Popular soap-opera actress and former Miss Venezuela Monica Spear and her Irish ex-husband were shot and killed Monday night in front of their 5-year-old daughter when they resisted a robbery attempt, Fox News reported.
Spear, 29, and her husband were murdered on a roadside near Puerto Cabello, Venezuela's main port, after their car broke down, the prosecutor's office said in a statement to FOX News. At least six shots were fired, hitting Spear's in several places on her body, her husband in the chest and their daughter in the leg.
Police made five arrests in connection with the case on Tuesday, including two who were said to be younger than 18, the Daily Mail reported.
Armed men reportedly ran up to the car as the couple waited for a repair truck in an attempt to rob them. Spencer and her husband tried to foil the assault by locking themselves inside the car, "which had been disabled by punctures," the Associated Press reported. But the robbers opened fire at the couple through the windows, killing the two and wounding their daughter.
The assault and murder seems to follow a pattern of recent robberies in the area, where cars are disabled by obstacles left in roads, or drain covers removed, the Daily Mail reported.
Spear's murder was the needle in the haystack for many Venezuelans. Her murder angered many residents of the country, which has one of the world's highest murder rates and violent crime, and triggered a wave of calls for action on social media.
TV personality Camila Canabal expressed her anger and frustration on Twitter shortly after hearing the news.
"Sadness, anger, indignation, impotence, shame and pain, pain, pain, dammit!!!" she tweeted. "Monica and Thomas are the face of thousands of men and woman whose children have been left without parents because of the violence of Venezuela."
Spear was crowned Miss Venezuela in 2004 and had acted in numerous soap operas for the U.S.-based Telemundo network.
