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July 31, 2003 Just weeks after the Ciudad Juárez newspaper El Diario covered rumors of "chupacabra" activity in a nearby rural area (click here to see that FNS story), the El Paso Times reported on sightings of a bigfoot-like creature to the east of town, in Horizon City. Cecilia Montańez, a retired secretary, told the El Paso Times that she has seen the creature twice since moving to the area three years ago. Montańez described the "big gorilla-like thing" as having very short hair and "a brownish-maroon color." Stories about the existence of the monster go back to the early 1970s and in September 1975 the El Paso Times published a story about three teenagers that said they saw a gorilla-like creature near the Horizon City golf course. Bill Rutherford, then a deputy with the El Paso County Sheriff's Department, was quoted in the article as saying that he did see a track but that it "appeared to have been dug." Recently interviewed over the phone by an El Paso Times reporter, Rutherford stated that he never saw the beast and thought it was a hoax. Montańez believes that the creature or creatures she has seen live in caverns under Horizon City. However, Phil Goodell, a professor of geology at the University of Texas at El Paso, said that there are no caverns under Horizon City. Further refining her description of the monster, Montańez stated that it has red, glowing eyes, "like cats," and that it has a lower jaw like that of a bulldog. The creature is vegetarian according to Montańez. However, since the desert around the area has little vegetation, Montańez claims that the beast also sucks the blood out of small animals and eats their organs. The glowing eyes and the blood sucking, both traits attributed to the chupacabras, have led some area residents to see a conflation of the chupacabras and bigfoot myths. "It sounds like they're trying to make it seem like a chupacabra," Irene Scanlon, age 57, said. "I don't believe it at all. I think it's just someone trying to get publicity." And perhaps Scanlon is on to something. Montańez says that although she is not trying to get attention for herself, she would like Horizon City to become a tourist attraction in the style of Roswell, New Mexico where a UFO was supposed to have crashed in 1947. Source: El Paso Times, July 31, 2003. Article by Adriana M. Chávez.
July 18, 2003 The typical border story involves bought-out, Mexican law-enforcement officers warning narcotraffickers about operations against them. However, on Thursday, July 17, 2003, the FBI arrested one of its employees, Mario Castillo, age 36, a translator who had been with the Bureau for five years. One of the charges against Castillo alleges that he accessed and sold privileged information about drug operations. Castillo is also being charged for possession of child pornography and stealing cellular phone service. The Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario quoted Hardrick Crawford Jr., the FBI special agent in charge of El Paso, as saying "We're on the border. We know that the enemy on the other side is the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes organization and the message to him is 'OK, you got into our office but we know that, we're on guard, and we're more vigilant now.'" Federal authorities indicated that Castillo entered, without authorization, an FBI computer on six different occasions between July 13, 2000 and November 12, 2002. An article in the El Paso Times noted that some FBI cases might have been compromised by Castillo's actions. According to the Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario, Castillo was born in Chihuahua City but is a naturalized US citizen. Castillo faces up to ten years in prison for accessing confidential information and five years each for the other two charges against him. Sources: El Diario & The El Paso Times, July 18, 2003.
