POLICE have launched a massive manhunt after masked gunmen who slaughtered three generations of one family in a suspected revenge hit torched their getaway motorbike to distract authorities.
The brutal triple murder has left the usually sleepy coastal town of Isla Cristina, in Andalucia’s Huelva province, on high alert as the killers remain at large.
The attackers fled the bloodbath on a motorcycle before dumping and burning the vehicle in a nearby pine forest in a bid to throw the Guardia Civil off their trail.
Isla Cristina mayor Jenaro Orta said the alarm in the community was ‘huge’ following the massacre.
“They wanted to distract us,” he said of the torched motorbike, adding his hope that there would be no further reprisals in the coming days.
The hitmen opened fire on a street on Monday, killing a 62-year-old woman, her pregnant daughter, and a 16-year-old boy who was reportedly an innocent bystander.
A fourth victim was left seriously injured in the attack, which Orta described as ‘Dantesque’, with an enormous number of shell casings left scattered around the bodies.
Investigators strongly suspect the massacre is a settling of scores between two rival families tied to a previous killing.
The two deceased women are understood to be the mother and sister of a man known as ‘El Baba’.
He is currently in preventive prison in Gijon for his alleged role in a deadly shooting in the El Torrejon neighbourhood of Huelva capital in September 2024.
A judge has placed the current investigation under a secrecy order, an administrative measure meaning official details from the Guardia Civil will remain strictly limited while the manhunt continues.
Orta urged residents to remain calm and condemned the sharing of graphic images of the crime scene online, stating that neither the family nor the town deserved such cruelty.
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