Bodies of Three Women Found
Activists See Link To Serial Killings
by Mark Stevenson
The Associated Press
MEXICO CITY
The bodies of three young women were found Tuesday dumped in a cotton field just across the border from El Paso, Texas, prompting fears about the resumption of a string of rape-murders in the 1990s.
One body was found by field hands working next to a busy street in Ciudad Juarez, a sprawling desert city of 1.3 million people.
The victim, wearing only socks with her hands bound behind her back, was thought to be between 15 and 17 years old and dead for 10 days.
Police then found two more bodies, dead for several weeks, suggesting the field had been used as a dumping ground.
The discovery was chillingly similar to the dozens of murders that occurred here between 1993 and 1999, when at least 57 bodies turned up in the desert around Ciudad Juarez.
All were young, slender women. All had been strangled and apparently raped. Many were mutilated. Investigators labeled the killings the work of a serial killer.
There was no immediate information on whether the victims found Tuesday had been raped.
A police source, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity, noted, however, that there were "important differences in the killers' methods" between the bodies found Tuesday and those found in the 1990s.
In March, 1999, five bus drivers were charged with 20 of the 57 previous murders. After that, the killings appeared to have stopped.
Bodies found in the 1990s were half-buried, or left face down or on their sides in the desert to the west and south of the city. The victims found Tuesday were face-up in a field well within the city limits.
The earlier victims were usually partially clothed but little clothing was found Tuesday.
For Esther Chavez, a women's rights activist who pressured authorities to investigate the 1990s killings, the nightmare is not over.
"This has not ended," said Chavez, who said at least four other cases this year bear the same characteristics. Dozens of young women remain missing. "As far as I can see, these murders have not ended."
Copyright 2001 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.