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February 24, 2002
Ciudad Juárez Field Sweep May Have Yielded New Evidence
in Serial Femicides
Combing for evidence the Ciudad Juárez cotton field
where her sister's body was discovered in November, 2001, Mayela
González said on Sunday, February 24 that she was angry
with the Chihuahua State Police for their weak investigation
into her sister's case and other similar cases.
Just minutes later, Mayela and her mother Josefina González
were shocked when two teenage boys found a plastic bag which
contained what both women identified as the tan overalls that
Claudia Ivette González was wearing the day she disappeared.
The women believe that the overalls were overlooked during the
State Police's previous investigation.
Between sobs, and flipping over the pants that lay on the
bank of the canal just feet from where her daughter's body was
discovered in November, Josefina González looked at what
appeared to be grass and dirt stains on the back of the pants
and said that Claudia Ivette's killer or killers must have had
her sitting on the ground somewhere. Speculating aloud about
how her daughter's last minutes might have been, Josefina began
sobbing harder and could not continue speaking.
Also present at the field sweep were Benita Monarrez, the mother
of Laura Berenice Ramos, and Gloria Solis Reyes, the mother of
Mayra Reyes.
The State Police claim that both Laura Berenice Ramos and
Gloria Solis Reyes were among the eight bodies found in the field
on November 6 & 7, 2001.
However, both women say they have refused to sign paperwork
to accept the bodies and are awaiting the results of DNA testing
currently being performed by the State Police. However, because
of their doubts about the much criticized investigation, both
women may not believe the results once they hear them, they say.
Benita Monarrez stated that despite an initial reluctance
to attend the field sweep, she is now angry and ready to work
harder than ever to resolve her daughter's case and those of
the other missing and murdered young women in Cd. Juárez.
Monarrez is also upset with the State Police, she says, because
they will not investigate who has been using her daughter's cell
phone or cell number since the time of her disappearance.
Gloria Solis Reyes, who believes that her daughter may have run
away from home to live in one of the small New Mexico towns between
El Paso and Las Cruces, said that she had never been to the field
before Sunday. Asked if it was hard to be there she said, "Hard?
No. Not with so many people. United it's better."
Supporting the families were a group of approximately 20 volunteers
from Las Cruces, New Mexico and El Paso, Texas and 20 members
of the Cd. Juárez search-and-rescue group Banda Civil.
Also found in the field were ripped or cut women's underwear,
at least four pairs of shoes, a dress, human hair, and a newspaper
article that had photos and descriptions of missing women from
Cd. Juárez.
After receiving a call from city police that were watching the
field sweep, State Police officers arrived at the scene and bagged
what could be new evidence in the cases.
One state police officer told the volunteer groups that they
had contaminated the evidence by touching it with their bare
hands. Volunteers responded by saying that if it had not been
for them, the evidence never would have been found.
Since 1993 nearly 300 women have been murdered in Cd. Juárez.
Of these murders, between 70 and 80 are considered to be sexually-related
murders and the work of one or more serial killers.
February 22, 2002
UACJ and IMIP to Work Together on Ciudad Juárez Water
Project
The Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez (UACJ),
the largest university in Cd. Juárez, and the city's Instituto
Municipal de Investigación y Planeación (IMIP),
signed an agreement on February 21, 2002 to work together toward
integrated management of rainwater runoff and city drainage.
Signing the accord were Felipe Fornelli Lafón, the president
of UACJ, and Luis Felipe Siqueiros, the director of the city
planning office, IMIP.
According to Siqueiros, Cd. Juárez receives its yearly
rain in hard, surprise storms which cause flooding in the city
and blocked stream beds.
In past years, dozens of people have died after being swept away
by flood waters.
Fornelli said that UACJ's environmental lab will be in charge
of performing the rainwater study. Two professors will take part
in the work which should be completed after this year's fourth
rainfall.
Source: El Diario, February 22, 2002. Article by Guadalupe Félix
& Araly Castañon.
