In addition, the criminologist said he was highly skeptical of an eyewitness account from a local nurse who claimed to have seen one of the suspects driving a blue car or truck into the vast open field and dumping a body there. The witness, whose story seemed to change over time, would ultimately recant what she'd told authorities.
But Chihuahua state deputy attorney general Manuel Ortega later claimed that the woman had seen "a person bearing a great physical likeness" to Víctor García at the location of the "event" and "disposing of something heavy
a pig, the person thought." Yet García remained behind bars.
In addition, the witness had described the vehicle used by this man as a blue sedan. Police had claimed the two bus drivers had been using a brown van.
Some journalists were wondering how the bus drivers, who worked long hours and had wives and children at home, were able to concoct and carry out such an elaborate murder scheme one that required extensive planning and maneuvering.
None of it made much sense to Maynez. Until authorities were ready to order a proper investigation, the crimes would go unsolved and the real culprits would remain at large, he said.
"I think that based on the irregularities in this case, the way in which these two men were arrested, the possibility that torture may have been used in order to obtain their confessions everything leads me to think that the person or persons who are committing these homicides have yet to be detained," Maynez told Univision.
The criminologist also noted that several of the bodies found in the old cotton field had been dumped where they were only partially hidden by bushes and could have been spotted by passersby. The others had been purposely buried beneath some rubble, indicating that some care had been taken in trying to conceal them from discovery. In Maynez's view, it was just one more indication of two different modi operandi being used by the killers of Juárez that was being ignored by authorities.
Maynez said he'd believed since the first bodies were found in 1993 that there was at least one serial killer on the loose in Juárez, and he recounted that he had made his suspicions clear to his superiors and others. But he argued that, for whatever reason, authorities refused to pursue that line of investigation.
"In 1993
a very evident pattern was beginning to emerge, not just around the killings, but through the meandering, crooked trail of failed investigations, firings, lack of physical evidence, false accusations, forced confessions, evasions, and obfuscations," he noted. "The problem is that when you have a disease, you have to diagnose it correctly before you can give it adequate treatment, the right medicine.
"A lot of these murders are linked," he continued. "But which ones, I don't know because there has never been a serious investigation."
At the time of the interview, Maynez clearly had his own theory about who committed the murders. But he was hesitant to divulge too much.
"The killers couldn't be the bus drivers, who have a two-bedroom bungalow in a lower-middle-class section of Juárez and don't even own a car. It's a well-organized group with resources and a clear hierarchy," he said, suggesting that drug traffickers, politicians, or even members of the police department may be to blame.
"The government can be bought," he said. "It has to be people with power and money because they view poor girls as disposable.
"Unfortunately, if in the case of the bus drivers, it is proven that there was indeed kidnapping and torture, we are taking a most serious step backward in our execution of justice. Because imagine doubting your own police force, your own officers. It's terrible. Who's going to protect you?"
It was a sentiment that the women of Juárez had suspected long before. But unlike Maynez's, their opinions carried little weight and they had no alternative but to continue working for a meager salary, relying on public transportation to get them around, all the while knowing that they were targets.
* * *
Three months after the eight bodies were pulled from the cotton field, police reopened the location to the public. Quickly, members of Juárez amateur search groups descended on the property to conduct their own investigation. Armed with long sticks and other primitive search tools, teams of searchers arrived early one frigid day in February 2002 and went to work.
Volunteers broke off into small groups and began to scour the overgrown field. During their search, the volunteers found some items they believed might be potential evidence: torn panties, a pretty dress, several pairs of women's shoes, strands of human hair, and a pair of tan overalls. The overalls had belonged to Claudia Ivette González.
González's mother, who was among those searching the field that day, broke into tears when she was shown the garment, which was stained with grass and dirt.
Remarkably, municipal police had conducted their own sweep of the site just after the women's corpses had been discovered there some three months earlier. Somehow they had missed this garment and other evidence found by the ill-equipped volunteers.
When a state investigator was later notified of the group's findings, he faulted the volunteers for contaminating "possible evidence" by touching it with their bare hands.
"It's incredible that the authorities would leave behind so many items at the site, like women's underwear, shoes, and clumps of human hair," Victor Muńoz of the Coalition on Violence Against Women and Families on the Border told the
El Paso Times.
Muńoz, a resident of El Paso, was among the volunteers who took part in the February 24 search. "They [the police] did not do a good job."
It wouldn't be long before police incompetence would be in the headlines once again.
Chapter Eleven
"A National Shame"
The government of the state is supporting criminal elements, and unfortunately, we are going to continue seeing more missing and murdered women in Juárez.
EXCERPT FROM LAST INTERVIEW GIVEN TO THE PRESS BY MARIO ESCOBEDO, MURDERED ATTORNEY REPRESENTING ACCUSED BUS DRIVER GUSTAVO GONZáLEZ MEZA
IN LATE 2001 , President Vicente Fox announced his intention to involve federal authorities in the investigation being conducted by state officials in Ciudad Juárez. Calling the murders "a national shame," Fox promised federal help in solving the ongoing killings of the city's young women.
Despite the efforts by Ponce and the others to convince residents that authorities had locked up those responsible, the killings continued to draw coverage in Juárez newspapers. Perhaps that was why local officials opted not to criticize the PAN president for trying to wrest control of the matter away from the state's governor, Patricio Martínez García, who was a member of the opposition PRI party.
