Gabriel Cruz

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 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.

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.

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.

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 Retamar. The agents examined the area and found them, except for the T-shirt.

Ana Julia actively participated in Gabriel's search and she seemed sad for what had happened. She even talked to the media, cried, feigned and comforted her partner. The Civil Guard revealed that she was giving Angel large Diazepam doses, an anxiolytic, to calm him down and make him forget about what had happened. She had also tried to persuade him to go to Dominican Republic for weeks, but he refused. “Don't worry, Angel. When we find Gabrielito and once this is over, we’ll get married”, she told him repeatedly.

Gabriel Cruz’s case shocked the Spanish society. Two days before the body was found, an important demonstration took place in Almería to claim the child’s return. His parents said that Gabriel loved fish, that he liked drawing them and that he wanted to become a marine biologist. Since then, the symbol of a small fish filled windows, schools, public centres and social networks all over the country so as to support them.

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 Las Hortichuelas (Almería), where the child was murdered in a family cottage near the town of Rodalquilar.

On Tuesday 27 February 2018 at (3.30 p.m.) 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 (6.00 p.m.), 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.

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.

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.