Murder of Gabriel Cruz
The Murder of Gabriel Cruz, also known as Operación Nemo refers to the events related to the disappearance of a child called Gabriel Cruz Ramírez in Spain. It took place in the afternoon of 27 February 2018 in the southern town of :es:Las_Hortichuelas|Las Hortichuelas, where the child was murdered in a family cottage near the town of :es:Rodalquilar|Rodalquilar.
The eight-year-old boy disappeared somewhere on the way from his grandmother's house to his cousins', only 100 metres apart, and then he was missing for the next 12 days. A SAR service of over 5,000 people including 3,000 volunteers and 2,000 professionals was established. It was the largest coordinated search for a missing person in the history of Spain.
On 11 March, the body was found in the trunk of the vehicle of Ana Julia Quezada, who was the father's partner at the time. The alleged perpetrator had previously unearthed the child's body on a farm owned by the child's paternal family in :es:Rodalquilar|Rodalquilar. It was there the murder had allegedly taken place on the same day of the disappearance. Ana Julia introduced the body into the vehicle and went to her home in :es:Puebla_de_Vícar|La Puebla de Vícar. There, at the garage door, she was stopped by the Civil Guard, who had been following in her footsteps. Two days later, the defendant confessed to the crime.
The investigation of the case remains open and pending on legal ruling.
Context
On Tuesday 27 February 2018 at Gabriel left the house and went to play at his cousins' house. To get to the family's house, he had to go through an unpaved dirt road and then cross the main street, but Gabriel disappeared before reaching his destination. According to the investigators, as the child had not come back at, his grandmother went to the relatives' house and asked whether he was there. But they told her that Gabriel wasn't there and that in fact, he hadn't been there that afternoon. Then, neighbours started to look for him. His parents, who were not in town at the time, were alerted and they joined in the search for their son. Five hours later, at 8.30 p.m. and after realising that no one knew where the child was, his family raised the alarm.Almost one week later, a white T-shirt was found about four kilometres from the place where Gabriel was last seen. The Spanish Minister of Home Affairs himself, Juan Ignacio Zoido, confirmed that the analyses carried out by the :es:Criminalística|Criminalistics Laboratory of the Civil Guard revealed the presence of the missing child's DNA on the T-shirt. Later on, the outcome of the investigation would show that the discovery of the T-shirt was feigned by Gabriel’s alleged murderer. The fact that the clothing was almost dry when Anna Julia found it in spite of the previous rain, also gave the Civil Guard a clue.
On Friday, 9 March 2018, the Spanish press reported that two people claimed to have seen a van lurking around the area where the child’s track was lost.
Only two days later, Gabriel’s body was located inside another vehicle — the one owned by Ana Julia Quezada, his father’s girlfriend at the time.
Account of events
Gabriel, Ángel David Cruz and Patricia Ramírez's son, disappeared in :es:Las_Hortichuelas|Las Hortichuelas. The town has less than 100 inhabitants and is located in the heart of the Cabo de Gata natural park.The disappearance occurred somewhere along the short distance between his grandmother’s house and his cousins’. Nevertheless, the investigation of the Civil Guard spread over an area of six kilometres from the starting point and then, up to twelve kilometres in specific areas such as wells, old mines or uninhabited houses. The agents focused on Las Negras waterworks, near the place where Ana Julia pretended to find the T-shirt. A specialised team of divers searched Gabriel throughout the entire area. More than 625 kilometres and more than 500 points — including wells and cisterns, were combed in all.
Another of the difficulties that investigators had to overcome was the lack of road or security cameras in Las Hortichuelas, where there are hardly any businesses such as restaurants, tobacco shops and banks. There is not even an ATM machine in the whole area. The nearest petrol stations are dozens of kilometres away.
Finally, the arrest of Ana Julia Quezada took place in :es:Puebla_de_Vícar|La Puebla de Vícar, 73 kilometres far from Las Hortichuelas.
The confessed murderer
Ana Julia Quezada, arrested as the alleged perpetrator of Gabriel's murder, was Angel's partner. Born on 25 March, in Concepción de la Vega, Dominican Republic, she arrived in Spain in 1995, at the time she was 21, and settled in Burgos with a daughter born in her country when she was 17 years old. In 1996 her 4-year old daughter, Ridelca Josefina Gil Quezada fell through a window on the seventh floor where they lived and died. The incident was then closed as an accidental death, but authorities announced that it would be reinvestigated after Gabriel's murder.Her arrest occurred when dozens of agents cut off her vehicle as she was about to enter a garage of an apartment block in the town of La Puebla de Vicar. After that, when they opened the trunk, investigators found Gabriel Cruz's body.
Although she initially stated that she was not guilty, she would finally confessed the crime two days later. She was charged with murder, kidnapping and crimes against :es:Integridad_moral|moral integrity.
During her first appearance before the head of the Court of Instruction number 5 in Almería, Rafael Soriano, the detainee stuck to the declaration made before the Civil Guard, in which she said there was an argument and a struggle for an axe before she suffocated the child to death and hid his body in the country house of Rodalquilar where she kidnapped the child. This version was partially taken apart by the investigators in their official account of the facts, in which it is quoted:
The defendant murdered Gabriel herself, without any other person; she took the child possibly because of the jealousy she had for him; she killed him the day of his abduction, suffocating him, and buried him by covering him with decorative stones and planks.As the Lieutenant Colonel, Accidental Chief of the Civil Guard Command of Almeria, José Hernández Mosquera, stated a posteriori, Ana Julia was suspected practically from the beginning of the investigation. Even so, the agents always believed she had Gabriel alive and their goal was to get her to take them to the little boy. But Gabriel was killed the same day he disappeared, as the autopsy confirmed.
On 3 March, an essential event occurred that would later help to solve the case: Ana Julia staged the appearance of the t-shirt worn by the minor; she said she found it about four kilometres far from Las Hortichuelas. To do this, she had to go through a piece of land, arrive in Las Negras and enter a gully, something that was quite implausible for the researchers. It is worth mentioning that she was the one who told Angel to go and look around the area, and it was her who found the t-shirt. Angel was nearby but not in sight at the time of the alleged discovery. The family recognized it as Gabriel's shirt.
According to the Civil Guard, the T-shirt was a sign that the defendant wanted to do to his partner in time so as to give him hope. Near the place where the child was found lived Ana Julia’s former partner and, in all likelihood, she thought that researchers would direct their inquests towards that person, but it proved to be unsuccessful.
On the 11th, Ana Julia went to Rodalquiar house, while she was under close surveillance. The officers saw her pulling some planks, some stones out the garden, as well as a body that apparently belonged to a small person who fit Gabriel’s profile. She put it in the trunk and left for Almería; she passed through Almería and arrived in Vícar. It was then that the research team decided to arrest her when she got out of the car, looking in the trunk and finding Gabriel’s body wrapped in a blanket. Apparently, the body was in good condition, and the child was half-naked, wearing only underwear.
While she was in jail, the prisoner statement was taken and she confess in front of her lawyer that she was responsible for the killing, giving some details such as the fact that she had thrown Gabriel’s clothes in a glass container in the Spanish town :es:Retamar_|Retamar. The agents examined the area and found them, except for the T-shirt.