Family devastated as father and son missing in Costa del Sol now being treated as double murder by British police

COPS are treating the disappearance of a dad and son as a double murder three years after they vanished.

Danny and Liam Poole went missing in April 2019 after flying to the Spanish coast with £20,000 in their luggage – believed to be part of a shady drug deal.

They checked into Estepona’s Valle Romano hotel and met two British crooks – thought to be among the last to see them alive – for dinner at a Chinese restaurant on April 1.

The last known sighting of Danny – who family say was planning to buy property on the Costa del Sol – came the next morning when he was caught on CCTV leaving the Valle Romano alone by car.

Danny and Liam’s hire car was discovered abandoned two miles from their hotel a month after they went missing. 

Now British police have launched a double murder investigation – confirming their family’s worst fears.

Liam’s sister Lauryn Poole, 23, told The Mirror: “There are more bad days than good days now. On the bad days, I’d been holding on to the idea that maybe everyone had got it wrong. 

“There was hope there but now it’s gone. It’s brought on a whole new level of grief, and I’ve really struggled to accept it.” 

Liam’s mum Lisa Berwick, 46, added: “I knew it from the start, but it still hurts to hear it.” 

She says the cops’s decision to treat it as murder is “progress” and is hoping it will bring her family “answers and closure”.

Spanish authorities closed the case just five months after the pair disappeared off the face of the earth. 

The Sun previously told how Lisa and her family lived their worst nightmare when they received terrifying ransom messages following Liam’s disappearance.

The message, addressed to Liam’s sister Lauryn, read: “If you want to see your dad and brother alive again, come to Tangier with £100K. You have 24 hours.”

British detectives whisked beautician Lauryn, 21, to a hotel hideaway where she was wired up in the hope of communicating with the ‘kidnappers’.

The family scrambled to raise the ransom cash while Lauryn spent a week messaging her dad and brother’s apparent captors to arrange the money-drop.

But after days of ominous silence she then received a chilling second message saying: “Time’s up.”