Murder City_ Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields - Charles Bowden [124]
According to an anonymous source, Villareal Martha was pursued last Thursday after arriving at the Juárez airport on a flight from Mexico City accompanied by two other members of Agrodinamica Nacional. They were followed along the road to the town of Ascensión, where Villareal was able to evade their pursuers.
El Diario, Ciudad Juárez, March 15, 2008
A municipal police lieutenant was assassinated last night after being “hunted down” by a group of armed men. The officer was identified as Mario Moraz of the Delicias district and his death leaves behind a young daughter.
Before the murder of Lieutenant Moraz in the same sector of the city, a police patrol discovered a bundle lying in the street. Upon inspection, they realized it was the body of a man as yet unidentified. In the pocket of his pants, they found a plastic bag containing a hypodermic needle. It appeared that the body had been thrown from a moving car and showed no evidence of bullet wounds. A few minutes later at about 10:30 P.M., another body was found in the Colonia Hidalgo and a source reported that this person also carried a hypodermic needle.
El Diario, Ciudad Juárez, March 15, 2008
RELATIVES SEEK IDENTITIES OF THE BURIED BODIES
Short of breath and almost sobbing, José Luis speaks hesitantly about the possibility of ending his family’s long nightmare when 4 years ago, one of his loved ones “disappeared.” “We believe that he will be among the victims. I can’t tell you why, but we believe that our search may soon be over,” said the man who asked that his identity be concealed. Their odyssey began in 2004, when a family member was captured and never heard from again. Each time narco-graves are discovered, they think they might find their missing relative. “Other times we have struggled a lot and this time also, but it’s very likely he will be there as the dates coincide.” As of yesterday, they had received no information on how to make an inquiry with the authorities on the process of identification. “And when you go there they look at you as if you are a criminal . . . but we are just relatives and we want to give him a Christian burial.”
El Diario, Ciudad Juárez, March 15, 2008
Those living near the warehouse in La Cuesta, where 33 bodies were exhumed, were shaken up to find the clandestine cemetery in their neighborhood. “We never imagined they would find so many bodies.” The federal organized crime investigators stayed at the scene for 13 days and then left as silently as they came, taking with them the heavy equipment, forensic anthropologists and cadaver dogs.
Some of the neighbors interviewed said they had sometimes heard strange noises in the house that they attributed to tortured souls, but an older man living next door discarded this idea. “Look, here you have to be more afraid of the living than the dead.”
Yesterday, several relatives of the disappeared went to the morgue to solicit information, but the state delegation of the Federal Attorney General released no information.
El Diario, Ciudad Juárez, March 15, 2008
Yesterday afternoon an armed commando executed three men in a 300C Chrysler in broad daylight and in the middle of one of the busiest intersections in the city. Municipal police at the scene said there were more than 200 bullets fired at the car. Witnesses said that the driver tried to continue after the gunfire stopped, but due to his mortal wounds, he lost control of the car, which crashed onto the sidewalk at high speed and finally stopped with the driver dead at the wheel.
El Diario, Ciudad Juárez, March 15, 2008
A woman remains unidentified more than 24 hours after her