David OS faced another setback as the judicial process moved forward. El Tuvi has remained in custody since June 2021 for the murder of 19-year-old Wafaa Sebbah, fatally attacked with four weapons and left at the bottom of an irrigation well on November 17, 2019. The crime scene was a family farm’s irrigation well in Carcaixent. Among the weapons used was a compressed air rifle, fired up to seven times by security forces in the period after the crime and before the Civil Guard arrested him. The ballistic report confirmed that the firearm used against Wafaa was not another weapon. The case unfolded as investigators closed in, piecing together how the events had occurred and where the evidence had been stored.
But a new turn emerged at the time of the arrest for this case. The gun was no longer in El Tuvi’s hand when he was taken into custody by the Civil Guard homicide unit on June 16, 2021. Investigators focused first on his grandfather’s mountain residence and then on the family farm, seeking weapons linked to the suspect. They suspected that the carbine used against Wafaa had already been in police storage for months.
Strangulation attempt on third victim
That seizure occurred in August 2020, after his girlfriend, a young woman from Xàtiva, reported abuse. Police adopted the standard protocol for cases of sexist violence, and the woman was heard and protected. David OS was arrested in connection with the matter. Officers seized a Gamo air rifle, the Shadow model, in 5.5 mm caliber. He did not deny ownership, and his identity was used to establish the claim. The rifle was placed in storage as part of the ongoing investigation into a pattern of abuse. The court then imposed a restraining order, and Tuvi faced further consequences the following month.
Not only did he approach his ex-girlfriend, he nearly killed her by strangulation from behind, the same method that would later be linked to the 2019 disappearance of Wafaa. By mid-2020, the public did not yet know that he was the suspected author of both crimes. The case drew attention to the cycle of violence and the danger posed by a pattern of coercive behavior.
Judges in the Violence Against Women court in Alzira detained him for only a brief period, after which David was remanded in custody awaiting further proceedings related to the case.
The circle is narrowing
The spring of 2021 brought sharper focus on El Tuvi’s role in Wafaa’s death. Friends were repeatedly summoned to provide statements to the Civil Guard, and some expressed doubts about David OS’s involvement. Family connections surfaced as well, with the elder brother, Juan, already serving time for a double murder in Slovakia after intervening in a dispute to defend his sister from harm.
Arrests and searches continued. Investigators searched a rental apartment associated with the suspect, then the grandfather’s chalet in a private urbanization near Carcaixent. They hoped to uncover weapons linked to the crime. The following day, June 17, 2021, authorities visited the family’s summer home again, convinced that El Tuvi had murdered Wafaa there. The search intensified when the officers encountered the mother of the suspect during the operation and learned of additional locations to inspect. They were guided to the family farm, which had already been sold after the crime, and there they discovered that Wafaa’s body lay at the bottom of an irrigation well, sixteen meters deep, where she had remained since the night of November 1, 2019.
Gamo brand ammunition box
During the investigations, records showed several firearms had been seized from both properties, with forensic experts warning from early on that the victim’s body bore marks consistent with a firearm injury. Forensic analysis, reported by this newspaper, found seven pellets, six fired from the front and one from the rear, lodged in the victim’s hip and bone, indicating the trajectory and force of the impact.
Three elements: The gun seized in 2020, the ammunition seized at his home and the pellets detected at autopsy.
No firearm, including the pellet gun, turned out to be directly linked to the linked incident in which officers intervened at Carcaixent. Yet ammunition and boxes remained, including a 5.5 mm caliber box. The saying that the hunter hides where it is easiest to be found proved true in this case, as the pieces began to connect later.
The prosecutor determined that the carbine was seized
The prosecutor has carefully compiled every factual detail and document related to the case, focusing on the suspected killer of Wafaa. The discovery of a 5.5 caliber carbine had occurred in August 2020 amidst accusations connected to a later death, prompting further inquiry.
The prosecutor requested a Civil Guard ballistics report to determine whether this carbine was the weapon used against the pupil from Pobla Llarga who had died years earlier.
Thus, investigators from the murder group, in conjunction with the Valencia Command, collected the compressed air rifle, ammunition seized from El Tuvi’s maternal grandfather’s chalet in Carcaixent, and two pellets, also 5.5 caliber, recovered from Wafaa’s body. These items remained in pristine condition and supported the conclusion that the weapon had caused the fatal injuries.
Performs criminalistic comparison
The items were dispatched last August to the Ballistics and Instrument Traces Department of the Civil Guard’s central Criminalistic service in Madrid for analysis.
Forensic experts fired a few rounds with the carbine inside the laboratory and collected the pellets for comparison. The analysis left little room for doubt: the bullets recovered from Wafaa’s body matched those fired from the carbine examined by the ballistics division, sharing identical cracks and marks in the same locations.
Three devastating consequences
The ballistics report opened with three key conclusions. First, the carbine was in working condition. Second, the ammunition recovered from the scene and the pellets retrieved from the body matched the carbine’s specifications. Third, there were no additional markings that would link the bullets to other incidents, indicating a direct connection to the examined weapon.
Moreover, the report stated that no further matches appeared in the bullet database. In other words, the gun and its bullets were not connected to other reported armed attacks under police investigation, reinforcing the case as primarily centered on the single set of linked crimes involving Wafaa and the other victims.