What could be worse for a mother? Your daughter disappears one day--from a city that has witnessed a string of serial-killings--and you don't hear a word from her for two months. Then the police call and tell you that they may have found her body. The clothes match but police went let you see the remains. You finally view the bones but notice that the hair and teeth don't match your child's. In the meantime, your husband and his nephew have been detained for questioning in the case. Your husband is released, speaking of psychological torture and death threats, but his nephew is charged with murdering your daughter in a complex plot that involves unnamed, for-hire kidnappers and flights in and out of Chihuahua from Chiapas. For the past two months, this has been the life of Chihuahua-City resident Patricia Cervantes. Background Cervantes reported her daughter, Neyra Azucena Cervantes, age 19, missing on May 13, 2003. To make matters worse, Azucena was attending, at the time of her disappearance, a computer school where other serial-killing victims were studying in Chihuahua City and Ciudad Juárez before they disappeared. For two months, Cervantes heard nothing from her daughter. Finally, on Monday, July 14, 2003, a group of young people found a body in a remote, mountainous area at the edge of Chihuahua City. Identity uncertain Due to the match between the clothes and other items found near or on the body, state law-enforcement officials believed that they had found Neyra Azucena Cervantes. Patricia Cervantes was called in to identify the belongings and agreed that they were her daughter's. However, Cervantes wanted to see the body itself but was discouraged to do so by people from the Chihuahua Attorney General's Office. Finally, after getting assistance from another branch of government, Cervantes and her sister Martha Delgado get to see the remains. However, the bones had been cleaned of all flesh and hair. Delgado, speaking for her sister, says that they were shown dark, black hair whereas Neyra Azucena's hair was a lighter brown. Furthermore, neither Delgado nor Cervantes believed that the dental remains they were presented with were those of Neyra. Lastly, neither women could see a bullet hole in the skull they were presented with (a forensic report stated that the victim had been shot in the head). Framed? What the police say A July 17 article in the Heraldo de Chihuahua gives the police version of how authorities came to charge Azucena's step-cousin, David Meza Argueta, for the young woman's death. According to police, Meza began insulting state authorities when he and other family members were in the room where Azucena's supposed body was being stored. Police say that Meza stated that police were not doing the investigation as they should have been and asked questions about advances in the investigation of the killing. Meza's action seemed suspicious to police so they interrogated him and he confessed, they said. However, press versions of Meza's confession differ somewhat although both say they are based on Meza's statements. According to police, Meza confessed that he was upset with Azucena because she was not romantically interested in him. A resident of Chiapas, Meza then allegedly contracted two unnamed Chihuahua men that he met in a bar to kidnap the young woman--and then he, Meza, returned to Chiapas. Police say that Meza paid each man US$350 before the kidnapping with the promise that they would each be paid US$350 more after they had taken Azucena, according to an article in the Ciudad Juárez newspaper El Diario. Police say that once the men had kidnapped Azucena they called Meza who then flew back to Chihuahua City from Chiapas. Police emphasize that Meza was careful so as not to be seen by Azucena's family when he was back in the city. Once back in Chihuahua, according to the Heraldo de Chihuahua, Meza allegedly went to a house in the Nombre de Dios neighborhood where the girl was being held. From there he confessed that he took her up into some nearby mountains where he forced her to undress and he raped her. Once dressed again, she threatened that she would tell her family everything. Afraid of this, police said Meza's confession then says that he shot her with a .22 pistol that he obtained from the men he had hired to kidnap her. Strangely, the Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario had a different version of events. El Diario quotes an official from the Attorney General's Office as saying that Meza tried to have consensual sex with Azucena but that she denied him. Frustrated, Meza allegedly raped her and "trying to flee, the victim fell and hit her head, which he took advantage of to shoot her in the head . . .". What the family says Detained on July 14 along with Meza was his uncle and Azucena's stepfather, Jesús Argueta Vargas, 38. Upon his release in the early hours of the 16th, Argueta said about his detention, "they verbally threatened me and said that if I said anything about this they would kill me or throw me in jail and that they would find any pretext to do so. They wanted me to incriminate myself for the killing of my daughter." While at the Police Academy, where other recent suspects in killings say they were tortured, Argueta stated that he was constantly being threatened by some 20 or 30 agents. Early on the morning of the 16th, Patricia Cervantes, Azucena's mother stated that the Attorney General's Office is only interested in fabricating scapegoats and that "they should investigate the true killers, they won't fool me with an innocent person." Cervantes also feels threatened now that her husband, Argueta, has accused the police of torture and trying to frame innocents, "I want it to be very clear that if anything happens to us or our family then the blame should fall on the Attorney General's Office because they threatened my husband and my nephew." Victims' families unite After hearing that Cervantes does not believe she has been presented with her daughter's body, the families of Azucena and two prior victims, Paloma Escobar and Viviana Rayas, have now agreed that their daughters' bodies should be exhumed for the purpose of getting material with which to do DNA testing. All three families are demanding that the Attorney General's Office due DNA studies in these cases. Source: El Diario & El Heraldo de Chihuahua, July 17, 2003.
