a time and place. This, of course, was a lie. Still, he agreed to go to Murcia police station first thing Monday morning to make a detailed statement.
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On Sunday the 19th of May, the story about the missing Dutch couple dominated the news in Spain. A woman from Molina de Segura saw the news and was mortified, Juan Cuenco’s girlfriend, Maria Rosa Vázquez recognised the photos of Lodewijk and Ingrid. Earlier that week Juan had asked her to give them a lift to a holiday home he had asked her to rent.
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Maria Rosa wasn’t sure what to make of it all, but she felt the need to get herself and her two children to safety. She packed the car and drove up north, a couple of hundred kilometres away, to stay with family.
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The Dutch community in Murcia stepped in and launched an awareness campaign with flyers and information about Ingrid and Lodewijk’s disappearance. It seemed like the missing person’s poster was on every lamp post in Murcia – everyone knew about the case.
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When Juan arrived at the police station in Murcia on Monday the 20th of May, he told investigators that Lodewijk was in the process of selling Evedasto Lifante’s marble quarry, and suggested they talked to the high-flying mayor. He also mentioned that the sale had brought them in contact with the Russian mafia, and that their disappearance might be related to the deal, perhaps something had gone wrong…
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With the help of Dutch authorities, Spanish police confirmed that neither Lodewijk nor Ingrid had touched their bank accounts in a week. Their phones also went unanswered and they had not been in contact with any of their friends or relatives. A week after they were last seen, the rented Fiat Panda was located by a patrol vehicle on Avenida de Juan Carlos I, not far from hotel Churro where they stayed.
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Investigators scoured CCTV footage from the area near the car and found crucial evidence. They were filmed from a tram camera, crossing the road. Because of their height, they stood out in the crowd and their faces could be seen towering above other pedestrians. This was at 8:22pm om the 13th of May 2013. Ingrid was closest to the camera and Lodewijk right next to her, wearing a white shirt and a dark jacket. It was dusk, not completely dark yet, and local residents could be seen going about their business, waiting for a tram, walking along the street – there was nothing alarming in this footage.
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A forensic analysis of the Fiat Panda did not yield any information, and investigators felt that it was crucial to find out where the couple was heading after they left their car.
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Meanwhile, journalists from around the country as well as from the Netherlands arrived in Murcia and the case ran in the headlines every day. Evedasto Lifante heard that Juan had implicated him in the case and voluntarily went to the police station to inform them about Juan’s fraudulent dealings, specifically that he was trying to sell his quarry without his knowledge.
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Police were concerned that this high-profile case would go cold if they bought into the mudslinging between Lifante and Cuenca. They took note of both statements but felt the best way to proceed would be to bug Juan Cuenca’s phone. And this move paid off immediately.
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A message came in from a woman called Maria Rosa. It was referring to the Fiat Panda found by police, and said:
“What happened to them, Juan?”
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Cuenca replied that it didn’t concern her and she shouldn’t worry about it. But she did. And before police could locate her, she called them. And she had unsettling information indeed. According to Maria Rosa, Juan had asked her to arrange a holiday rental near Lifante’s marble quarry for a couple of days, from May the 13th. She managed to find a nice property, Casa Colorá in La Hurona, a small village with only a couple of homes.
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They arranged that Juan would drive to Murcia from his home in Valencia, over 200 kilometres away, and that she would take him to the property. He made a strange request, which in hindsight sent chills down her spine. Maria Rosa told investigators he had asked her to buy some garbage bags, caustic soda and a circular saw. She refused, saying she didn’t know anything about hardware goods and suggested they went to the store together.
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The pair met in Molina de Segura, a neighbourhood northwest of Murcia’s town centre. Maria Rosa was alarmed when she saw the two men with Juan. They had dark, slicked back hair and seemed foreign – and looked very shady. Maria Rosa headed the way, driving off in her black BMW 525. On the way to La Hurona, they stopped at a shopping mall. Juan gave his companions some cash and they went inside to buy the items he had previously asked Maria Rosa to get.
