Lovers' flawed story leads to their murder arrest

One flaw in a meticulous plot led police to arrest Dominique Louis and her lover for the murder of hermillionaire husband.

Ms Louis claimed a hit-and-run driver killed Simon Wolf Jochimec on a road in Spain last July. But she and her lover, Jean-Claude Vaz, were arrested after she told friends that she had cremated her husband and scattered his ashes in the river as he had wished - Mr Jochimec was Jewish and his religion forbids cremation.

Police also wondered whyshe would destroy such key evidence if she sought the driver who had supposedly struck and killed Mr Jochimec. After a suspiciousfriend of Mr Jochimec's contacted the police, investigations revealed that Ms Louis's liaison with Mr Vaz had begun well before her marriage to Mr Jochimec in 2002; she had a teenage son with Mr Vaz, who was her sister's ex-husband.

Police found that Mr Vaz had lodged nearby on the night of the accident and subsequently changed a tyre on his vehicle.

Ms Louis was driving with her husband near Valladolid when she said there was a fault. As Mr Jochimec placed hazard triangles on the road, Mr Vaz mowed him down. The couple were preparing to flee to Canada with her €30m (£20.4m) inheritance.