Just six days ago the spokesman for the mother of Anna and Olivia, Joaquín Amils, said that they had ruled out "the worst unimaginable outcome”, saying that “We are convinced that Tomas would take good care of them". Less than a week later, these words are meaningless and the worst outcome has come true.
It was confirmed last night that the body of a young girl found on the seabed at a depth of 1,000 metres, 3 miles off the coast of Santa Cruz in a sports bag weighed down with an anchor, the missing anchor from Tomas Gimeno’s boat called El Esquilón, is that of his eldest daughter 6 year old Olivia.
The specialist sonar search boat, the Ángeles Alvariño, made the discovery yesterday, and there was another empty sports bag next to it. Investigators from the Guardia Civil have not found any signs of Anna or her father, but believe that he has committed, what is known as, the worst possible revenge crime on his ex-wife, by murdering his daughters, and then taking his own life, as it is common knowledge that their separation last year was not amicable.
The Ángeles Alvariño is not designed specifically to find human bodies or remains, but for scientific investigation of the seabed, however the sonar and robot can identify large unusual objects and the first discovery was found on Tuesday (8th June).
After focusing on a particular area off the coast of Santa Cruz determined by the amount of fuel in Tomas’s boat and the last known activity on his mobile phone, they found a scuba diving oxygen tank and a duvet, bith in good condition that hadn’t been in the sea for a long period of time, that were confirmed to belonging to Tomas Gimeno, again 1,000 metres down on the seabed and approximately 3 miles off the coast, in the same area that Olivia’s body was discovered yesterday.
Investigators are now following the hypothesis that Tomas killed his daughters before loading them onto his boat at the Santa Cruz marina in bags, as seen on CCTV, before exiting the port between 9.30 and 11.00pm to dispose of their bodies in the sea.
They are now studying the CCTV footage from the marina, to compare the bags and packages that he loaded on board, thinking at the time that they were clothes, to try and identify the same bag or the duvet that they believe contained the already dead bodies, of his daughters.
At approximately 11.30pm on the same night of April 27th, he then went to a petrol station and bought a phone charger, where ironically he was stopped and sanctioned by the Guardia Civil for being out after curfew at the time, so he could charge his phone and continue his messages to his ex-wife, the girl’s mother, Beatriz Zimmerman, saying that she would never see him or them ever again.
At this point, at around half past midnight, Tomas left the Santa Cruz Marina for the final time. They now believe that he went to the same area and committed suicide by attaching a weight belt to himself and jumping overboard, drowning as he was dragged to the depth of a kilometre to the seabed.
All this took place, including the discovery of Olivia’s body, and the other items, just one nautical mile from the Guimar port where his boat was found drifting the next morning with no anchor on board, no mobile phone, and no sign of him, or his daughters.
From early this morning the Ángeles Alvariño has started continuing its search around the same in the area where, yesterday, Olivia's body was found to try to find any clues regarding her sister and father. At the moment the ship is located about three nautical miles from the port of Santa Cruz, in the same area where the last connection to Tomás's mobile phone was made and the area it has focussed since its arrival to the island.
