Monica Spear dead: Miss Venezuela murdered on Highway

OHMYGOSSIP — Monica Spear (29) has been killed. The Venezuelan telenovela star and beauty queen and Thomas Henry Berry were shot and killed in an attempted robbery late on the night of Jan. 6, according to police. The couple’s 5-year-old daughter was wounded by a bullet in the leg, but she is expected to be okay.

The family were driving on a highway in Venezuela when the actress’ car crashed. The couple were waiting for a tow truck to arrive when they were killed by unknown assailants.

The couple’s daughter was in stable condition after being caught in the gunfire, prosecutors said in a statement.

Monica, who was named Miss Venezuela in 2004, had been living in Miami with her family before her death and had been planning to return to the U.S. this week.

The late Venezuelan beauty previously confessed in an interview that she left her native country because she felt unsafe there, according to Huffpost Voces.

Venezuela has one of the highest murder rates in the world and violent crime there has been on the rise in recent years. There were more than 24,000 homicides in the nation in 2013 alone, according to nbcmiami.com.

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Mónica Spear Mootz (October 1, 1984 – January 6, 2014) was a Venezuelan beauty pageant titleholder and actress who won Miss Venezuela 2004 and represented her country at Miss Universe 2005 where she finished as 4th Runner-Up.

During the Miss Venezuela 2004 pageant, Spear went on to win the national crown and represent Venezuela at Miss Universe 2005. Spear made the top 15 after Ana Karina Áñez (Miss Venezuela 2003) failed to make the top 15 in Miss Universe 2004 (the first time in 22 years that Venezuela failed to place). She went on to place in the top five after the evening gown and swimsuit competitions. During the Final Question round, Spear stumbled while answering the question given by Miss Mexico, Laura Elizondo, and eventually finished as 4th Runner-Up. The Top 5 was dominated by the Americas, consisting of Spear, Laura Elizondo of Mexico (3rd Runner-Up), Renata Soñé of the Dominican Republic (2nd Runner-Up), Cynthia Olavarría of Puerto Rico (1st Runner-Up), and Natalie Glebova of Canada (Winner).

Prior to being named the “fifth most beautiful woman in the universe,” Spear completed a bachelor’s degree in theater from the University of Central Florida before returning to Venezuela to compete in the national pageant. Her participation in Miss Venezuela also became notorious when she was asked during the traditional “breakfast with press” the day after the pageant, because of her degree, which Venezuelan playwright she liked the most, to which she answered, “Gabriel García Márquez”, a Colombian writer. She crowned her Miss Venezuela successor, Jictzad Viña, on September 15, 2005.

Spear married British businessman Thomas Henry Berry in June 2008 and gave birth to a daughter in October of the same year. She was an American citizen.

She was one of the most successful actresses in Venezuela for her main roles in soap operas. She took her first role as a protagonist in the successful RCTV soap opera Mi Prima Ciela (My Cousin Ciela), in which she played a high-school student ill with leukemia. The show was a success in Venezuela and other parts of South America, and it was also televised in the U.S. by TeleFutura. Spear held the starring role in Venevision’s soap opera La Mujer Perfecta in 2010, and recently had a starring role in Flor Salvaje; a Spanish-language telenovela produced by the Miami-based television network Telemundo and RTI Producciones. She was living in Miami since she began working for Telemundo.

Over the holidays, Spear was in Venezuela on vacation visiting various regions of the country with her ex-husband and their five-year-old daughter. On a highway in central Carabobo state, when the family were inside their car waiting to be helped after the vehicle had broken down, Spear and Berry were killed during an attempted robbery and their daughter was wounded in her leg. The police reported that the incident occurred at about 21:00-22:00. They also assumed that the thieves tried to rob them, while the media speculated that they tried to resist the robbery. They also claimed Spear received multiple injuries and her husband was shot once in the chest.

On the initial suggestion that her husband was Irish, the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs was investigating the incident. However, local police said he was travelling on a British passport. The international media also highlighted the rising rate of crime in Venezuela.