Date Published: 11/06/2021
ARCHIVED - Body found weighted-down on Tenerife sea bed is one of missing girls
ARCHIVED ARTICLE An underwater search robot has been combing the sea bed off Güímar in Tenerife (Canary Islands) for days in search of signs of two children who police believe were killed by their father.
The authorities say that a body found inside a bag attached to an anchor on the sea bed three miles off the coast of Güímar in Tenerife is that of six-year-old Olivia, the older of two sisters who have been missing since 27 April.
Olivia and Anna Gimeno were reported missing after their father, Tomás, failed to take the two girls, aged six and one, home at the agreed time after spending the afternoon with them. Their mother, Beatriz Zimmerman, called the police some hours later after reportedly receiving a phone call from her former partner stating that she would never see him or their daughters again.
The hunt, now in its 45th day, began focusing on the sea almost immediately as cameras at Marina de Santa Cruz harbour had recorded Tomás carrying sports bags and luggage from his car to the boat that evening. He set sail shortly before 10 pm and returned to port at 11.30 pm, according to the recordings. Tomás then drove to a nearby petrol station and bought a phone charger, which he used to charge up his mobile at the watchman’s booth in the marina before making the call to his ex.
The boat set sail again at half-past midnight and was found abandoned and drifting off the coast of Puertito de Güímar the next day with its anchor missing.
The missing anchor was the clue that led police to suspect from the start, after declaring the case a ‘high-risk’ one, that the girls had been killed and their bodies disposed of at sea. The appearance of one of the girls’ car seats floating in the water and signs of blood on the abandoned boat in the following days made them even more certain that they were on the right track, while the girls’ mother and her family continued to hope that their father had taken them abroad and was in hiding.
A specialized oceanographic vessel, the Ángeles Albariño, equipped with sonars and an underwater search robot, was sent from Vigo to join the hunt, and on Monday (7 June) it found an oxygen tank and a quilt that belonged to Gimeno on the sea bed a thousand metres below the surface. It continued to comb the area, and on Thursday it located the anchor and two sports bags, one of which contained a body. The authorities said in the evening after the body had been brought to shore and taken to the Forensic Anatomical Institute in La Laguna that it ‘almost certainly’ belonged to Olivia, the older of the two sisters.
The second bag found was empty, and will be carefully examined for clues as searches continue for Anna and Tomás.