British woman who was decapitated by a homeless man in Tenerife had sought protection from a security guard minutes before she was killed.
The 60-year-old woman reported the threatening behaviour of her attacker, a 28-year-old Bulgarian named Deyan Valentinov Deyanov, to a security guard. Minutes later the Bulgarian reportedly hacked her to death claiming to be a "prophet of God".
The woman's name has not yet been made public but The Sunday Telegraph understands she divided her time between the Spanish island and the UK.
Police are investigating reports that she spent several minutes inside the Social Security Office in the popular seaside resort of Los Cristianos while the Bulgarian ranted at the door. He had been refused entrance because of his "aggressive manner" towards her. She waited until he had moved on before emerging from the building and entering a discount store next door.
It was there that just minutes later her attacker allegedly snatched a large kitchen knife for sale at the store and stabbed her at least 14 times.
The man then hacked off her head and ran from the store carrying it by the hair.
The same security guard, named locally as Juan Antonio Hernandez Delgado, heard the commotion, and chased him down the street and wrestled him to the ground.
Locals said the man had been well-known in the area for his threatening and often violent behaviour and had reportedly recently been released from a psychiatric clinic where he was undergoing treatment for paranoid schizophrenia.
He once punched a local shopowner who refused to tell him the time, smashing out his teeth. Witnesses said the man, who is not thought to have any connection to the victim before their encounter on Friday morning, had been heard muttering "I am a prophet of God, I will do his justice on earth".
Mr Deyanov was believed to be a 28-year-old homeless Bulgarian man with a police record. He was reportedly discharged from a hospital in February having received treatment for violent behaviour.
Manuel Reveron, a local councillor said: "Apparently this gentleman without any motive or any reason, although for this there is no reasoning, entered the shop and then cut this woman's neck and took the head in his hand outside up to the sidewalk."
An expatriate Briton, Colin Kirby, said: "I thought someone had fainted or something and walked on, then I heard screaming and looked behind and saw a scruffy, unkempt man of about mid 20s holding a head by the hair," he said.
"It had blood on it and I thought at first it was a sick joke stunt, the man was muttering and shouting and more people started screaming as I quickened my pace."
Another witness told broadcaster Cadena Ser that he saw the man drop a bloodstained woman's head on the pavement after coming out of the shop.
"I was parking my car outside the supermarket and I saw this man running out with something bloody in his hands," the witness said.
"It was a head. He had it in his hands. The security guards chased him and threw him to the floor and overpowered him."
Dominica Fernandez, a government official, said the suspect had "chosen his victim by chance".
A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We are aware of reports of the death of a British national in Tenerife and are urgently investigating."
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