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The family of a beauty queen shot dead with her London-born ex-husband in Venezuela spoke of their anguish yesterday. |
British businessman Thomas Berry, 39, and 29-year-old Monica Spear Mootz, an actress and former Miss Venezuela, were ambushed by bandits in their broken down car.
Their five-year-old daughter Maya was shot in the leg but survived.
Berry’s father Tom, a former professor at King’s College London, and his mother Kate are holding a vigil at Maya’s bedside in hospital. She is said to be recovering following surgery.
Spear’s father, Rafael, said: “It is the deepest pain, the deepest pain. It is unbelievable. This is a great loss for us. She was very charismatic, a very good daughter, a very good mother, and she loved Venezuela.”
He recalled how his daughter had come to him for advice when she was at university and wanted to change from her chemical engineering course to study acting instead.
“I told her she had to decide what she wanted to do to be happy for the rest of her life,” he said. “When my children were young, I wouldn’t let them watch telenovelas (soap operas) and then she began acting in soap operas, and I began watching all of hers.”
Her aunt Petra Spear added: “Mónica was very special, and we loved her as she loved Venezuela.”
The country’s president has now flown 10 of Spear’s close relatives by private jet back to their home country from Florida.
Berry married Spear, a University of Central Florida graduate who became one of Venezuela’s biggest soap stars, in 2008. The couple separated last year but remained close friends for the sake of their daughter.
Another of Spear’s aunts, Mariela Mootz, claimed the couple had rekindled their relationship before the shooting. They are believed to have been driving back from a trip to a national park near Merida when they broke down outside the capital Caracas.
They are thought to have been ambushed as they hid in their car, which was about to be loaded on to a tow truck.
Friends paid tribute to Berry, who ran an adventure tour company in Venezuela. He moved to South America from London with his family 30 years ago when his father took up a university teaching post near Caracas.
Aristides Pietrangeli, 39, of communications firm Publicis London, said: “He was a really nice bloke and chilled out. He loved the outdoors…Although he looked English, he’d lived here for a long time and knew the country very well.”