Venezuela outraged by murder of a former beauty queen

Disgusted Venezuelans berated the government on social media and in street protests Wednesday, while Maduro summoned the country’s governors and big-city mayors to an emergency security meeting in this capital city.

“This is a blow to all of us,” he said on state television. “I share the pain, sadness and condolences that the nation feels,” he added, warning that authorities would deal with the killers with “an iron hand.”

Security, like almost everything else in Venezuela, is heavily politicized. Although the government says crime is falling, an independent group, the Venezuelan Violence Observatory, said killings rose to 24,763 last year, leaving the oil-rich nation (population 30 million) with one of the world’s highest homicide rates.

By comparison, the United States has about 14,000 homicides a year, despite a population 10 times that of Venezuela.

“It is a lack of basic law enforcement,” said Roberto Briceño León, director of the Violence Observatory. He said that during the 14 years that Hugo Chávez ruled the country before his death in March, crime and violence “were viewed as the product of capitalism and poverty,” which Chávez’s socialist revolution would eliminate through preventive measures and social spending. 

Instead, high crime rates and killings only worsened.

Most of the dead are poor Venezuelans living in the slums of Caracas and other cities. But Spear, 29, was someone with a special status here, a “Miss.” 

She was shot in an apparent robbery attempt Monday night on a dark stretch of highway along with her ex-
husband, Thomas Henry Berry, 39, as their 5-year-old daughter looked on. The child was shot in the leg but survived.

Spear, who was crowned Miss Venezuela in 2004 and competed the following year in the Miss Universe pageant, didn’t even live in Venezuela. She left the country for Florida in 2011 and worked as a soap opera actress on the Telemundo network, according to news media accounts.

Spear returned to Venezuela for the holidays to vacation with her daughter and ex-husband, posting family photos and videos on Twitter and Instagram of horseback rides and sunsets. 

On Monday night, during the drive back to Caracas, the family’s car blew a tire, possibly because the assailants placed puncturing objects on the road to disable the vehicle.

The attack began as a tow truck arrived. The family locked the vehicle doors, but the assailants opened fire, blasting through the windows and door panels. Maduro said Wednesday that one suspect is in custody and that police are searching for others.

Other high-profile crimes also have brought pledges to improve security, with few results. In 2006, three young brothers from Canada, ages 17, 13 and 12, were abducted along with their driver and found dead in a ditch a month later. 

In 2011, Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos was kidnapped during a trip back home. He was later freed, unharmed.