Step-Mother Pictured Crying After Boy’s Disappearance ‘Admits Killing’ Him

Keep Reading ↓

A woman has confessed to killing her partner’s 8-year-old son in Spain, say local reports.

Ana Julia Quezada, 43, appeared on TV crying and comforting her devastated boyfriend as part of an appeal to find Gabriel Cruz shortly before telling cops she had killed him.

But then, Sshe was arrested on Sunday after the child’s body was found in the car she was driving, the BBC reports.

The mother initially denied any involvement in his death, but has since ‘admitted to being the perpetrator’, saying she hit him hard on the head after ‘a discussion’.

According to reports, she told investigators she hit the boy with the blunt part of an axe, knocking him unconscious, before panicking and strangling him with her hands.

An autopsy reportedly showed that Gabriel had been strangled on the same day that he was reported missing.

His disappearance from the village of Las Hortichuelas in south-east Spain late last month resulted in a massive search with hundreds of volunteers out looking for the boy.

The parents Patricia Ramirez and Angel Cruz, who are separated, had both given heart-breaking interviews appealing for anyone with any information to come forward, following the young boy’s disappearance after he left his grandmother’s home to play.

Quezada also appeared alongside her partner, wearing a t-shirt with a photo of Gabriel on it, often crying when speaking to reporters.

At the boy’s funeral a huge crowd gathered to pay their respects, with people shouting ‘we are all Gabriel’.

Quezada has received an outpouring of hatred, with one video showing her being mobbed by people as police attempted to escort her out of a building.

Nuestro más sentido pesamen a sus padres rotos por el dolor, a familiares y amigos….Desde nuestra Agrupación, que aportamos nuestro granito de arena en intentar conseguir un final feliz, nos sentimos rotos de dolor por el fatal desenlace. D. E. P. pic.twitter.com/VPtaDyFpk8
– ProteccionCivilEjido (@PCivilElEjido) March 11, 2018

An online petition asking Quezada birth’s country the Dominican Republic to extradite her so she will not have ‘the comfort of a Spanish jail’ gained over 330,000 signatures.

Another petition demanding that Quezada faces life in prison has been signed by over 270,000 people.

Gabriel’s mother Patricia has called for calm, saying that she had suspected Quezada’s involvement but that justice must now be allowed to take its course. She also denounced messages of hatred aimed at Quezada.

Addressing the media, Angel thanked people for all the support the family has received in the past few weeks, saying: “You gave us strength to search for Gabriel.”