The Serial Killer from Lithuania

In 2008, a serial killer from Lithuania kept the Guarda Civil in Tenerife on their toes. The serial killer was 44-year-old Maris Meiers from Madona, Lithuania. He was a Navy diver and passionate photographer who couldn’t cope with the fact that his great love, Kristine, had left him. Twenty-six-year-old Kristine, who had obtained a court-ordered restraining order against Maris Meiers after the breakup, had fled to Tenerife, where she wanted to start a new life far away from Lithuania. She had petitioned the court in Arona to deny Maris entry to Tenerife. Kristine had settled in well on Tenerife with her young child and had also found a new partner. Everything could have been so wonderful if Maris hadn’t made Kristine’s life a living hell every day with text messages in which he constantly threatened her. On August 17, 2008, Maris, who had flown to Tenerife, lay in wait for Kristine at the entrance to her apartment on Calle Rafael Alberti in the municipality of San Miguel, disguised in a wig and sunglasses. He stabbed Kristine an incredible 86 times. He then fled. The police launched an intensive manhunt for Maris Meiers, who was traveling around Tenerife by tram. One month after Kristine’s murder, a fisherman found a suitcase in a lake near Madona, the former home of Kristine and Maris. Inside were the dismembered remains of Kristine’s younger sister, Aiga. Before Maris brutally murdered his ex-girlfriend in Tenerife, he had killed and dismembered her younger sister. He packed her body parts into two suitcases. Shortly after the first suitcase was found, the second one was discovered. To this day, however, Aiga’s reproductive organs remain missing. The police searched frantically for the highly dangerous Maris Meier. For days, an undercover officer rode the tram until police officers spotted and arrested him on August 25, 2008—20 days after Kristine’s murder—at the Plaza Weyler stop in Santa Cruz, before he could even pull the knife from his boot. In prison, they discovered a second blade that he had hidden in his mouth. Maris Meier was sentenced by the court in Santa Cruz to 25 years in prison for the murder of Kristine. At the time of his heinous crime, he was under the influence of the sedative benzodiazepine.