Venezuelan beauty queen Monica Spear was killed by gunfire on a country road in Carabobo state in Venezuela on Monday night, according to a report from CNN. Spear, 29, and her ex-husband, Thomas Henry Berry, were killed after their car broke down, according to officials. Both were killed when armed robbers opened fire.
The couple’s daughter, 5, was at the scene of the shooting and survived even though she was shot in the leg.
“It is presumed that the motive was robbery,” Venezuelan Justice Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres said. “We are still investigating. There are five people detained who are being interrogated.”
Spear was crowned Miss Venezuela in 2004 and was the country’s representative for the Miss Universe pageant the following year.
Spear is a resident of Miami and was vacationing with family in Venezuela when she was murdered.
Spear was a cast member on the Telemundo shows “Flor Salvaje” and “Pasion Prohibida.”
“We are deeply impacted and saddened by the horrible crime that the beloved actress Monica Spear and her family suffered,” Telemundo said in a statement. “Monica was not just a great professional, as she showed in the two soap operas that she worked on with us … but also she was an excellent person, always enthusiastic and with great strength and determination.”
The president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, said that the murder is a massacre and that the country needs to do more in order to end the violence. The country is one of the most violent in the world, according to rankings released by the United Nations. It has been reported that one person is killed every 21 minutes in the country.
“This happens every day in Venezuela. … If the victim had not been this actress, the person would simply be one more statistic,” said Luis Izquiel, a lawyer and criminologist in Caracas.
Richard Linares, the personal trainer for Spear, said: “Life does not matter. A life can be traded for some shoes. It devastates me that there is a 5-year-old girl who is asleep, and when she wakes up she will ask how her parents are, and she no longer has any parents.”
Venezuelan officials are scheduled to meet on Wednesday regarding the violence in the country and determining ways to fix it.
“It is painful, not only the death of this beloved Venezuelan actress and the wound her daughter received, but also the death of any Venezuelan who falls in the hands of violence,” Rodriguez said.
The father of Spear, Rafael Spear, said that he found out about his daughter when watching a television network from Venezuela at home in Orlando, Florida.
“There’s no words to describe our pain. This is something that never should have happened,” Rafael Spear said. “She was a star and she was the star of the family.”