Trial set for woman who killed eight-year-old boy, Gabriel Cruz, in Spain

A DATE for the trial of a woman who has confessed to killing an eight-year-old boy while living with his family has been set.

Ana Julia Quezada, who admits killing Gabriel Cruz on February 27 last year in the municipality of Rodalquilar (Almeria) will be tried from September 9. A jury will sit in judgement rather than a judge.

Quezada’s defence is saying she should be found guilty of reckless homicide and is asking for a three-year jail sentence.

The public prosecutor, on the other hand, says she is guilty of intentional and malicious murder and wants a permanent reviewable prison sentence.

Quezada, lived with the family while a desperate search continued for Gabriel around Las Hortichuelas, near Nijar in Almeria. Thousands of people, including the defendant who was the girlfriend of the boy’s father, joined in the hunt for 12 days.

During the public searches 43-year-old Quezada claimed to have found a white t-shirt belonging to the child and his DNA was found on it. However, it was claimed the t-shirt was not on the list of garments the child was reported to be wearing at the time of his disappearance and it was ‘found’ several kilometres from the route the boy would have taken.

Eventually, after the police kept close family members under observation, the Dominican woman was stopped and the lifeless body of little Gabriel was found in the boot of her car while she was moving his body from where she had originally buried him.

When Quezada confessed to the crime, on the day of Gabriel’s funeral, she claimed she acted in self-defence, saying that the youngster got angry and attacked her with an axe.

She told police that she hit the boy with the blunt part of the axe leaving him unconscious and, in a state of panic, strangled him before stripping him of his clothes and burying the body.