It was a sight that would sicken the most hardened detective: a 19-year-old girl's shoes lying abandoned in a pool of blood.
When the body of Rocio Wanninkhof was found dumped in a tennis court on the Costa del Sol in 1999, the hunt for her killer was swift and infamously misguided.
Maria Dolores Vazquez, an ex-lover of Rocio's mother, was arrested over the crime and convicted despite no evidence linking her to the scene.
Portrayed in the media as a "predatory lesbian", the now 69-year-old was the subject of a frenzied public witch hunt riddled with homophobia.
In 2003, the murder of Sonia Carabantes, 17, made police realise they had jailed the wrong person - with DNA evidence leading them to the door of Brit expat Tony Alexander King, a pervert branded the 'Holloway Strangler'.
Now the subject of a new Netflix documentary, Murder by the Coast, the case is widely regarded as one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in Spanish history.
Stabbed nine times in savage attack
Rocio disappeared on October 9, 1999, as she planned to head home for a shower before meeting her boyfriend and pals at a fair.
Disturbed when her daughter failed to make the 500m journey back to their house in La Cala de Mijas, Spain, mum Alicia immediately alerted her friends.
Alicia headed out for a walk with her partner, Juan Cerrillo, the following day to calm herself down, but the pair were horrified to discover a pair of Rocio's running shoes and blood stains on a path near their home.
Notifying police, they desperately searched for the Dutch-Spanish teenager as thousands of locals trawled the area.
Officers then found further blood trails, alongside tyre marks that suggested a body had been loaded into a car.
On November 2, Rocio's corpse was discovered 30km away on the coast near Marbella.
She had been stabbed nine times and beaten, with her sister, Rosa, identifying belongings that had been dumped in rubbish bags nearby.
Public witch hunt against ex-lover
Desperate to find the killer, police quickly pointed the finger at Alicia's estranged ex-lover, Vazquez.
She was identified as a suspect after a red Toyota Celica with two men inside was seen near the crime scene. Vasquez's car was the same model and colour, according to Euro Weekly.
At the time, homosexuality was still stigmatised across Spain and the national media pounced upon details of the suspect's love life in a brutal character assassination.
Her relationship with Alicia had ended 11 years before the murder, but the pair's friendship was said to have soured after a fallout in 1994.
Rocio's family made a series of damning statements to the press about Vasquez, and she was painted as a "cold, calculating and aggressive" woman who sought vengeance against the young girl for the breakdown of her love affair.
Vazquez was convicted of the murder in 2001 and sentenced to 15 years in prison. She was described in court as a "dominant and predatory lesbian".
The documentary's director, Tania Ballo, believes the jury was highly influenced by the tabloid coverage of the case.
“It did not matter that Dolores Vazquez had two alibis for that day or that there was not a single proof. A popular jury, completely contaminated by the media, was assigned to her and declared her guilty without further ado," says Ballo.
“Even she doubted herself, at one point. I’ve read that she said to her lawyer: ‘What if I killed her and I don’t remember?’"
'Holloway Strangler' snared by DNA evidence
Nearly two years after Vazquez was jailed, however, a second horrific murder turned the focus on to a new suspect.
Sonia Carabantes, 17, was found strangled to death after being sexually assaulted in the town of Coin.
The girlfriend of a British expat, Tony Alexander King, contacted police after discovering blood stains on his shirt days after the young girl disappeared.
DNA evidence linked him to the scene - but police were also able to identify him as Rocio's killer after forensics matched him with a cigarette found near her body.
Cecilia King, his wife at the time of the 19-year-old's murder, later revealed he had returned home on the night of the 1999 attack and hurriedly scrubbed away blood stains.
"He came home at dawn, got into the bathroom, and left again. When I went in, the bathroom was spotless, and he was not a clean man," she said.
After King's arrest, it emerged that he had changed his name and fled to Spain after serving a 10-year jail sentence in 1986 for attacking four women and a teenage girl.
The barman - originally known as Tony Bromwich - had been branded the 'Holloway Strangler' after using electrical cords to choke his victims before molesting them.
Twisted King later confessed that he preyed on women before fondling their dead bodies, telling police: "When I approach women I feel like a hunter, a conqueror who has taken a prisoner or a target."
In 2005, he was sentenced to 36 years in prison for Sonia's murder, and convicted the following year for the murder of Rocio.
He reportedly sent letters from prison in Malaga apologising to the mothers of the two teenagers, begging for their forgiveness.
He wrote that he had confessed everything in the hope that they did not have to suffer any more.
Doomed fight for justice
Vazquez was released and all charges against her were dropped following the DNA tests that identified King.
By this point, she had served 519 days behind bars.
Following her acquittal, she spent years campaigning for a public apology from Spanish authorities, claiming she had suffered from anxiety and struggled to find a job.
In 2008, the Spanish Ministry of Justice recognised the error and proposed compensation of 120,000 euros - but it fell short of the four million demanded by Vazquez.
Tragically, a fee was never agreed and the innocent woman was forced to drop the case - having never received a formal apology.
- Murder by the Coast airs on Wednesday June 23 on Netflix.
