- The three bodies were found this morning in Huetor Tajar, a town near Granada
Tragedy has struck a small Spanish town after a pensioner killed his two grandchildren, aged 10 and 13, before shooting himself dead – two months after his wife and daughter died in a car crash while he was driving.
Police surrounded the 72-year-old man’s house after he barricaded himself in the building with the young people last night.
Their three bodies were found this morning around 8:30 am in different rooms of the house in Huetor Tajar – a town of about 10,000 inhabitants, near the southern Spanish city of Granada – when armed officers broke in.
Sources close to the investigation have said one of the children had gunshot wounds and they believed the other may have been suffocated.
Civil Guard investigators are working on the theory that the pensioner shot himself with the same firearm he is believed to have used on one of his grandchildren after ending the other child’s life.
Tragedy has struck a small Spanish town after a pensioner killed his two grandchildren, aged 10 and 13, before shooting himself dead – two months after his wife and daughter died in a car crash while he was driving. In the photo: the police are seen on the scene in Huetor Tajar
This morning it turned out that the man drove a car into a wall at the entrance to a tunnel on the road on March 19.
His wife and daughter, the mother of the two children found dead this morning, lost their battle for life after being cut from the wreckage and rushed to hospital.
The young people were also in the car that crashed. Presumably one of them broke a leg in the accident and was still wearing a plaster cast.
The mayor of Huetor Tajar, Fernando Delgado, has declared three days of mourning in the municipality and suspended the last day of a local festival.
He said in a statement: ‘We would like to convey our sorrow at this time and express all our support and condolences to the families of those affected.’
Yesterday the alarm went off just before 10 p.m.
Specialist police negotiators and an elite Madrid Civil Guard unit were mobilized after receiving reports that a man with a recognized shotgun had barricaded himself in his home with his grandchildren.
He is said to have had an argument with his son-in-law, who was treated by medics for shock today before police were alerted.
Local reports say the grandfather told police around 5 a.m. this morning that he would not talk to them anymore because he had to get the children ready for school quickly.
Armed officers decided to enter the premises after the young people and their grandfather failed to show up around the time they were expected to leave for school.
The incident comes after a 35-year-old Romanian man murdered his two daughters, aged just four and two, in Almeria province in southeastern Spain in March.
The man poisoned the children with pesticides before swallowing the same toxic substance and killing himself.
The children’s 23-year-old mother, who had been separated from their father, raised the alarm after she went to pick them up and found them dead in bed.
At the end of April 2021, a Spanish man allegedly murdered his two daughters in Tenerife in a case that shocked the world.
Tomas Gimeno is said to have committed suicide after killing his young girls and dumping their bodies in the Atlantic Ocean.
His eldest daughter Olivia, six, was found on June 10 in a sports bag tied to an anchor more than 900 meters underwater on the ocean floor off the holiday island.
A bag in which the body of Olivia’s one-year-old sister Anna was said to have been placed before being thrown from Gimeno’s boat was found empty and she is still missing, along with the alleged double murderer.
A judge investigating the trio’s disappearance on April 27, 2021 later accused Gimeno of killing his children and leaving their bodies where he did so in a “planned and premeditated manner to inflict inhuman pain on his ex-partner To deliver.’
Pictured: The house is pictured in Huetor Tajar, near the southern Spanish city of Granada
Gimeno disappeared with his daughters after picking them up from his ex during an arranged visit.
Their mother Beatriz Zimmerman wrote a heartbreaking letter after Olivia’s body was found, accusing her former partner of “the most monstrous act a man can commit” by killing his own “innocent children.”
Cristiano Ronaldo’s partner Georgina Rodriguez was among the celebrities who used their social media accounts to highlight the girls’ disappearance in the days after they went missing, with their mother posting photos and videos of them online in a bid to get photos published all over the world as well. They would recognize wishes and alert the authorities.
This is a breaking news story. More to follow…