Mexico: Unanswered Crimes
27 minutes, 2006
Ref: 469

Over the last 13 years, over 400 women in Juárez have been brutally slain. Their mutilated, raped bodies turn up in open fields or out in the desert. The hallmark of the murders is their savagery and the unwillingness of the authorities to bring the killers to justice.

A “30 Minuts” team went to Ciudad Juárez to look for answers. Our reporters spoke to mothers of the victims, lawyers, State prosecutors, politicians, private detectives, the police, and convicts. The answer is always the same – an unholy alliance of negligence and corruption.

The authorities search round for scapegoats when public pressure becomes unbearable. Víctor Javier García Uribe was one of the unlucky ones. Victor, a bus driver, was accused in 2001 of killing eight young women and sentenced to 50 years. The only proof of his guilt was a “confession” extracted under torture. He spent four years in jail before his lawyer, Dante Almaraz, got him released. Almaraz, who is interviewed on the program, paid dearly for defending his client. He was shot down in broad daylight in downtown Juárez while our team was still on location.

Gun law rules here. New prosecutors and teams are put on the case, but anyone who digs a little to deep is forced to quit. Meanwhile, the federal authorities make light of the killings, putting the wave of slayings down to domestic violence.

There’s no shortage of theories on who the culprits are. Front runners are serial killers, drug dealers, gangs of sadists, and mafia families. But the truth remains as elusive as ever. A poor Mexican’s woman’s life isn’t worth a bean in Juárez, a town where corruption and drug-trafficking go hand-in-hand. The Juárez Cartel is one of the world’s most notorious drug networks. Thousands of poverty-stricken Mexicans live in the local shanty towns, hoping to slip across the border one day.

Meanwhile, women are dying in scores as the killers get away with murder in lawless Juárez.

A report by Sílvia Heras, Ferran Prat and Meritxell Ribas

Editing: M. Josep Tubella