SELF-CONFESSED killer of eight-year-old Gabriel Cruz Ramírez and ex-girlfriend of the victim's father, Ana Julia Quezada, is due to appear in court again today (Monday) for a further hearing.
Quezada, 44, has been in police custody since she was caught on March 11 with the child's body in the boot of her car after a fruitless two-week search for him in the Las Hortichuelas area of Níjar, Almería province.
Gabriel had left his grandmother's house, where he spent many weekends and holidays, at around 15.30 on February 27, intending to go to his aunt's and cousins' home 100 metres away to play, but never arrived.
Inquiries so far seem to show that the accused met her boyfriend's son halfway down the road in her car and persuaded him to go with her to help her paint a country house the family owned.
She had left the grandmother's home minutes after Gabriel, and nobody else was present.
Police began to suspect Quezada after she found a vest belonging to the then missing child near a sewage plant, which had not been there previously.
Keeping her under surveillance, but expecting to find the child alive and held hostage, they filmed her pulling a large bundle out of a well and putting it in her car boot before driving to a flat she owned 20 kilometres away.
Surrounding her in the underground car park, they ordered her to open the boot, and the police officers who saw Gabriel's semi-naked body were pictured in tears and comforting each other.
Quezada reportedly broke down and confessed, but insists the child's death by suffocation was an accident.
She later claimed he had been playing with a pole, swinging it around dangerously, and when she reprimanded him and tried to wrench it off him, he hit her with it and said she was not his mother and could not tell him what to do.
Although it was known that the pair did not get along, Gabriel's mother, Patricia Ramírez and his father, Ángel Cruz both said their son would never have acted in such a disrespectful manner towards an adult, as he was a very polite, quiet and thoughtful little boy.
Police have also been probing the death of Quezada's four-year-old daughter who repeatedly fell out of a window in 1995 when the accused was living in Burgos, the native city of her then boyfriend and father of her younger daughter, then aged two.
This younger daughter, now 25 and living with her father in Burgos, has been called upon to act as witness.
Quezada's late elder daughter was a year old when her mother moved to Spain from her native Dominican Republic.
The court has authorised the children's protection charity, the Clara Campoamor Association, to proceed with their people's prosecution, although only in relation to Gabriel as a victim and not in respect of his parents.
Reports, including the post-mortem on Gabriel, are still being completed, and the case, meanwhile, remains sub judice.
Once the forensic papers are released, details of the case will be made public.
If found guilty, Quezada cannot be extradited as she is a Spanish citizen.
