The Daughters of Juarez: A True Story of Serial Murder South of the Border by Teresa Rodriguez, Diana Montané Page B
Authors: Teresa Rodriguez, Diana Montané
Ads: Link
brutal murder.
The González family was too poor to afford a casket or a headstone for Sagrario; a proper burial cost $150 in Mexico. Instead, they laid the young girl to rest in a desert cemetery reachable by a one-lane road of serpentine curves and harrowing switchbacks that led into the mountains behind their home. A mound of brown dirt and dozens of colorful plastic flowers marked the gravesite, which sat amid rows of above-ground tombs adorned with the plastic bouquets. Few flowers grow in the Sororan desert. Plastic reproductions are used in their place.
Crouching down, Paula caressed the ground, as if touching her lost daughter. Closing her eyes, she rocked back and forth.
"żEres tú, mi reina?" she whispered in a gentle tone. "Is this you, my queen? Is this you buried here, my Sagrario, my daughter?"
An audible sob filled the air, followed by a flood of tears. Paula González was not convinced that the body that lay in the ground was, in fact, Sagrario.
In the months after Sagrario's death, authorities notified the family that a DNA test performed on the body had come back with negative results. Officials promised a retest, and Paula and Jesús were anxiously awaiting news.
Nevertheless, the circumstances surrounding her disappearance prompted Sagrario's elder sister to take precautions. Fearing for her life, Guillermina quit her factory job just two weeks after her sister's body was found to become a shampoo girl at a local Supercuts hair salon. But her fright didn't stop her from challenging authorities' mishandling of her sister's case or the cases of other murdered girls.
Guillermina would go on to found a small, grassroots organization she named Voces Sin Eco, Voices Without Echo, to seek justice for Sagrario and other murdered women of Juárez. The group was comprised of just six families, fifteen members in total. Its goal was to keep the killings in the headlines, through candlelight vigils, the erection of crosses throughout the city, and bimonthly searches for clues and evidence police may have overlooked. Among the members was Irma Pérez, the mother of slain shoe store worker Olga Alicia.
Over time, Guillermina would also become an outspoken activist for justice and a public critic of both local and state authorities.
Still, she refused to pray in the little white church that sat on the hill above the family's dwelling in Lomas de Poleo. The house of worship had been Sagrario's home away from home. She had spent hour upon hour there, rehearsing with her choir group and attending mass. She'd even tried to get the priest to allow guitar accompaniment at Sunday mass to give it a more modern beat.
Guillermina was now suspicious of everyone, including a priest who had befriended her sister and then disappeared soon after Sagrario's murder. She wanted to return to the cathedral in the family's hometown of Durango to pray for her slain sister. Since the murder, she had told her mother that she no longer believed that God was in Juárez.
"The devil is in Juárez," Guillermina insisted.
Chapter Five
Changing of the Guard
It's impossible for a vote to be worth more than a life.
SAMIRA IZAGUIRRE, CIUDAD JUáREZ RADIO HOST
IN ADDITION TO THE MURDERS of the city's young women, Ciudad Juárez was also experiencing a rise in drug-related violence. Since the late 1980s, Mexico had been the main transit route for South American cocaine and a major source of marijuana, heroin, and methamphetamines.
Drug smuggling had steadily increased after the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement, according to law enforcement officials patrolling the U.S.-Mexican border. In fact, a study conducted in 1998 by members of state and federal border patrol agents and obtained by the Wall Street Journal found that the free trade agreement was actually making it easier for drug smugglers to transport their goods
The González family was too poor to afford a casket or a headstone for Sagrario; a proper burial cost $150 in Mexico. Instead, they laid the young girl to rest in a desert cemetery reachable by a one-lane road of serpentine curves and harrowing switchbacks that led into the mountains behind their home. A mound of brown dirt and dozens of colorful plastic flowers marked the gravesite, which sat amid rows of above-ground tombs adorned with the plastic bouquets. Few flowers grow in the Sororan desert. Plastic reproductions are used in their place.
Crouching down, Paula caressed the ground, as if touching her lost daughter. Closing her eyes, she rocked back and forth.
"żEres tú, mi reina?" she whispered in a gentle tone. "Is this you, my queen? Is this you buried here, my Sagrario, my daughter?"
An audible sob filled the air, followed by a flood of tears. Paula González was not convinced that the body that lay in the ground was, in fact, Sagrario.
In the months after Sagrario's death, authorities notified the family that a DNA test performed on the body had come back with negative results. Officials promised a retest, and Paula and Jesús were anxiously awaiting news.
Nevertheless, the circumstances surrounding her disappearance prompted Sagrario's elder sister to take precautions. Fearing for her life, Guillermina quit her factory job just two weeks after her sister's body was found to become a shampoo girl at a local Supercuts hair salon. But her fright didn't stop her from challenging authorities' mishandling of her sister's case or the cases of other murdered girls.
Guillermina would go on to found a small, grassroots organization she named Voces Sin Eco, Voices Without Echo, to seek justice for Sagrario and other murdered women of Juárez. The group was comprised of just six families, fifteen members in total. Its goal was to keep the killings in the headlines, through candlelight vigils, the erection of crosses throughout the city, and bimonthly searches for clues and evidence police may have overlooked. Among the members was Irma Pérez, the mother of slain shoe store worker Olga Alicia.
Over time, Guillermina would also become an outspoken activist for justice and a public critic of both local and state authorities.
Still, she refused to pray in the little white church that sat on the hill above the family's dwelling in Lomas de Poleo. The house of worship had been Sagrario's home away from home. She had spent hour upon hour there, rehearsing with her choir group and attending mass. She'd even tried to get the priest to allow guitar accompaniment at Sunday mass to give it a more modern beat.
Guillermina was now suspicious of everyone, including a priest who had befriended her sister and then disappeared soon after Sagrario's murder. She wanted to return to the cathedral in the family's hometown of Durango to pray for her slain sister. Since the murder, she had told her mother that she no longer believed that God was in Juárez.
"The devil is in Juárez," Guillermina insisted.
Chapter Five
Changing of the Guard
It's impossible for a vote to be worth more than a life.
SAMIRA IZAGUIRRE, CIUDAD JUáREZ RADIO HOST
IN ADDITION TO THE MURDERS of the city's young women, Ciudad Juárez was also experiencing a rise in drug-related violence. Since the late 1980s, Mexico had been the main transit route for South American cocaine and a major source of marijuana, heroin, and methamphetamines.
Drug smuggling had steadily increased after the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement, according to law enforcement officials patrolling the U.S.-Mexican border. In fact, a study conducted in 1998 by members of state and federal border patrol agents and obtained by the Wall Street Journal found that the free trade agreement was actually making it easier for drug smugglers to transport their goods
Similar Books