July 15, 2003 The body of Neyra Azucena Cervantes, a 19 year-old woman from Chihuahua City, was found on Monday, July 14, 2003 by a group of young people from the Cierro Prieto neighborhood who were walking through difficult, hilly terrain on the city's Sierra de Nombre de Dios. Azucena was reported missing on May 13, 2003. The body was in a state of advanced decomposition, El Heraldo de Chihuahua reported. Forensic results determining the cause of death are not yet available. The young woman's mother, Patricia Cervantes, claimed her daughter's body at a police station after recognizing the clothes and jewelry there that her daughter had been wearing the day she disappeared. A date for Azucena's funeral has not yet been set, according to a family relative quoted in the Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario. Police originally tried to get to Azucena's body by going through the Cerro Prieto neighborhood but found that they were still quite far from the site over what is rugged land. This led law enforcement officials to try an approach by another road where the remains of Paloma Escobar were found on March 27, 2002. This was near the new, US$32 million, Chihuahua law-enforcement building known as C-4. Neyra Azucena disappeared from the center of Chihuahua City on May 13, 2003. Her mother said that Neyra worked at a clothing store called Condor High and studied at a nearby computer school, Computación ERA. Cervantes also stated that a teacher at the school would always walk her daughter to the bus after classes but did not do so on the day she disappeared. The teacher later told Cervantes that he did not know if Neyra ever made it to the bus that day. Justicia para Nuestras Hijas, a Chihuahua City-based organization that supports the family of serial-killing victims and the disappeared in that city, told FNS in June that Neyra Azucena attended the Ecco computer school, not ERA. Another source noted that Ecco changed its name to ER when it began getting too much attention because of its relationship to the murdered and disappeared young women in Chihuahua City. Thus, it may be the case that Azucena attended the same school as serial-killing victim Paloma Escobar. Two other Chihuahua City young women, Ericka Carrillo and Minerva
Torres, who disappeared in 2000 and 2001 respectively, were also Ecco
students according to Justicia para Nuestras Hijas. Source: El Heraldo de Chihuahua & El Diario, July 15, 2003. July 10, 2003 Marcela Viviana Rayas, age 16, of Chihuahua City, had been missing since March 16, 2003 when her body was found a few miles outside of the city on May 28. On May 29, Chihuahua law enforcement officers forced their way into the home of US citizen Cynthia Kiecker and her Mexican husband Ulises Perzábal, according to Carol Kiecker, mother of Cynthia, who has since been to Chihuahua City to visit her daughter and son-in-law in prison and organize their legal defense. Carol Kiecker also told FNS that, initially, Cynthia believed that she and/or her husband were being kidnapped because armed men burst into their house and did not identify themselves as law enforcement agents. Before leaving their house, both Cynthia Kiecker and her husband then had bags put over their heads, Kiecker's mother said, and they had a very difficult time breathing because of the bags' plastic or rubber-like linings. From their home, Kiecker and Perzábal claim they were taken to the old police academy building in Chihuahua City were they were separated and tortured. According to reports in the Chihuahua City press, Cynthia Kiecker, age 43, says that her shirt was wet down with water by authorities and then electrodes were attached to her. The press also mentioned that Perzábal stated that he had electrodes attached to his testicles while he was being tortured. Kiecker's mother states that law enforcement had also painfully bent her daughter's arms and other joints to cause her suffering. The two also endured psychological torture, says Carol Kiecker, and Cynthia finally agreed to sign a fake confession when authorities "threatened to penetrate her rectum with a wooden stick." Speaking to the Star Tribune, Nida Emmon, a spokesperson for the US Consulate in Ciudad Juárez, said, after meeting with Cynthia Kiecker that "There was physical evidence of something wrong, something that had happened, some bruises and scrapes." The Chihuahua Attorney General's Office denied the claims of torture and strengthened its case by finding three witnesses who helped make a case