Latest Discovery of Bodies Fuels Fears Anew in Juarez
by Diana Washington Valdez
El Paso Times
The discovery of eight bodies dumped in a Juárez inner-city lot in November reignited the city's fears that the killer or killers who have preyed on young women since the early 1990s are on the prowl again.
Four days after the last body was recovered, Chihuahua state officials announced they had solved the killings and had the suspects in custody. But since then, lawyers, human-rights activists and victims' families have said police may have the wrong people in jail because DNA tests conducted by federal officials in Mexico City failed to confirm the identities of the victims.
"The authorities tried to hide the DNA results that could set free my client," said Sergio Dante Almaraz, lawyer for one of two bus drivers accused of killing the women. "From the beginning, this case has been fraught with irregularities and outright violations."
Ex-state Attorney General Arturo Gonzalez Rascon said the bus drivers, Victor J. Garcia Uribe and Gustavo Gonzalez Meza, confessed to the slayings and identified the victims.Ex-state Attorney General Arturo Gonzalez Rascon said the bus drivers, Victor J. Garcia Uribe and Gustavo Gonzalez Meza, confessed to the slayings and identified the victims.Ex-state Attorney General Arturo Gonzalez Rascon said the bus drivers, Victor J. Garcia Uribe and Gustavo Gonzalez Meza, confessed to the slayings and identified the victims.
The bus drivers have said they were tortured into confessing.
Elfego Bencomo, the new state deputy attorney general in Juárez, said it will take an additional two months to straighten out the DNA issue.
That's not soon enough for Vicky Caraveo Vallina, founder of the advocacy group Mujeres por Juárez.
"Everyone doubts these two men committed the murders. It's not the first time the authorities declared that these crimes have been solved, and what worries us is that the real killers continue to be loose in the city," she said.
All eight victims were raped and strangled, police said. Five had their hair cut off, two had their hands tied with shoelaces, and two had broken necks. A judge ruled later that police submitted no evidence of the rapes.
They were young, attractive and from poor families. According to police reports, they all disappeared during the day, and all but one were last seen on a weekday.
Their routine paths brought them to the same part of central Juárez, where they apparently were abducted before they were killed. The area includes downtown, the ProNaF nightclubs and the Pradera Dorada neighborhood. It is the heart of the city's "golden zone," known for its shopping centers, maquiladora industrial parks and upscale neighborhoods. It is also the focal point for frequent drug-related killings and abductions.
Mothers complain
State police said Esmeralda Herrera Monreal was among the latest eight victims.
She had just turned 15 and was making plans with her family to celebrate her quinceaera. Turning 15 is considered a rite of passage for young women in Mexico, and the teen was saving money from her job as a part-time housekeeper to help pay for a belated party.
The teen was last seen Oct. 29 leaving her job in the Misiones del Sur at 4:30 p.m., about a mile from the tract where the eight bodies were found.
"She was my only daughter, my dream girl. ... They took that away from me," Irma Monreal said before she broke down and cried. "The police wouldn't even let me see her body. They told me it would be too much for me to handle. They only showed me her clothes."
State police said Monreal's face was destroyed beyond recognition, leading her mother to suspect that "some kind of acid was used on her face to hide her identity."
Chihuahua state authorities said three of the eight victims were positively identified by relatives and other non-DNA tests.
The first four victims found Nov. 6 and 7 were identified as Claudia I. Gonzales, Esmeralda Monreal, Maria Acosta Ramirez and Laura Berenice Ramos Monarrez. The families had funerals for them. The bodies of the other four alleged victims are still at the morgue.
According to autopsy reports, none of the eight victims had been dead for longer than eight months. However some victims had been reported missing in 2000. Authorities cannot account for that time difference. One of the victims was estimated to have died three weeks before her body was found. Medical examiners listed the official cause of death for all eight as "indeterminate."
Official gifts
Benita Monarrez, mother of Laura Ramos Monarrez, said different officials visited her house after her daughter was listed among the victims. Among the visitors was the secretary of the wife of Chihuahua Gov. Patricio Martinez.
"They promised a scholarship for my younger son and to help us get a house for our family," she said. "They gave me the car that's in my driveway, title and all, so I could get around more easily to my medical appointments. But, I (didn't) stop searching for Laura Berenice."
Monarrez said she finally signed for her daughter's body in late March "because I was weary of waiting on the DNA results."
Other victims' families also said they received similar assistance, ranging from a used car to roof repairs.
Patricia Aguirre de Martinez, the governor's wife and director of the Integrated Family Development program known as DIF, said, "We provided assistance to the families at the governor's request, but there were no strings attached."
Rushed investigation
The recent multiple-death investigation troubled many.
The site investigation was shut down so fast that investigators left behind rib bones, a long, thick strand of human hair, clothing and other items that were found by reporters and volunteers who conducted sweeps.
Monarrez said state investigators haven't tried to find out who has her daughter's cell phone, which someone is using between Anapra and downtown Juárez. Her daughter had her cell phone when she was last seen heading to meet friends in the ProNaF area. Calls from the phone have been paid with pre-paid telephone cards.
State prosecutor Jesus Ortega said there is no need to pursue whoever might have the cell phone "because the investigation is over."
Copyright 2002 El Paso Times