They later reported that the young woman was lying on the ground outside their house horribly injured; she was bruised and beaten, partially naked, and missing one sneaker.
Nancy identified her assailant as the shuttle bus driver who had picked her up at the end of her shift. An investigation commenced with rapid results.
The driver, Jesús Manuel Guardado, also known as "El Tolteca," was already in trouble with the law. His pregnant young wife had recently filed charges of domestic abuse against him. She told police that during one of her husband's tirades, he'd boasted of killing several women and said he'd kept trophies, items of their clothing, as proof. One news account reported that Guardado's wife also told police her husband had come home on several nights clutching a bloodied kitchen knife, but she had not dared ask any questions.
When police arrested Guardado on March 29, 1999, in Durango, Mexico, he reportedly divulged the names of four other men three of them bus drivers subcontracted by the city's factories who, he said, had played a role in a number of the recent killings. The four were subsequently rounded up and charged with murdering seven women between June of 1998 and March of 1999.
Nancy's story provided Ponce, the special prosecutor, with yet another avenue of suspects. In a bizarre twist, Ponce tied the bus drivers to the jailed Sharif Sharif. She announced that the four men, who were being called "Los Toltecas" after Guardado's nickname, had confessed to taking money from Sharif Sharif in exchange for the murders.
"Sharif paid to have the murders committed," Ponce told members of the press. She claimed "el monstruo" had again masterminded an elaborate plot this time involving an El Paso resident and convicted drug dealer named Víctor Moreno Rivera, who went by the nickname "El Narco." Moreno allegedly made the initial contact with Sharif while visiting a friend who was also incarcerated at the hilltop jail.
Sharif offered to pay him $1,200 a month if he agreed to kill four women every thirty days, according to Moreno's police statement. After some negotiation, Moreno said he agreed to take the money in exchange for two murders a month. He next enlisted the three shuttle bus drivers, Agustín Toribio Castillo, José Gaspar Ceballos Chávez, and Bernardo Hernández Fernández, to carry out the murders.
According to Ponce, there was just one hitch. In order to pay off, Sharif insisted on being shown a garment that had belonged the victim preferably panties, along with a newspaper clipping detailing the crime. It was the Egyptian's way of ensuring that the murders had actually taken place.
"The Narco made the payments," the special DA explained to members of the press corps gathered outside her office that March. "But let's back up, let's start with Sharif, the intellectual author who paid them to commit these crimes. His contact was the Narco
and El Tolteca [Manuel Guardado], who received the money, and he divided it among his accomplices."
Critics were quick to point out the eerie similarities between Ponce's allegations against Los Rebeldes back in April of 1996 and these new charges being brought against Moreno and the four bus drivers.
"It's the same story invented about the Rebels," Sharif's poised and well-spoken criminal lawyer, Irene Blanco, told an American TV producer.
"ĄIdéntico! ĄIdéntico!
[Identical! Identical!] He allegedly paid the Rebels one thousand pesos, and with the bus drivers it was twelve hundred dollars."
Not long after Los Toltecas were taken into custody, the warden at El Cereso, Abelardo González, announced plans to resign from his position as director of the facility. The news was met with surprise. The prison warden was known for his dedication to his job and to the inmates at El Cereso.
Abelardo González believed it important to recognize the prisoners on an individual basis. Without prompting, he could recall their dates of incarceration and other, more intimate details. Mostly he prided himself on the rehabilitation programs he had implemented during his tenure.
González, who held a degree in social work, viewed his role at the "adult rehabilitation center" as one of educator and rehabilitator. To his credit, he had implemented several programs aimed at providing inmates with the skills to become productive members of society upon their release. Prison violence had actually dropped under his watch, and he proudly called attention to the fact that there had been no stabbings or violent deaths during his tenure, apparently a grand accomplishment considering the overcrowded conditions under which he had been asked to work.
Yet, in the days after the men's arrest, he was suddenly stepping down, reportedly to pursue other career avenues. In fact, one law enforcement official close to the investigation disclosed that González had been asked to falsify evidence in the case against the Toltecas. His refusal had prompted authorities to pressure him to resign from his post at the jail. Officials had reportedly called upon González to alter prison logs to reflect that members of the Toltecas had visited with Sharif Sharif at the jail. His refusal had cost him his job. But his integrity remained intact.
Like Oscar Maynez, the prison director would not participate in perjury.
The arrest of Los Toltecas provoked state officials to clamp down on federal labor regulations, setting in motion a state-involved investigation into underage employment at the city's maquiladoras.
Routine state inspections of 500 businesses in Ciudad Juárez in the spring of 1999 uncovered more than 550 illegal workers. Companies in violation were given three months to comply with the law or face hefty fines. In Mexico, minors can work legally with special authorization that restricts the number of hours and shifts they can undertake. A labor registry was also set up to ensure compliance.
In July of 1999, Motores Eléctricos agreed to pay 250,000 pesos, the equivalent of $25,000 U.S., in punitive damages to Nancy resulting from the March 18 assault, according to a report that appeared in
Frontera NorteSur,
a monthly online report covering the borderlands of North Central Mexico.
The report also quoted former attorney general Arturo González Rascón as saying that the state of Chihuahua had added to the settlement, giving Nancy "land with municipal services" so that she and her family could build a new house. Rascón explained that the settlement was reached as a result of the mediation of the local labor department, yet no details of the actual settlement were released.
"This is a very responsible attitude on the part of both authorities and the maquiladora because we have always sought to protect her [Nancy's] situation," Rascón told
Frontera NorteSur.