February 18, 2002
5,000 Gallon Diesel Spill in Ciudad Juárez
Digging machinery was responsible for rupturing a Pemex diesel
pipeline in Ciudad Juárez on Thursday, February 14, according
to Pamela Franco Reza, director of Ecología y Protección
Civil for the city.
The break in the line spilled approximately 20,000 liters (5,000
gallons) of the fuel, said Franco. Although the pipeline was
shut down immediately after the break, fuel shot more than twenty
feet into the air for a period of time after the break.
The incident occurred near the Fluorex plant in Cd. Juárez
where fluoric acid is produced. In the past, the plant has been
criticized for its large piles of anhydrite that is a byproduct
of fluoric acid manufacturing.
However, on Thursday, the white anhydrite powder was used to
make containment walls around the flow of diesel fuel. Fluorex
has always contended that anhydrite is safe and it has even been
used to make gym flooring in area schools.
An estimated 6,000 square meters were affected by the spill,
according to one estimate.
City officials are now planning to recover as much diesel as
possible. Then they will repair the pipeline and clean up all
contaminated ground.
Source: El Diario, February 15, 2002. Article by Alejandro
Quintero.
February 11, 2002
Juárez Lawyer for Rape-Murder Suspect Killed in Police
Chase
Mario César Escobedo Anaya, the defense lawyer for
Gustavo González Meza, one of two men accused of sexually
assaulting and murdering eleven women in Ciudad Juárez,
was killed in a police chase on Tuesday, February 5, 2002.
State police said they chased Escobedo Anaya because they mistook
him for Francisco Estrada, who allegedly murdered a state police
officer. Curiously, Escobedo Anaya was also the defense lawyer
for Estrada's mother who was arrested for allegedly helping her
son escape arrest.
State police blame Escobedo Anaya for his death because he did
not pull over when pursued by them. However, the two police vehicles
involved in the chase were unmarked and Escobedo Anaya's passenger
told the Cd. Juárez press that he did not know the men
chasing them were police until they got out of their vehicles.
There are other discrepancies in the case as well. While the
Chihuahua Attorney General's Office stated in a press release
that Escobedo Anaya died because of brain damage resulting from
an auto accident that occurred while he was fleeing state police
officers, the Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario reports that
Escobedo Anaya's autopsy states he died from a bullet wound to
the head.
State police told El Diario that they only opened fire on Escobedo
Anaya because he shot at them first. They also say that chemical
tests on Escobedo Anaya's body show that he did fire a gun. There
were at least 10 bullet holes in Escobedo Anaya's vehicle.
However, accident-scene pictures taken by a photographer from
the Cd. Juárez newspaper El Norte show an unmarked Jeep
Grand Cherokee that was driven by a state police agent. At the
scene, the Jeep showed no bullet holes. A few hours later, an
El Norte photographer took a picture of the same Jeep outside
the Attorney General's Office. This time it shows a bullet hole
in the hood of the Jeep and fresh mud partly covers it. El Norte
contends that state police agents shot the Jeep themselves to
strengthen their case against Escobedo Anaya.
El Norte also reported that the Jeep is not registered as an
official state vehicle but is rather the private vehicle of Commander
Roberto Alejandro Castro Valles.
Escobedo Anaya took up the defense of González along with
his father, Mario Escobedo Salazar, who is also a Cd. Juárez
defense lawyer. Escobedo Salazar said that his son had received
various death threats for his involvement in the case. He also
stated that they had considered dropping González as a
client so as not to put their lives at risk.
The case against González and another suspect appears
to be growing weaker by the day as evidence mounts that the men
were framed and tortured into confessing to the murders of eleven
women in Cd. Juárez.
Escobedo Anaya was married for 12 years at the time of his death
and was the father of two girls, ages 7 and 10.
Agents involved in the pursuit have been suspended with pay while
they are under investigation.
Sources: El Norte, February 7-10, 2002. Articles by Carlos Huerta.
El Diario, February 7, 2002. Articles by A. Rodríguez
& R. Ramos.
