The bodies of a German couple was found on Wednesday morning in Botelhas to the the north west of Castro Marim.
The grim find was made at 10.30 on Wednesday by a local man attending to horses, one of which started to behave strangely and refused to continue along a path beside which the two bodies were discovered.
The couple was found near a storm drain next to the stream in Vale Frio: the woman had a backpack and a brown Teddy bear inside her coat. The man's body was missing a foot which had been eaten by animals as the bodies had been lying there for nearly a month. A gun lay nearby.
The GNR were called and secured the area until the Judicial Police arrived to take on the case.
A report in Correio da Manhã this morning says that the bodies were those of a German couple - she aged 48 he aged 60 - who had lived for some years in Moncarapacho, Olhão.
Investigations revealed that the woman had sent a letter to her mother in April to say goodbye.
The mother contacted the German authorities and by the Schengen system, a request was made to the national authorities to visit the Moncarapacho property residence owned by the couple. Police visited the house to find it undisturbed, with no signs of occupation but there was another farewell letter.
Neighbours reported that the couple said they were going to make a trip to the North of Portugal.
According to Jornal de Notícias yesterday the man and woman were lying next to each other, the man had head injuries and the bodies were in an advanced stage of decomposition.
An autopsy will confiirm the causes of the two deaths but with head injuries, a sucide note and a gun lying nearby, it looks like the woman took pills to end her life with the man shooting himself with a homemade gun. The autopsy will reveal the causes of death.