Meanwhile, Nancy's alleged attacker, Jesús Manuel Guardado, El Tolteca, remained in custody at the municipal prison, awaiting trial on charges stemming from the brutal assault. Guardado was claiming that he was held by police for nineteen days, during which time he was repeatedly tortured until he confessed to the rape and attempted murder of his teenage passenger.
Five days after the bus drivers were taken into custody, newspapers reported that the defendants told authorities of at least twenty more bodies they had buried in the desert.
Women's rights activist Esther Chávez demanded answers. "How in the world could they have hired such people to drive buses
with no background checks, with no controls?" Guardado had a criminal record, yet he had somehow managed to obtain a license to operate a bus even though it was illegal to issue such a permit to persons with a criminal past.
Chávez was even more outraged to learn that Motores Eléctricos, the maquiladora that employed Nancy, was filing charges against Nancy claiming that the young girl had "falsified documents" to gain employment.
"How horribly insensitive!" Chávez complained. "This girl lives in a shack with a dirt floor. She has six brothers and sisters to feed. She needs the work."
Since 1993, Esther Chávez had been leading the fight for justice for the city's women from a small office in the house she custom-built in the middle-class Juárez neighborhood of Colonia Nogales and she was still at the forefront. Hers was one of the first homes to be constructed on the quiet cul-de-sac, not far from the downtown and the bridges that linked Mexico to the United States.
It had taken Esther several years to build the white stucco house exactly as she had envisioned, with an open floor plan and multiple levels, and it was from her small home office that she had been advocating for change. While she was not a painter, Esther collected the works of painters and sculptors who shared her kinship with the women of the world; she displayed the artworks throughout the house, which she decorated in rustic Mexican style with brown terra-cotta tiles and area rugs.
Like all the houses in Juárez, Esther's home had security bars on its doors and windows. A stately palm tree provided shade for the no-frills Chevy Cavalier she parked in the driveway inside the chain-link fence that surrounded the residence.
She was always on call, ready to run on a moment's notice to help a woman in need. Esther thought nothing of jumping in her car late at night to rescue a desperate victim, or clearing her calendar so that she could accompany a child to police headquarters to report an incident of incest.
A mosaic-tile plaque next to the front door welcomed visitors: "My house is your house." The sentiment could not have been truer. While the house was not particularly large, it was inviting, with shiny wood floors and lofty ceilings. Esther spent most of her days in the converted bedroom on the first floor that served as her office. The room was just big enough to fit a computer desk and a small love seat.
For five years, Esther had devoted herself to the murdered women of Juárez, first on her own, and then as part of a coalition of women's groups lobbying on behalf of the victims and their families. Her efforts had been successful enough to prompt authorities to open the special unit dedicated to solving women's homicides. But the response didn't seem enough. Women were still dying in the border city, and sexual abuse and domestic violence were rampant. When television correspondent Brian Barger of CNN en Espańol asked Chávez in 1998 what she was doing to prevent these crimes, Esther realized she could step up her efforts. Still, Esther had been most outspoken, and while she had a way of irritating people with her frankness, her diligence and the advancements she was continuing to make for her cause could not be denied by politicians and police officials.
Her accomplishments in the area of women's rights were being lauded. She had been the first to call for equal treatment for women and was an outspoken critic of the state's investigation into the homicides, uniting with other local activists in demanding answers from public officials. Her persistence won her meetings with the state's governor and attorney general. She had even persuaded a federal congresswoman to join her efforts. With Esther at the helm, the city's women banded together, marching in protest, and even winning the attention of state officials, who responded with the creation of the special investigative unit now headed by Suly Ponce. Yet even that didn't seem enough.
Barger's question had struck a nerve, and his suggestion that Esther open the city's first rape crisis center in Juárez moved her to act. In early 1999, with help and support from Barger, she founded Casa Amiga Centro de Crisis. The new shelter would operate from a modest canary yellow house in the working-class neighborhood of Colonia Hidalgo. It would be manned by a staff of two, and provide psychological, medical, and legal support to the victims of sexual violence and their families. Juárez's mayor, Gustavo Elizondo, promised that the city would pay 30,000 pesos per month, about U.S. $3,200, enough to pay the rent on the building and the salaries of Chávez and two assistants. In addition, the Mexican Federation of Private Health and Community Development Associations put up $25,000 in grant money, and the Texas attorney general's office offered to finance the training of rape crisis volunteers.
At the time, there were only six such crisis centers operating in Mexico.
Casa Amiga would soon become the sole refuge for the relatives of many of the murdered girls. Esther, it seemed, was the one ray of hope for these families.
One of Esther's first accomplishments as the center's executive director was to convince state authorities to create a dedicated area in the state attorney general's office where a woman or young girl could go to privately report a rape or incident of domestic violence.
Until then, domestic crimes had been lumped in with other offenses such as burglary and theft, and women were made to wait in a communal area at the state police headquarters until their names were called. Oftentimes, the officer manning the window would seek to intimidate the reporting party by yelling out the reason why she was there. "The woman is here to report a rape!" he would bellow, prompting all heads in the reception area to turn and stare at the alleged victim.
This was often enough to send the young woman fleeing or prevent her from getting up the courage to report the crime. Esther learned it was virtually impossible for a woman to report such crimes: those who tried were humiliated by police, who insisted they recount their ordeal in front of male officers, lawyers, and even their alleged abuser. In a number of cases, the victims were simply dismissed by officers who deemed it a waste of time to take a report when the woman would most likely go back to her abuser.
