THE Guardia Civil is investigating the death of a 77-year-old hotel owner at her Guardamar del Segura home on Wednesday.
Her son is claiming that she was the victim of a home invasion.
Rita Ortiz was well known in the city as the proprietor of the family-run Hotel Guardamar, some 50 metres from the beach.
Emergency services were called shortly before 6.30 am to her Calle Lepanto home, where she lived with her 51-year-old son.
He dialled 112 and told the operator that three or four assailants of ‘Arabic origin’ broke into the property to rob it.
He added that he and his mother were tied up and he lost consciousness after being beaten up.
When he woke up, he found his mother was dead.
He’s being treated in Torrevieja Hospital for head trauma.
Guardia Civil homicide specialists are leading the probe to see what happened.
The Informacion newspaper has reported that the dead woman’s son suffers with ‘drug problems’ and will be interviewed after his trauma treatment.