The Daughters of Juarez by Teresa Rodriguez

Author:Teresa Rodriguez
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2007-08-24T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Killing Fields

When public pressure begins to grow, the scapegoat materializes.

—CRIMINOLOGIST OSCAR MAYNEZ

TENSIONS WERE ALREADY HIGH in Ciudad Juárez in November 2001 when police uncovered the eight decomposing corpses that had been tossed into a weed-infested former cotton field in the heart of the city, not far from the lot in which Lilia García’s body was found. The makeshift gravesite was located just a few yards from the intersection of Paseo de la Víctoria and Ejército Nacional, across from the headquarters of the offices of the Association of the Maquiladoras, the group that represented many of the city’s U.S.-owned export assembly plants.

The horrific discoveries were made over two days, with law enforcement officials recovering three bodies on November 6, and five more, just skeletal remains, the following day.

A construction worker had stumbled upon the first victim, a slender, raven-haired teen whose body had been tossed in a ditch in the barren field, located between two heavily trafficked roadways. Investigators searching the trench for evidence that afternoon were stunned when they came upon the remains of two more young women within feet of the first corpse.

The next morning, a bulldozer was brought in to check the site, and five more bodies were unearthed.

The discoveries marked a turning point in the stream of rapes and murders that had plagued Juárez since 1993. The killers were now dumping bodies in the heart of the busy city, rather than in the desolate desert areas that ringed Juárez. It appeared that the perpetrators no longer feared the police.

Indeed, the placement of the bodies lent even more credence to theories that it was the police themselves who were committing the murders. The choice of location led many to believe that the killer was conveying a message. A majority of the murdered women were factory workers and their bodies had come to rest in a field facing the association of the maquilas that employed them.

Maquiladora worker Claudia Ivette González was among the victims police claimed to have found buried in the sandy field. Newspapers reported that it was still dark when Claudia had left her home early in the morning on October 10. But as fate would have it, she missed the bus that would have gotten her to her job on time. When Claudia reached the factory that morning, the doors to the plant were locked. There is no information on what Claudia did next, only that her corpse was among those dug up in the lonely cotton field.

Lear’s director of communications, Andrea Puchalsky, told the online news magazine Salon.com: “We have a policy for tardiness, and she had been tardy many times…. She was not there in time to work her shift.” When asked if the company adhered to that same policy with employees in the United States, Puchalsky insisted there was no official policy on the books at any of its facilities. She also declined to comment on whether González was locked out or turned away due to tardiness.

Mexican authorities later determined that Claudia Ivette González was killed in the same fashion as the seven other young women buried near her.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.