Frontera NorteSur March 2002

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.

Woman's Body Found, Shot and Burned in Méxicali

On the night of Thursday, January 24, 2002, while looking for a stolen vehicle, Méxicali police officer Guillermo Leyva found a woman's body approximately 300 yards from a police station. The body had been set on fire and shot, according to police.

Due to the position in which the body was found, officials believe that the woman was doused in gasoline and set on fire while still alive. A one-gallon plastic container with gasoline residue still inside was found at the crime site along with two .38 bullet shells. The body has yet to be identified, according to the Méxicali newspaper, La Crónica.

In a separate story, the Mexico City newspaper La Jornada reports that a Oaxaca human rights group has asked the state police to intensify investigations into the rape-murders of sixteen women in that state over the past two years.

Aline Castellanos Jurado, the Oaxaca director of the Liga Mexicana por la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos (Mexican League for the Defense of Human Rights), has called upon the Oaxaca Attorney General, Sergio Santibáñez Franco, to seriously examine these crimes against women. The Liga has also demanded that the Attorney General's Office make public presentations about the progress made in each of the cases.

Sources: La Crónica (Méxicali), January 25, 2002. Article by Juan Galvan & César Valdez.
La Jornada (Mexico City), January 25, 2002. Article by Victor Ruiz Arrazola.

Second Young Agua Prieta Woman Found Tortured & Murdered

In less than three months, two young women have been found murdered in Agua Prieta, Sonora. Both bodies showed signs of torture. Agua Prieta is located across the border from Douglas, Arizona.

The Mexico City newspaper La Jornada reported on Sunday, January 13, 2002, that the body of a young woman, between the ages of 17 and 20, was found by a sanitation worker, presumably on January 11 or 12. The unnamed woman was apparently tortured and died from a beating. As in the previous case, it is not known if the woman was sexually assaulted.

Local authorities worry that there may be more killings in the future, similar to what Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua has faced over the past decade. In that city, more than 300 women have been murdered since 1993. Many of these were young women and maquiladora workers that were raped and tortured before their bodies were disposed of in vacant fields or desert areas.

Irma Villalobos de Terán, the mayor of Agua Prieta, said that these crimes "have begun to provoke a collective psychosis throughout the city, that make people think that there is a tie to the murder of women in Ciudad Juárez."

Source: La Jornada, January 13, 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.

Juárez Rape Crisis Center Receptionist Murdered at Work, Center Loses Funding

María Luisa Carsoli Berumen, age 33, was murdered on December 21, 2001, in Ciudad Juárez, outside of the Casa Amiga Rape and Abuse Crisis Center where she worked as a receptionist. Carsoli Berumen had four children, ages 2, 3, 6 and 8. Police are still looking for Carsoli Berumen's husband, Ricardo Medina Acosta, the suspect in the case.

The Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario reported that an unnamed cleaning woman that works at Casa Amiga stated that Carsoli Berumen's husband, Ricardo Medina Acosta, approached Carsoli Berumen as she arrived at work. The two began to argue and then Medina Acosta twice stabbed his wife, the woman said. The cleaning woman tried to stop Medina Acosta but could not. She yelled for help but no one came to assist, she said.

After the murder, Carsoli Berumen's four children were picked up by authorities because Medina Acosta allegedly threatened to kill them if police attempted to arrest him. According to Adela Lozoya of Casa Amiga, the children have been living with their maternal grandmother since December 24, 2001.

According to Esther Chávez Cano, the director of the not-for-profit Casa Amiga, Carsoli Berumen first came to Casa Amiga about a year ago because her husband had been beating her often. At the time of the murder, Carsoli Berumen and her husband were living separately.

In a press conference after the killing, Chávez said that in Cd. Juárez, men believe they own women. The killing she said is proof that Casa Amiga, the only rape and abuse crisis center in the city of 1.2 million people, can not attend to the needs of all of the city's women.

Citing a lack of available funds, the interim mayor of Cd. Juárez, José Reyes Ferriz told El Diario that the city had to end its monthly contribution of 30,000 pesos (approximately US$3,200) in October, 2001. However, Reyes said that the city will look into how it can support Casa Amiga in the future.

The previous city administration had supported Casa Amiga for three years until its term ended in October, 2001.

Source: El Diario, December 22, 2001. Article by Armando Rodríguez.

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.

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.