Francisco Arce Montes, the Gijonés sex offender with decades of crimes across Europe and the USA
The Gijonés man Francisco Javier Arce Montes raped and killed a teenager in France in 1996 and attacked women in several countries. He is about to be extradited to Spain.
The decades-long criminal trail of Francisco Javier Arce Montes, from Gijón to Miami
Francisco Javier Arce Montes, a native of Gijón, is one of the most prolific serial sex offenders registered in Spain and Europe in recent decades. According to reports by Ideal, he raped and murdered a minor in France in 1996, attempted to sexually assault a young woman in Llanes (Asturias) in 1997, and was arrested in Miami in 2001 when attempting to attack a woman in a hotel. Over the course of his 76 years of life, it is estimated that he may have committed far more offences in various countries. He is close to completing his sentence in France, after which he will be extradited to Spain to serve his outstanding sentences there.
The ruling by the Asturias Provincial Court that sentenced him to eleven years in prison for the attempted sexual assault in Llanes stated: "The defendant is not a person who could occasionally find himself involved in a complaint of this type of offence, but rather presents himself as an individual prone to such criminal activity and this reinforces the court's conviction regarding the facts on trial". That trial came 18 years after the episode that disrupted the summer of the peaceful Asturian tourist town.
The early years in Gijón
Arce Montes was born and raised in Gijón within a humble and hardworking family. His parents ran a general store in the El Coto neighbourhood, an area undergoing significant urban expansion during the years when the city was receiving workers attracted by the metalworking industry. From an early age he displayed behaviour that caught the attention of his neighbours: extravagant, introverted and solitary.
The first documented police incident dates back to the 1980s, when he was arrested for indecent exposure after being caught masturbating in the stairwell of a building. News of the episode quickly spread among the residents of the neighbourhood. Shortly afterwards, Gijón became too small for him: he felt watched in a city where it was hard to go unnoticed, and he decided to leave.
A criminal journey across Europe
He then began an erratic path through various European countries. He was convicted of indecent exposure in Bremen, theft in Freiburg, and in 1988, of attempting to rape two young women who were hitchhiking in Tübingen, all of this in Germany. After serving those sentences, he left the country. His trail dispersed between the Netherlands, France, Ireland and Great Britain.
In the spring of 1993, a young student was raped in Nancy, France. The victim identified him years later through an artist's impression. In 1994 he was arrested in the French town of Bleré for stalking some Irish girls staying in a youth hostel. Agents found numerous membership cards from hostels in various countries in his possession. He explained that he worked as a waiter in London and was on holiday in France. He was released for lack of evidence.
He returned to Spain, remained in Gijón for a few months and disappeared again. Nothing was heard of him until the night of 18 July 1996.
The murder of Caroline Dickinson in Saint Lunaire
That night, Arce Montes broke into the room of a youth hostel in Saint Lunaire, in Brittany, France, where a group of English schoolgirls were sleeping on a school trip. Among them was Caroline Dickinson, aged 13. He raped her and killed her by asphyxiation whilst her companions slept in the same room. He fled through the window. The next morning the horror was discovered: the child lay dead in the bed.
Her companions later testified that they heard movements and noises in the middle of the night without understanding what was happening next to them. All of them required psychiatric care for years to overcome the episode.
The investigation lasted for years and involved the carrying out of 3,700 DNA tests before evidence definitively pointed to Francisco Arce Montes.
Arrested in Llanes and on the run again
Whilst the French investigation progressed, Arce Montes had returned to Asturias. In the summer of 1997 he was arrested in Llanes for attempting to sexually assault a young woman who was returning home alone at night. When the woman reached the building entrance, an individual armed with a knife pounced on her and threatened to kill her. A neighbour returning from work encountered the scene, confronted the attacker and he fled. He was arrested by police shortly afterwards.
He was remanded in custody and released on bail after a period of time. He did not appear for the trial scheduled for 1998. He had run away again.
Captured in Miami in 2001
His definitive arrest came in 2001 in Miami. Arce Montes had sneaked into a hotel with the intention of raping a woman and was arrested at the scene. When the US police carried out biological tests on him, the result was conclusive: the man was being sought in France for the murder of a teenager five years earlier. He was then 51 years old.
He was extradited to France and tried for the murder of Caroline Dickinson, which had shocked public opinion because of its brutality and because the perpetrator had remained at large for years. The prosecution sought life imprisonment. The court sentenced him to thirty years in prison.
Sentence in Spain pending execution
In 2015, the Asturias Provincial Court tried him for the attempted sexual assault in Llanes and imposed eleven years in prison, a sentence he must serve once his French sentence is completed.
The forensic psychiatrists who have evaluated him are categorical. "He cannot stop attacking, it is written in his DNA", they stated according to reports by Ideal. Constant geographical mobility was, for decades, the primary mechanism that allowed him to evade the action of justice and prolong his criminal trajectory across several European countries and the United States.
Source: Ideal