This has to be one of the saddest stories I have heard in a very long time. Regardless of the fact that one of the victims was a beauty queen, this story is just heart wrenching. The 29-year-old Beauty Queen, Monica Spear Mootz was crowned Miss Venezuelan in 2004 and was the fourth-runner-up in the 2005 Miss Universe Contest. The most upsetting fact of this horrific event is that the victims’ had a young child in the back seat of the vehicle at the time of the shooting.
According to reports, Monica Spears Mootz was on vacation in her home country with ex-husband, Thomas Berry 39, and her five-year-old daughter, Maya. They were inside their car waiting for a tow truck to arrive, when gunmen shot them down. I just cannot comprehend the horrific affect this experience will have on poor Maya’s young psyche. Not only did the poor little girl witness her parents’ horrific last moments, she also sustained a bullet to the leg.
The Venezuelan police are investigating the incident and their preliminary hunch is the attack was part of a plan to rob the stranded family, without knowing who they were. Unfortunately Venezuela has an extremely high crime rate, so these types of deadly attacks are not uncommon in the country.
