18th Person Found Dead

Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
A scavenger has discovered the remains of a young woman on the outskirts of this border city, bringing to 18 the number killed in a mysterious series of slayings.

Chihuahua state police said the woman had been dead for several months before she was found by a man scavenging for bottles and cans, the daily El Mexicano reported Monday.

Police spokesman Ernesto Garcia said the discovery "has all the characteristics of being related" to the other 17 deaths since last August, according to the government's Notimex news agency.

The state attorney general's office has nine members of a group known as "Los Rebeldes" as well as an Egyptian citizen, Abdel Latif Sharif Sharif, in prison on charges connected with some of the slayings.

Copyright 1996 The Houston Chronicle