Jury finds Ana Julia Quezada guilty of premeditated murder of Gabriel Cruz

A jury of seven women and two men today found Ana Julia Quezada guilty of the premeditated murder of Gabriel Cruz, the eight-year-old child of her then-partner, Ángel Cruz. They also found her guilty of two counts of inflicting psychological harm on Gabriel’s parents, given that for 11 days after the child disappeared, there was an extensive search for him in which Quezada actively participated, making public shows of support for Gabriel’s father.

The jurors spent two days deciding whether Quezada, a 45-year-old immigrant from Dominican Republic, committed premeditated murder, as the public prosecutor argued, premeditated murder with malicious intent, as the private prosecution claimed, or reckless homicide, which is what her defense held.

They concluded that she killed the child in an intentional and sudden way, using means to ensure his death, without running the risk of him being able to defend himself. The jury did not, however, conclude that there was malicious intent, deliberately increasing the suffering of the child. They also refused her defense that she was acting under the effects of sleeping pills.

Quezada is now facing permanent reviewable prison, the Spanish equivalent of a life sentence, with a possibility of parole after a fixed term, thus becoming the first woman to have received this punishment since it was introduced into law.

The jury took just over 26 hours to reach their verdict, deliberating in a small room in the Almería Provincial Court. They had to answer 142 questions that had been put to them about the case by the judge in charge, Alejandra Dodero.

They began their deliberations at 1.26pm on Wednesday, and concluded at 4pm on Thursday, bringing to an end six intense days in court during which dozens of witnesses and investigators tried to shed light on a murder case that has gripped Spain.

Gabriel Cruz went missing on February 27, 2018 in Las Hortichuelas, a hamlet located inside Cabo de Gata natural park, a sparsely populated area in Almería.

Quezada, who was then in a romantic relationship with the child’s father, Ángel Cruz, confessed to the killing after police caught her moving the eight-year-old’s body in the trunk of her car.

Before that, she had participated in an extensive search for the child, making public displays of affection for the father despite knowing that Gabriel lay dead inside a property in nearby Rodalquilar that belonged to Cruz.

Her defense was based on the claim that the child attacked her and began verbally abusing her, and that she covered his mouth in an attempt to silence him. When she realized that Gabriel was no longer breathing, she panicked and buried the body in a shallow grave. Quezada told the court that when she was caught moving the body, she was planning to write letters of confession to the family and take her own life with sleeping pills.

Both the private and the public prosecution instead described the crime as premeditated murder by a cold, calculating woman who viewed Gabriel as an obstacle between herself and the boy’s father. During the hearings, prosecutors also asked Quezada about her online searches for information about poisonous plants, and about the child’s reported bouts of gastroenteritis after spending time with her.

Asked why she had planted one of Gabriel’s shirts at a spot near an ex-boyfriend’s house during the search for Gabriel, she had originally told the first judge in charge of the probe that she did it “because she wanted to give hope” to Gabriel’s father. But at the trial in Almería, she claimed instead that she did it because she wanted to get caught. “I wanted them to apprehend me. I couldn’t deal with it any more,” she told the court on Tuesday.

“May God forgive me,” she said at the last hearing before the jury retired to deliberate the case.

English version by Simon Hunter and Susana Urra.