Wife had no inkling of knifeman'smurder trip

A KNIFEMAN who travelled from Spain to Yorkshire to murder his mother-in-law gave his estranged wife “no inkling” that he was coming to Britain, police said.

Argentine killer Sebastian Mercante, 40, murdered grandmother Carol Berry, 66, in a revenge attack after his wife, Ms Berry’s daughter Claire Tootill, told him that she wanted a divorce.

Mercante also stabbed Ms Tootill’s brother Andrew Field, 36, who tried in vain to protect his mother, before driving to Manchester and killing himself.

A police source said Ms Tootill, 31, was at another house in West Yorkshire at the time of the attack. Mercante flew to Britain from Tenerife and, armed with a “torture kit” including cable ties and a blunt instrument, he drove to Ms Berry’s house in Bradley Road, Huddersfield, on Friday.

After carrying out the attack, leaving bloodstains on the doorstep, he returned to the car and drove 30 miles to a multi-storey car park in Manchester.

He scrawled an offensive message to Ms Tootill in blood on a car park wall and then leapt 100ft to his death.

Mr Field, who suffered stab wounds to his neck and hands, was recovering in hospital yesterday. His injuries were not believed to be life-threatening.

Mercante, a former French Foreign Legion member, is understood to have met and married Ms Tootill in Tenerife five years ago but she returned to Britain after their relationship ended in 2008.

Ms Tootill, who had a child last year, moved to Spain after completing a biology degree in 2003.