In December, Fox ordered the federal attorney general's office to commence its own investigation into the murders, directing that seventy-six of the city's files be transferred by January 7, 2002.
Yet, only ten of those cases files arrived by the president's deadline, according to news accounts. State officials promised the remainder of the documents would be on their way within several days.
Soon after the transfer of the case files, Suly Ponce Prieto handed in her resignation as the state's regional coordinator, under pressure from the public, but was quickly transferred to a new post as minister of the interior. Ponce's superior, Chihuahua attorney general Arturo González Rascón, also left his position that January amid ongoing criticism of the way the investigations had been handled under his direction.
El Diario de Juárez
reported that González Rascón had wanted to resign for some time, but was forced to stay on by Governor Martínez, who had reportedly refused to accept the attorney general's resignation. Like Ponce, González Rascón was also assigned a promotion to the role of head of the state council for public safety, and Martínez appointed Jesús José Solís Silva to the role of attorney general.
One local business leader, Maurilio Fuentes Estrada, head of a statewide business group called Canacintra, voiced outrage over Martínez's decision to reward government officials who underperformed with promotions.
Despite changes in the governor's office, officials were still pressing ahead with the case against the bus drivers accused of murdering the eight women found in the former cotton field. Javier "Víctor" García and Gustavo González were now isolated in a state penitentiary that was some two hundred miles away from their families and their attorneys.
Within days after the installation of the new governor, the bus drivers were transferred from El Cereso to the penitentiary in distant Chihuahua City, the state capital. It is believed that members of the state police had orchestrated the move, which also happened to coincide with the resignation of forensics chief Oscar Maynez.
Sergio Dante Almaraz, the lawyer for bus driver Víctor García, was furious over the transfer of his client and called the move illegal. In an interview in the spring of 2002, Almaraz spelled out his concern that the transfer would negatively impact his ability to mount a solid defense on his client's behalf. He pointed to the Mexican constitution, which states that a trial must take place where the presumed crime was committed because that is where the witnesses are and that is where the evidence is found. The state-run facility was a five-hour drive from Juárez through rough terrain.
Almaraz had already asked the court for a change of venue back to Ciudad Juárez. But he had little faith his request would be granted.
"The hair samples found in the vehicles didn't correspond to any of the victims, the luminol testing didn't find any blood samples, and there was absolutely no evidence to prove that there were any crimes committed," the attorney said. "That exasperated the DA's office, and as a result, the state police gave orders to take, forcibly, abruptly, and illegitimately, the two detainees to the jail in Chihuahua."
There was another problem with the state's case against the bus drivers too: tests performed on the men by the Department of Public Transportation found no evidence to suggest that they had used marijuana or cocaine, undermining the state's hypothesis that the bus drivers were addicts who ingested the substances, got excited, and went out to torture and kill young women.
The state's secretary of transportation was subsequently fired. Some observers suggested that the firing may have been linked to the negative test results. They wondered if, like Oscar Maynez, the secretary had been asked to falsify findings and refused. When asked, Juárez District Attorney Manuel Ortega was unable to explain why the state official had been let go. "That decision was not up to me. That fell under someone else, just like the ousting of the director of the penitentiary," he said in an interview with Univision that spring.
Ortega also dismissed the defense lawyer's assertion that the bus drivers had been transferred to the state penitentiary in a deliberate effort to prevent them from mounting a solid defense by putting 230 miles between lawyer and defendant, thus limiting the time that Almaraz could spend with his client. The district attorney insisted that, no matter where the men were incarcerated Juárez or Chihuahua City they would be given a fair trial on the eight homicide charges.
Authorities had claimed that the bus drivers' transfer was made for security reasons. Ortega argued that their high-profile status made them potential targets of aggression from inmates at El Cereso, whose staff was already overtaxed by the overcrowded conditions. The state facility could offer the men better protection, he said.
The defense attorneys for the bus drivers did not accept the argument about the men's safety. Sergio Dante Almaraz and Mario Escobedo Jr., the lawyer for bus driver Gustavo González Meza, had agreed to seek a change of venue back to Juárez.
From the moment they agreed to represent the suspects, both lawyers had received repeated death threats. While fearful, both men were determined to forge ahead. In court, they entered more than forty pieces of evidence into the record, including declarations from the director of El Cereso documenting the men's torture, photos of the wounds on the men's bodies, and testimony from witnesses placing the men in other locations at the times the crimes were allegedly committed. Neither attorney was willing to discuss the details of their submissions with the media. However, Almaraz said he was confident that they had provided sufficient material to demonstrate that their clients had been framed for the eight murders.
Soon after the defense evidence had been filed, a judge ruled that no more evidence could be submitted. Some observers wondered if the court was growing uncomfortable with the evidence that was being entered by the defense. Perhaps the judge felt that the defense was well on its way to building a successful case.
Mario Escobedo Jr. was undaunted. In early February 2002, he made public his intent to file a criminal complaint against state police officials for allegedly kidnapping and torturing his client, Gustavo González Meza. The lawyer took what he perceived as a calculated risk in opting to challenge the state police directly. His decision would ultimately prove fatal.
On February 5, Escobedo spoke to his colleague, Sergio Dante Almaraz, by phone. During the call, he confided that an anonymous caller had been making threats on his cell phone and his office line. Escobedo said he didn't recognize the voice but suspected it was someone from the state police. Officers had been after him to abandon the criminal complaint, but that day he made it clear that he intended to go forward nonetheless.
