Venezuelan police have arrested seven people including a woman and two teenagers over the brutal double murder of a beauty queen turned soap star and her British-born partner.
The fatal shooting of former Miss Venezuela Monica Spear, an actress who lived and worked in the US, during a holiday to her home country caused shock and revulsion, and triggered a government crisis meeting.
Spear, 29, and Thomas Henry Berry, 39, were shot dead after their car broke down on a highway in northwestern Venezuela late Monday.
Their five-year-old daughter was wounded in what appears to have been an armed robbery.
The family had locked themselves in the car in a frantic attempt to survive, but the armed men approached and opened fire multiple times. Spear was killed with a single shot.
Seven people have been arrested for "presumed connection" to the attack, prosecutors said.
The four men, one woman and two teenagers were found in possession of some of the family's belongings.
It was previously announced that five people had been detained over the killings in the state of Carabobo that prompted President Nicolas Maduro to vow to deal with the perpetrators with an "iron hand".
"No one can stand by with arms crossed; murders, and violent crime, and the massacre of this young Venezuelan woman and her husband is a blow to all of us," said Maduro, who held a meeting of mayors and governors to draw up an emergency anti-crime plan after the killings.
The deaths shone a light on the country's soaring crime, which has kept many Venezuelans from venturing out at night and prompted others to buy armoured cars or boost security in their homes.
Spear and Berry's daughter Maya was shot in the right leg and taken to a private hospital in Caracas, where she is in a stable condition and under the care of her grandparents.
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