Spain mourns little Gabriel
Father's girlfriend confesses to killing eight year old
THE SEARCH for missing eightyear-old Gabriel Cruz came to a tragic end at the weekend after his body was discovered by the Guardia Civil in the boot of his stepmother’s car.
Ana Julia Quezada, 43, was arrested on Sunday (March 11) as she was about to drive into her garage in the village of Puebla de Vícar with Gabriel’s body wrapped in a blanket.
Gabriel disappeared on February 27 after leaving his grandmother’s house to meet his cousin a short walk away in the rural district of Las Hortichuelas.
The disappearance sparked a huge search involving hundreds of police and volunteers.
On Tuesday afternoon, she reportedly confessed her crime under police questioning. Although there has been no official statement to back the claim, the Spanish press has said she struck him on the head with the blunt edge of an axe before smothering or strangling him.
It is believed she also led investigators to a refuse tip where she had dumped Gabriel’s clothes.
Quezada became the investigation’s prime suspect after it was revealed that she was the person who had ‘found’ one of Gabriel’s T-shirts hidden in bushes in an area previously scoured by police.
But it was decided not to arrest her at the time in the hope that he might still be alive and she would eventually lead them to him.
However, hopes were dashed on Sunday when officers covertly filmed Quezada removing Gabriel’s body from a well at a nearby, family-owned farm in Rodalquilar and placing it in the boot of her car.
Meanwhile, thousands of people lined up to pay their re- spects as Gabriel’s body lay in state in the Diputación building before doing the same at his funeral on Tuesday.
Quezada appeared in court on Wednesday and was charged with homicide.
Public anger
The realisation that Gabriel may have been murdered by a family member has triggered a furious response on social media, particularly as Quezada was regularly seen hugging Gabriel’s father in front of the TV cameras, and even went as far as to tell a reporter she had advised the boy about the dangers of speaking to strangers.
The anger was evident on Monday when two individuals lunged at Quezada as she was about to get into a police car.
Quezada’s race and nationality – she is Dominican - have also been the subject of racist slurs on social media, prompting Gabriel’s family to issue a public appeal to show restraint.
Quezada’s past, when she lived in the northern Spanish city of Burgos, has come under the spotlight after it emerged that one of her two daughters, a four-year-old girl called Ridelca Josefina, had fallen to her death from a seventh-floor apartment in 1996.
Quezada was not questioned by police at the time, but there are now calls to re-open the case in light of her arrest.