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They carried on their way and reached the Casa Colorá, where Juan took out a wad of cash, paying the host who then politely retreated to the neighbouring property. Maria Rosa was keen to get away from Juan and the two men, but he stopped her, asking for one more favour. He said that he was supposed to meet two foreigners in Murcia that night. He explained that he couldn’t go to town at the time because he had other obligations.
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If Maria Rosa could pick his guests up there and bring them here to the vacation home it would help him a lot. Maria Rosa said no at first, because the road was not very safe and it meant she’d have to drive home after dark. Also, she’d have her children with her and it was a school night. Juan Cuenca insisted and convinced her to help him. He promised to give her money for gas and explained how his guests looked like: a Dutch couple who were both tall, fair, and always well-dressed. They had arranged to meet at the Princípe de Asturias at half past eight.
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Moments after Lodewijk and Ingrid crossed the road in front of the tram, they met a woman who said that she would take them to Juan Cuenca. They were reluctant at first, but saw she had two children in her car, and thought it was probably not unsafe. Lodewijk sat in the passenger seat with a manila folder on his lap and hardly said a word the entire ride. Ingrid was in the back with Maria Rosa’s two kids and they chatted happily.
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Maria Rosa drove the 20-kilometre winding road to Casa Colorá, a 30-minute drive. When they arrived, Juan Cuenca was waiting outside, greeted his guests with a smile and gave his girlfriend €40 for gas. She could not get out of there soon enough and headed home to get her kids to bed. Two hours later Juan sent a text, thanking her for everything.
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While investigators kept listening in on Cuenco’s phone calls and gathering evidence – like Valentin Ion calling to demand money for the ‘job’ he had completed – a forensic team processed Casa Colorá. To the naked eye, it looked spotless. The landlord even mentioned how impressed he was with how clean the men had left the place. However, testing showed large amounts of blood that had been cleaned up. They called it ‘two sources of great violence’ in the living room.
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On Sunday, May 25 – just short of two weeks after Ingrid and Lodewijk left the safety of their home in Huizen, police arrested Juan Cuenca at a public square in Valencia. He confessed on the same day, but claimed he did not commit the murders however he was present when they disposed of the bodies. He agreed to show them where it was.
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Wasting no time, police arranged search and excavation teams to meet them at the property of Serafín de Alba in Alquerías. He was an old friend of Cuenca’s who lived on a rural property on the outskirts of Murcia. De Alba, a retired tax inspector, enjoyed the peace and quiet and his home was nestled in the middle of a lemon grove. It was easy to miss the turn-off to his property, as it was a hidden gravel road that passed through under a bridge. There was no street name or signage and if you didn’t know someone lived there, you wouldn’t know…
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De Alba told investigators that, at lunchtime on Wednesday the 15th of May, around the time Ingrid and Lodewijk were due to arrive back home, Juan Cuenca arrived on his property with two Romanian friends, Valentin Ion and Constantin Stan. Not realising what he was agreeing to, Serafín de Alba agreed that the men could dump some garbage on his property. Valentin and Constantin set out to dig two, two-by-two metre holes, about half-a-metre deep under the lemon trees. They placed black garbage bags inside, then covered it with caustic soda before filling the holes back up again. Despite covering it all up, thousands of flies descended on the area, mainly swarming over the two shallow graves.
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Before they left, Juan asked Serafín if he could leave some items with him: a circular saw, an axe and a diesel saw, as well as a set of keys – keys to Casa Colorá. He told him that Maria Rosa would collect the keys and return it to the owner of the rental property.
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On that Sunday, it did not take police long to locate the graves in the lemon grove – it was only a short distance from the home. A positive identification was not possible at this time, because the bodies had been dismembered and was severely damaged by the caustic soda.
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36-year-old Juan Cuenca was charged the next day, together with his two Romanian accomplices, 59-year-old Valentin Ion and 47-year-old Constantin Stan. Juan told authorities that he was not inside the house when the couple died and claimed that Valentin was the one who committed the murders. In his statement, Cuenca also implicated Evedasto Lifante, naming him as the mastermind behind the murder plot. However, a thorough investigation found no links between the eccentric millionaire and the murders. If anything, he was a victim too, having been taken advantage of by Cuenca for years.