against Kiecker and Perzábal. Witnesses tortured However, the case against Kiecker and Perzábal has fallen apart according to a headline in the Ciudad Juárez newspaper El Diario. On June 30, two of the three state witnesses against the couple held a press conference and stated that they were tortured at the police academy to falsely incriminate Kiecker and Perzábal. Crying as she spoke, Erika Pérez Arzate, a 22 year old mother, told the gathered media that she was kidnapped by state police on May 31 and taken to the police academy. She stated that police psychologically tortured her by saying that if she did not sign a statement against Kiecker and Perzábal, she would never see her son again. Pérez also told the media, among other things, that she had never even met Marcela Viviana Rayas. Manuel López Domínguez said at the press conference that he was tortured with electric shocks as well. Authorities wet his shirt with water and gave him shocks and also choked him with a towel that they put around his neck. While he was being tortured, López said he could hear Kiecker and Perzábal screaming while they were being abused. López stated that he finally signed a statement against the couple because he was scared by the torture and death threats. Problems with motive Originally, the Attorney General's Office claimed that Rayas was killed during Satanic rites or a Satanic party. However, prosecutors later stated that Kiecker killed Rayas with a blow from a metal object when she learned that Rayas and Perzábal were allegedly having an affair. According to Kiecker's mother, Cynthia says that she had never known Rayas. Cynthia Kiecker also told her mother that she and her husband have not had a party at their house in years. The couple owns a store which prosecutors say sells occult and Satanic goods. Kiecker's mother said that her daughter sold mostly jewelry that she herself made or had made for the store in other parts of Mexico. One issue that could affect Kiecker and Perzábal's defense is that Perzábal was arrested a few years ago for statutory rape of a 14 year old girl. Carol Kiecker, admitting that her son-in-law is not quite the man she wishes him to be, said that the incident occurred when Perzábal was having some success as a musician and had attracted a bit of a following. According to Carol Kiecker, Perzábal admitted to having an encounter with the girl, whom he thought older than 14, when his wife Cynthia was out of town. Charges in the case were later dropped however. Problems with evidence Another problem for the prosecution is that it says Rayas was killed by a blow to the head with a blunt object. However, an autopsy determined that Rayas was strangled to death with such force that vertebra in her neck were cracked. This last detail is important because many of the serial-killing victims in Cd. Juárez and Chihuahua City died in this way. Furthermore, the killings in Cd. Juárez and Chihuahua City are linked in that some in both cities have been allegedly related to local ECCO computer school campuses. Sources: El Diario (Cd. Juárez), July 1 & 2, 2003. Star Tribune, June 20, 2003. July 7, 2003 Besides the PAN's losses, the other story on Sunday was one of low voter participation. Although voter turnout as low as 40% had been predicted, it dipped much lower in some places. The El Paso Times reported on July 7 that estimated voter participation was between 30 and 35% in Ciudad Juárez and 23% throughout the state of Chihuahua. A Mexico-El Salvador soccer game was partially blamed for the lack of voters. As in the 2000 elections, the PAN received most of its support on the western side of the border. PAN candidates for federal deputy won all six seats in Baja California just as they had in 2000. In Sonora, PAN politicians took three of seven seats compared to five of seven in 2000. A race for governor in that state is very close and a winner has not yet been announced. In Chihuahua, PAN candidates took two out of nine seats (compared to six of nine in 2000) and in Coahuila the PAN won only one of seven seats (in contrast to the four it won in 2000). In Nuevo León, where the PRI took away a PAN governorship, the PAN went from having eight federal deputies elected in 2000 to just one of eleven on Sunday. In Tamaulipas, the PAN won two of eight deputy seats (down from three in 2000). Source: Programa de Resultados Electorales Preliminares (part of Mexico's Instituto Federal Electoral), El Imparcial (Hermosillo), El Norte (Nuevo León), and El Paso Times, July 7, 2003. |