The mum of two children allegedly killed by their dad and dumped at sea said she wishes she had died with them in a heartbreaking letter.
Police are still searching for Tomas Gimeno and his youngest daughter Anna, one, after finding the body of his eldest Olivia, six, in a sports bag attached to an anchor more than 3,000 feet underwater off the coast of Tenerife on Thursday.
A empty holdall, which authorities believe contained Anna, was also found.
A judge probing the trio’s disappearance on April 27 has accused Gimeno, 37, of killing his children and leaving their bodies where he did in a “planned and premeditated fashion to cause his ex-partner inhumane pain”.
Mum Beatriz Zimmerman, who used social media to publicise her daughters’ disappearance before the grim discovery earlier this week, admitted she had accepted Anna was also dead in a raw open letter of thanks to people who had helped by spreading her SOS messages and praying.
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(Image: SOLARPIX.COM)
She called her former partner’s actions “the most monstrous act a person can commit”, saying she hoped Olivia and Anna’s deaths had not been in vain and would lead to more protection, education and respect for children.
She added: “They are now two angels who came into the world to teach a great lesson at the cost of their own lives.”
She also admitted she would give anything right now to be performing the “simple” act of combing their hair, confessing: “As a mother it pains my soul not to have been able to save their lives.
“I wish I had been there at that moment with them, holding their hands and dying together.
“But that couldn’t happen because Tomas wanted me to suffer looking for them without rest and for the remainder of my life. That was the reason he left me alive.”
Describing the discovery of Olivia’s body on Thursday as a “miracle” produced by the love and energy well-wishers showed after news of her daughters’ disappearance emerged, Beatriz wrote: “When they told me the news my world collapsed around me and although it is very difficult, at least now I can cry her loss and feel my girls at my side at every moment, feel them when I wake up, when I have breakfast, all day, until the moment I go to bed.”
Saying April 27, the day Gimeno allegedly abducted and disappeared with his daughters, should become a National Children’s Day, she wrote: “I hope that the death of the girls serves to create greater awareness about the love that we give to our children, in valuing it and when we are with them, not have other things in our heads but focus on them.
“They need us and adore us. Olivia and Anna, now the little angels of children, ask that you give your children all the love, dedication, respect, and instil values for a better world in them.
(Image: Miguel Barreto/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
“They may have died in body, but their soul is with all of us forever, helping to have more awareness, love and respect for us.
“The vast majority of people are incredible beings, they have shown it in this cruel act with compassion and pain.”
She signed off her letter: “Beatriz, mum of Olivia and Anna, the little angels.”
A Spanish judge tasked with investigating the disappearance of Gimeno and his daughters outlined the night he allegedly murdered them as she said the ongoing criminal investigation should be handed to a specialist court dealing with crimes of violence against women in the Tenerife capital Santa Cruz.
Gimeno vanished after allegedly telling his ex-partner she would never see her children again after she began a new relationship.
Priscila Espinosa Guterriez, in a nine-page written ruling detailing the conclusions she had reached as she announced her decision, said: “The evidence points to Tomas Gimeno intention on April 27 when he took his daughters, being not to snatch them from their mum and take them to an unknown place, but to kill them in a planned and premeditated fashion to cause his ex-partner inhumane pain.”
She added: “He allegedly deliberately tried to create uncertainty regarding the fate his daughters had suffered by hiding their bodies on the ocean bed after killiing them, choosing a place deep underwater and far from the coast where he thought they would never be found.
“All this happened after he told his ex-partner and his close circle he was going to disappear with the girls and they wouldn’t be seen again.”
The dad-of-two was filmed on CCTV carrying the sports bags he allegedly stuffed his daughters’ bodies into from his Audi A3 to his boat at a marina in the capital of Santa Cruz.
(Image: SOLARPIX.COM)
The empty vessel, minus the anchor, was discovered off Puertito de Guimar on the east corner of the island just over 10 miles south of Santa Cruz hours after he and the girls vanished.
A search vessel lent to the police by the Spanish Oceanographic Institute called Angeles Alvarino, is continuing to comb the ocean bed in the area where Oliva’s body was found.
A diving bottle and duvet cover belonging to the youngsters’ father had been discovered on Monday more than 3,000 feet underwater near the same area.
Fears are growing that Anna’s body may never be found if she was left in the empty holdall police discovered.