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On the 31st of May DNA tests confirmed that the bodies found in the lemon grove, were indeed those of Ingrid Visser and Lodewijk Severein. News reports stated that the couple had been tortured – Lodewijk’s teeth had been pulled out and his jaw was shattered. However, this would prove to be untrue. Another detail that emerged was that the IVF treatment was successful and Ingrid was pregnant at the time of her murder.
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Two weeks later, the remains were repatriated to the Netherlands and an emotional memorial service was held in Ingrid’s hometown, Almere. It was attended by countless athletes, who travelled far and wide to pay their respects to the two Volleyball legends.
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As family and friends were still grappling with coming to terms with their loss, a further two suspects were named in the case: Juan Cuenca’s girlfriend Maria Rosa Vázquez as well as the owner of the property where the remains were found, Serafín de Alba.
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The Romanian duo refused to speak for months, but eventually came out with a story of what took place inside Casa Colorá that fateful night in May. According to Ion and Stan, there was a Russian man called Dankovic, or ‘Danko’ who had a bone to pick with Lodewijk Severein. Cuerco allegedly picked him up from the airport in Valencia. However, police could not find any evidence that someone by the name of Dankovic landed at any airport in the area in the time leading up to the murders.
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Ion and Stan went on and claimed that an argument between the Dutch national and the Russian got heated and that Lodewijk pulled a gun on Danko. Danko then hit it out of his hand, and Ingrid picked it up. At this point Danko lost it and proceeded to attack the couple with objects from the living room: a vase and an ashtray. He did not stop beating them until they were both dead.
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Ion and Stan claimed that Danko forced them to dispose of the bodies, threatening that he would kill their families if they refused. They claimed they only purchased the circular saw the next day. There was a discrepancy though, because Maria Rosa saw them buying items at the DIY store en route to Casa Colorá. This suggests that the murders were premeditated. However, it is not clear if they actually bought the saw on that day or not.
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It took an entire year after this point, until October 3rd 2014 before Cuenco, Ion and Stan appeared in court and the prosecutor demanded a 50-year sentence for each defendant, as well as three years for Serafín de Alba for aiding the criminals. Proceedings dragged along and in 2016 the defence team proposed a deal to the prosecutor: the defendants would plead guilty to manslaughter and accept 20 years in prison. It was turned down.
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In October 2016, Valentin Ion changed his story once more, this time confessing to killing the couple. The Romanian had military training and claimed that Juan Cuenco offered him 15,000 euros to murder the Dutch couple, but only paid him an advance of 1,200. Lodewijk served the first punch during their fight, he also pointed a gun at Juan. Valentin beat Ingrid to death, and then Lodewijk, using a vase and a heavy crystal ashtray. He also said that Serafín de Alba was not kept in the dark and knew what they were trying to conceal on his property.
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On the 27th of October 2016, Juan Cuenca and Valentin Ion were found guilty by the provincial court of Murcia and sentenced to 34 years in prison. Constantin Stan was acquitted of murder charges but sentenced to five months his role in the disposal of the victims’ bodies. But at the trial he had already served more than that, so he was released on the spot.
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The prosecution appealed the outcome, insisting that Juan and Valentin deserved heftier sentences. In March 2017, Cuenca and Ion’s sentences were increased to 40 years each.
In this senseless crime where greed was the obvious motive, let’s not forget the lives lost. Lodewijk was a father, a business partner, a friend. Ingrid was loved by her family, friends, former teammates, and inspired so many people. And their unborn child never got the life his or her parents had worked so hard for.
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Ingrid’s memory will live on in Dutch Volleyball, as her parents requested that her jersey number 15 be retired. It will never be worn by a team member again, out of respect for the athlete who gave so much to the sport. 15 will forever be Ingrid’s number.
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This was The Evidence Locker. Thank you for listening!