Three men who confessed to the murder of a former Miss Venezuela and her British ex-husband have each been sentenced to at least 24 years in jail.

Monica Spear, 29, a soap opera actor, and Thomas Berry, 39, known as Henry, died after being attacked when their car broke down at night in central Venezuela in January. The case provoked much soul-searching among Venezuelans about the level of violent crime in the country, among the highest in the world.

Spear, who was crowned Miss Venezuela in 2004, was living in the US but was on holiday in her homeland with Berry, with whom she was reconciled after their divorce last year. Their five-year-old daughter, Maya, was shot in the leg but survived.

Jean Carlos Colina, 19, got a 26-year sentence, while José Ferreira Herrera, 18, and Nelfrend Jiménez Álvare, 21, were jailed for 24 years each, the public prosecutor’s office said, adding that they had all confessed to the crime. Four other men, one woman and two adolescents still face proceedings in the case.

Berry moved to Venezuela with his parents when he was aged seven and ran a travel company. He regularly travelled back to Britain to visit relatives and friends. After her success as a beauty queen, Spear turned to acting, becoming one of Venezuela’s most beloved stars, with her popularity spreading throughout South America.

The couple were murdered on a roadside in El Cambur as they travelled back to Caracas after an idyllic trip through the country. They had been driving an inconspicuous Toyota Corolla along the Interregional del Centro highway, identified by the country’s public transport union as a hotspot for assaults by a number of gangs. Police said their car hit an object, believed to have been left in the road by robbers, that blew out at least two of the tyres, forcing them to pull over and call for assistance on a mobile phone. A tow truck stopped to help them and their vehicle was already on the truck when they were attacked. The truck driver and his assistant fled, leaving Spear and Berry to lock themselves in their car but the assailants fired six bullets into the vehicle. Spear was shot in the head and Berry in the chest.

Venezuela’s official homicide rate last year was 39 per 100,000 inhabitants but local non-government organisations put the figure at nearly twice that, with a total of 24,000 deaths. There were protests after Spear was killed and the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, who has said beating violent crime is a top priority, spoke movingly about her death. He called the murders a “massacre” and convened an emergency security meeting aimed at improving safety on the roads.

At the couple’s funeral, attended by hundreds of Venezuelan celebrities and ordinary citizens, Spear’s father, Rafael, called for her murder to be a catalyst for change.