'She knew her killer'

Today, as police stepped up the hunt for the murderer of Yvonne O'Brien, whose mutilated body was found at her apartment, her devastated brother Philip Graham told how his sister would be buried on the sunshine island she had made her home.

Mr Graham, 46, of Sandygate, Keighley, will travel to the resort of Puerto de Alcuida to arrange a burial for his younger sister.

He said: "She wouldn't have wanted to come back here. She had been all over the world but she loved it there. She called it her sunshine island.

"It will be a plain and simple funeral and burial but I will be there for her sake - just so she isn't alone when she goes."

Oakworth-born Mrs O'Brien, 44, a mother of one, was found in her rented apartment on Monday.

She had suffered 40 stab wounds and according to police had been tortured for hours.

She was found hanging from a wire and the words "Love, Sex and Peace" were daubed in blood on the walls. Neighbours were alerted by her barking dogs.

One of the theories about her death is that she consented to sado-masochistic games with the man who was ultimately to kill her - a claim denied by her family.

Jason Moore, editor of the island's English-language Daily Bulletin, said: "Police suspect it was a sexual game which got out of hand. Her body had been butchered.

"They say she knew her killer and let him or her into the house. She had received treatment for alcohol abuse while she was here. She was never short of money.

"We believe she had an income of about £2,000 a month coming from England." One bar owner on the resort said people were surprised at her death.

"She was very well known - she loved Cognac and music. She used to walk along, morning, afternoon and night, with her music playing." Yvonne, whose 14-year-old son and former husband live in Buckinghamshire, bled to death from a wound to her throat.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: "I can confirm that the body of Yvonne O'Brien was found in her apartment on August 30.

"Spanish police notified the British consulate in Palma on August 31 and we informed the next of kin the same day.

"We are remaining in close contact with the police and will keep the family informed of developments.

"The results of the autopsy are expected next week."

Mrs O'Brien attended Oakworth First School, Bronte School and Oakbank School in Keighley.

She moved to live in the South in her late teens where she met her husband.

The couple who lived at Gerards Cross, Bucks, later divorced.

She moved out to Majorca with the intention of starting a business.

Paying tribute, her brother, who spoke to Yvonne about five months ago, said: "She was a real individual and she had a colourful life.

"She would talk to anyone - a tramp or an oil-rich Arab. She never made distinctions.

"She loved animals - she had dogs, parrots, even a rat once.

"It was the sound of her dogs barking that alerted the neighbours - that's how they found her."

The family were struggling to come to terms with her sudden and violent death, he added.

"It was a complete and total shock."

Mr Graham said: "Everyone dies, but it's the way in which she died that is the shocking part. This was horrific."

A dark, slim man with a ponytail emerged as the prime suspect for Spanish officers investigating the killing.

The suspect is reported to have been spotted talking to a taxi driver outside Yvonne's villa on Sunday.

Today, the apartment was cordoned off with checker-tape.

My sister was not twisted

Majorca murder victim Yvonne O'Brien's brother has denied suggestions that she was a lonely, twisted person.

Philip Graham, of Keighley, admitted his 44-year-old sister was an alcoholic but said she was simply a free spirit who had a colourful life.

He has also hit out at the claims that Yvonne was involved in a bizarre sex game when she died.

"She was not like that at all. I think she probably chatted with someone in a bar and they'd gone back to her place," he said.

"She would not have been on the same wavelength as anybody interested in sex. She probably took them home simply to sleep on the sofa.

"Her life was like a colourful book with a lot of different chapters. People might know one of the episodes but they didn't know the whole book."

He said Yvonne had her own income and made her money by investing in stocks, shares and bonds.

"This picture being painted of a lonely, twisted person is just rubbish. She had her own income and didn't need other people's finances.

"As far as sex was concerned, Yvonne was not permissive. She was more interested in conversation," he said, adding that she was a good listener.

"It didn't matter what you were to Yvonne, it was what you stood for that mattered. She could talk at great length about feelings and listen to other people's problems."

His wife Tina said Yvonne would not have to rely on anyone else for money and that they found it hard to believe press reports that she may have been supported by an elderly man who visited her at her home.

Philip said his sister missed her 14-year-old son who she had not seen for some time.

"She worshipped the ground he walked on," he added.

He said that despite being only 4ft 8in tall and weighing seven stone, she would have put up a fight if she felt she was being threatened or attacked.

Yvonne ran away from her Oakworth home at 16 to live in London because she wanted to get away from the Keighley area.

She returned home but left again when she was 18 to live permanently in the city where she worked in offices and for Boots the Chemist.

One bar owner on the resort's seaside said people were surprised at her death, saying: "She was very well-known - she loved cognac and music."

Home full of weapons

Yvonne O'Brien held 18 policemen at bay with a crossbow in a siege at her luxury home in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, which lasted more than two hours.

She had threatened to set alight a petrol bomb and throw it at officers, and later waved a sword at them.

After she gave herself up, detectives found an armoury of weapons in her bedroom, including the crossbow, a sword stick, syringes filled with bleach, an air gun and pellets and a baseball bat.

She pleaded guilty at Aylesbury Court in 1994 to two charges of threatening behaviour and was sentenced to two years' probation including an order to undergo counselling. The court heard that Mrs O'Brien, who was then 39, had been subjected to threats. She thought the officers had come to cut off her electricity supply.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.