Federal Officials in Mexico Join Murder Probe
by Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan
MEXICO CITY - The federal government has begun investigating this country's most notorious murder case, the rape and killing of 90 women in Ciudad Juarez over the past 10 years, based on an informant's allegation that some of the victims may have been butchered by organ traffickers.
Jose Luis Vasconcelos, the federal prosecutor in charge of organized crime, said his office is starting to examine 14 cases in which the informant, who is also a suspect in several cases, claimed to have seen women's bodies that had been "hollowed out" with their organs removed. Murder is a state crime in Mexico, but organ trafficking is a federal offense.
Officials in the border state of Chihuahua, where Juarez is located, have long been reluctant to give up or share jurisdiction, despite mounting allegations of planted evidence, coverups, the framing of suspects and a continuing string of gruesome murders.
The federal government's involvement is seen by victims' families and human rights activists as crucial to solving a case that has been a blight on the image of the U.S.-Mexico border area and the subject of books, documentaries and women's rights marches.
"We are happy they have arrived," said Marisela Ortiz, a spokeswoman for We Want Our Daughters to Return Home, a group of family and friends of victims in Juarez, a tough border city of 1.4 million people across from El Paso.
"There is a sense of panic here, especially among the mothers," Ortiz said. "Every time they see their daughters go out they are afraid they will not return." She said some mothers had stopped sending their daughters to school or work, for fear of not seeing them again.
The federal government's entry into the case has not been smooth. President Vicente Fox announced in December 2001 that his government would join the investigation. But resistance by authorities in a state with a governor from an opposition political party prevented that from happening.
In an interview, Vasconcelos said state officials "have not given me the bodies, nor the autopsies. They have not given me anything. They have hidden everything from me."
Shaking his head in disgust, Vasconcelos said state authorities might be trying to cover up "grave errors" in their investigation. "We are going to insist, and if they don't want to [turn over the files], then we will have to put them in jail," he said Tuesday.
Two days later, Vasconcelos sent word through a spokesman that the state was now cooperating. David Diaz, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state attorney general's office, said a "new era in cooperation" with federal officials had begun. Diaz said that as far as he knew, federal authorities have had access to all information and evidence except for eight files in the hands of state judges.
Hardrick Crawford Jr., the special agent in charge of the FBI's office in El Paso, called the Mexican government's involvement in the case "a welcome development." He recently met with Vasconcelos and other federal officials to discuss the case.
The FBI has offered its laboratories for DNA testing and its expertise in profiling serial killers. It has also offered to train Mexican state police detectives, and last month it set up a toll-free number for tips on the case. Women's groups and human rights organizations have petitioned the U.S. Congress to get the FBI involved and sent hundreds of letters to Fox seeking federal help.
Vasconcelos said his investigators quietly began getting involved last month, even though state authorities had not invited him to join the case.
He said he decided to join anyway when a street vendor, who is now in custody, told investigators he had helped move and dispose of three women's bodies, which he said had been "hollowed out."
Federal investigators were led to the man, and eventually three others who are now in custody, by following the records of a cell phone that had belonged to one victim and ended up in the hands of one of the suspects.
Vasconcelos said he had no physical evidence to support the allegations of organ trafficking. Many in Mexico doubt that a sophisticated network of organ traffickers could remain hidden for so long. Some suspect federal officials are using it as an excuse to take over the case.
But Vasconcelos said that only his office, which also tracks major drug traffickers, had the responsibility and expertise to investigate the claims.
There have also been persistent reports in the Mexican media, attributed to unnamed federal investigators, that several of the victims' bodies showed signs of being refrigerated before they were buried in the desert. Vasconcelos said he has seen no evidence to support those claims.
Nearly 300 women have been killed in the past decade in Juarez. While many of the cases are not related, 90 follow a pattern: A young woman is kidnapped, raped, killed and buried in the desert.
Many women were found strangled and tied up with their own shoelaces. Some were pregnant, some were as young as 10. Some of the victims were factory workers; others were students or store clerks. They were buried in shallow desert graves, in railroad yards or at construction sites. In the most recent discoveries, made less than three months ago, the bodies of three teenage girls were found on the desert fringes of Juarez.
Officials said they did not know if they were searching for one killer or many.
Although state authorities have arrested suspects over the years, the killings continue, giving rise to allegations that state officials railroaded innocent people to show they were solving the case.
Oscar Maynez, former chief of forensics in northern Chihuahua, who quit in disgust last year over the investigation, said the new resources being directed at the probe are badly needed. But he said he doubted the state would be forthcoming.
"They don't want someone overlooking their investigation," he said. "After all, the state has said they have the killers in jail. We all know that is not true."
One of the cases that Maynez said was tainted was that of Gustavo Gonzalez Meza, 29, a bus driver arrested in 2001 in connection with eight of the murders. Maynez said no physical or circumstantial evidence linked Gonzalez to the murders, but there was evidence he had been tortured by police.
Gonzalez died in prison three months ago while his case was still pending. That raised even more suspicion that he had been framed. A headline in a Juarez newspaper read: "Questionable Detention, Mysterious Death."
Some of the case files that Vasconcelos is seeking from the state relate to Gonzalez's case. Diaz, the state spokesman, said Gonzalez died of natural causes.
His was not the only death in the case.
Mario Escobedo, a lawyer working to free Gonzalez, was shot to death by state police last year after a high-speed car chase. During the chase, Escobedo called his father on his cell phone and said police officers were trying to kill him.
Police later apologized, saying it was a case of mistaken identity. But his family and others called it a political execution. Escobedo had claimed publicly that his client was being framed by police. No police officer was charged in his death.
"I am sad and I am angry," Escobedo's father, Mario Escobedo Salazar, also a lawyer, said this week. "My son was hunted down and killed like a dog... I don't believe in justice in this state."
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