February 6, 2002
Cd. Juárez Women's Advocate Fired From Radio Job
Samira Izaguirre, a popular Ciudad Juárez radio announcer
that organized a massive, candle light memorial service for the
eight young women whose bodies were found in early November,
2001, was fired along with three other radio announcers that
all shared the same Radio Cañón talk and news program.
In early January, Izaguirre told Frontera NorteSur that the state
government was pressuring Radio Cañón to fire her
because she was drawing too much attention to the rape and murder
of young women in Cd. Juárez.
On December 2001, Izaguirre went on a radio-announced hunger
strike to collect 25,000 candles that would be lit in the field
where the bodies of eight young women were found on November
6 and 7, 2001. As part of the memorial service a large, steel
cross was planted in the field. Later, Izaguirre and other protesters
took the cross and planted it in front of the Chihuahua Attorney
General's Cd. Juárez office in criticism of the Office's
handling of the murder investigations.
Izaguirre told the Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario that
she also angered state officials by giving air time to the wives
of two bus drivers that are being charged with the murder of
the eight women and other women as well. Their cases have fallen
under heavy criticism since their arrests but especially since
the Attorney General's evidence expert resigned saying that he
was being forced to fabricate evidence against the men. The head
of the local prison is also out of office because he documented
that the bus drivers arrived to him from the Attorney General's
Office bearing signs of torture.
Yesterday, February 5, Izaguirre, the three other fired announcers,
and at least fifty other people protested outside of the Attorney
General's Office, according to El Diario.
"This is the worst case ever of political harassment
against journalists in Ciudad Juárez," said Izaguirre.
Previously, an advertisement taken out in El Diario, alleged
that Izaguirre frequents strip clubs and runs a bar and is therefore
not an appropriate spokesperson for the women of Cd. Juárez.
The advertisement, and others like it which criticized other
local women's activists, drew much criticism in the press.
Source: El Diario, February 6, 2002.
January 29, 2002
Two More Women Murdered in Cd. Juárez
Like most of the victims of Ciudad Juárez's serial
killer or killers, Lourdes Ivette Lucero Campos worked in a maquiladora,
had long brown hair, was attractive and young, age 26.
However, Lucero was also quite different from the hundreds of
other women that have been murdered in Cd. Juárez since
1993. Lucero did not work on her maquiladora's production line
but was instead employed as a nutritionist in the Motores Eléctricos
kitchen.
Unlike most of the women who disappeared either going to or
from their bus stop on the way to work or home, Lucero disappeared
with her own truck. Also, Lucero was married and lived with her
husband while many of the Cd. Juárez rape-murder victims
were single and lived with their mothers or parents.
Perhaps because of these differences it was not surprising when
after a few days, Lucero's death was linked to an ex-boyfriend,
Daniel Magallanes, and not to an anonymous bus driver.
According to a number of articles in the Cd. Juárez
newspaper, El Diario, that quote sources within the Chihuahua
Attorney General's Office, Lucero was allegedly murdered by her
ex-boyfriend after a verbal argument turned violent.
While Lucero's husband was the original suspect in the case,
the Attorney General's Office learned about Magallanes through
coworkers at the maquiladora. When investigators began interrogating
Magallanes they said he gave contradictory testimony and then
confessed to the crime. According to El Diario's sources in the
Attorney General's Office, Magallanes began hitting Lucero with
a metal tube when she would not give him back his hat.
Lucero was murdered on Friday, January 18, 2002 and buried on
January 21.
In a separate case, a woman's body was found on January 27, 2002
near the Cerro Bola in Ciudad Juárez, her face destroyed
from damage inflicted by heavy rocks. The Cerro Bola is an area
where the burned bodies of some the city's rape-murder victims
have been previously found. However, just as in the case with
Lucero, initial similarities in the cases proved to be false
leads.
Later identified as Merced Ramírez Morales, the 35
year old mother of two now orphaned children, Ramírez
was not sexually attacked. The Attorney General's Office believes
that the concealment of a robbery may have been the motive for
the killing and that the murderer may live in the area.
So far this year there have been four women murdered in Ciudad
Juárez.
Source: El Diario, January 19-29, 2002.
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