Frontera Small Header

 Frontera NorteSur
March 2002


Problems with Testimony of Witness in Juárez Serial-Killings Cases Threatens Prosecution's Position
by Greg Bloom, FNS Editor

Key testimony that the Chihuahua Attorney General's Office used to get an arrest warrant for Víctor García Uribe and Gustavo González Meza, the two men charged with the murders of eleven women including eight found in a cotton field on November 6 and 7, has come into question.

According to testimony given to state investigators on November 9, 2001, Laura Guereca Arroyo said that the man she saw while driving past the cotton field where eight bodies were found, did look like Víctor García Uribe.

The Ciudad Juárez newspaper El Norte said that this testimony was then used by the Attorney General's Office to issue an arrest warrant for García and González. El Norte also reported that the same testimony was later used to convince a judge to allow the arrest of the men.

Regarding Guereca's statements, Arturo González Rascón, who was then Chihuahua State Attorney General, said that the woman's testimony was crucial to the case against the two men.

Later, when defense lawyers wanted to speak with Guereca, they were informed by the State Police that they could not find her, according to El Norte.

However, when El Norte located Guereca, she told a reporter that García was definitely not the person she saw near the cotton field. While García looked much like the man she saw changing a flat tire on a car near the cotton field, Guereca said she never agreed the man was García.

Because Guereca has given testimony in the case and has no state sponsored protection, she is afraid to leave to her house, she said. She also stated that she took a one month leave from work because of the pressure the case has put on her.

After El Norte's revelations about Guereca's testimony were published, several city women's leaders insisted that Guereca be given protection.

In the future, Guereca will be called before a judge to testify in the case, said Dante Almaraz Mora, García's lawyer.

Source: El Norte, February 4 & 5, 2002. Articles by Carlos Huerta and Guadalupe Salcido.