Former Miss Venezuela and Husband murdered by Robbers

atin American Herald Tribune

Former Miss Venezuela, Husband Murdered by Robbers

Leave behind their 5 year old daughter who was also injured in the attack.

CARACAS – Actress and former Miss Venezuela Monica Spear Mootz and her Irish ex-husband were killed and their 5-year-old daughter was wounded in an armed robbery, authorities said Tuesday.

Spear, 29, and her former spouse Thomas Henry Berry, 39, were found dead Monday night on a highway in the central state of Carabobo, the Venezuelan Attorney General’s Office said.

The injured girl, the AG’s office added, was taken to a hospital “where she received medical attention and remains in stable condition.”

The incident occurred when Spear, Berry and their daughter were waiting inside their vehicle while it was sitting on the back of a tow truck, after "a sharp object that had been placed on the highway" punctured their tires, according to the director of the Venezuela's investigative police. The tow truck driver and his assistant ran off when they saw the assailants approaching, but Spear and her husband and child took refuge in the car, locking the doors. The robbers fired 6 shots into the car when they refused to open the doors.
Police say they have arrested five people so far, with two of them just 15 and 16.
Based in Miami, where Spear worked for U.S. television network Telemundo, the family was in Venezuela for a vacation, visiting family and friends. Spear, proud of the beauty of her native Venezuela, was showing her daughter around Venezuela with her ex-husband, according to friends and her twitter and instagram posts.
Spear was born in 1984 in Maracaibo, won the Miss Venezuela beauty pageant in 2004 and the next year participated in the Miss Universe pageant in Thailand, where she came in fourth.

Berry, who's father was a professor at the country's most elite university, Simon Bolivar University, owned a travel agency. 
After that she became an actress and starred in several soap operas, including “Mi prima Ciela,” “Calle Luna, Calle Sol,” “La Mujer Perfecta,” “Flor Salvaje” and “Pasion Prohibida.”

Venezuela is one of the world’s most violent countries. Last week, Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez claimed that there were 39 murders per year per 100,000 inhabitants. Non-governmental organizations say that the government -- which stopped reporting statistics -- under-reports the figure and that it is actually closer to 100 murders per 100,000. According to the non-governmental organization Venezuelan Violence Observatory (VVO), there were 21,692 homicides in Venezuela in 2012, amounting to a rate of 73 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, among the highest in the world. In Caracas, the homicide rate is even higher at 122 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.