- 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 accident while he was driving.
Police surrounded the 72-year-old man’s house after he barricaded himself in the property last night with the youngsters.
Their three bodies were found this morning around 8.30am in different rooms of the house in Huetor Tajar – a town of around 10,000 inhabitants, near the southern Spanish city of Granada – when armed officers forced their way in.
Sources close to the investigation have said one of the children had gunshot wounds and they believed the other could have been suffocated.
Civil Guard investigators are working with the theory that the pensioner shot himself using 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 accident while he was driving. Pictured: Police are seen at the scene in Huetor Tajar
This morning it emerged the man had been driving a car which hit 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 fight for life after being cut from the wreckage and rushed to hospital.
The youngsters were also in the car that crashed. One is believed to have suffered a broken leg in the accident and was still wearing a plaster cast.
Huetor Tajar’s mayor 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 offer all our support and condolences to the families of those affected.’
The alarm was sounded just before 10pm yesterday.
Specialist police negotiators and an elite Civil Guard unit from Madrid were mobilised after they received reports a man with a licensed hunting rifle had barricaded himself into his home with his grandchildren.
He is said to have argued with his son-in-law, who was today being treated by medics for shock, before the police were alerted.
Local reports said the grandfather told cops around 5am this morning he was going to stop talking to them because he had to get the kids ready for school soon.
Armed officers decided to force their way into the property after the youngsters and their grandfather failed to appear around the time they would have been expected to leave for school.
The incident comes after a 35-year-old Romanian man killed his two daughters aged just four and two in the province of Almeria in south-east Spain in March.
The man poisoned the children with pesticide before swallowing the same toxic substance to take his own life.
The kids’ 23-year-old mother, who was separated from their father, raised the alarm after going to pick them up and finding them dead in bed.
At the end of April 2021, a Spanish man allegedly killed his two daughters in Tenerife in a case that shocked the world.
Tomas Gimeno is believed to have committed suicide after murdering his young girls and dumping their bodies in the Atlantic Ocean.
His eldest daughter Olivia, six, was found in a sports bag attached to an anchor more than 3,000 feet underwater on the ocean bed off the holiday island on June 10.
A holdall the body of Olivia’s one-year-old sister Anna is thought to have been placed inside before being thrown off Gimeno’s boat was found empty and she is still missing along with the alleged double murderer.
A judge probing the trio’s disappearance on April 27 2021 later accused Gimeno of killing his children and leaving their bodies where he did in a ‘planned and premeditated fashion to cause his ex-partner inhumane pain.’
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 in an arranged visit.
Their mother Beatriz Zimmerman penned a gut-wrenching letter after Olivia’s body was found, accusing her former partner of ‘the most monstrous act a person can commit’ in killing his own ‘innocent children.’
Cristiano Ronaldo’s partner Georgina Rodriguez was among celebs who used their social media accounts to highlight the girls’ disappearance in the days after they went missing as their mother posted pictures and videos of them online in a bid to get their photos published around the world so well-wishers would recognise them and alert the authorities.
This is a breaking news story. More to follow…