Relatives of Granados painted a picture of a man who abused drugs, talked to the devil, broke beer bottles over his head, and set his mother's house ablaze. He had also been known to walk the streets naked, according to family members.
When asked why he had made the confessions now, after all these years, Granados pointed to his faith. He said that as a Christian, he wanted absolution for the crimes.
U.S. federal law enforcement agents were acting on information gleaned from the interview with Granados when they arrested Alvarez Cruz and charged him with the murder of seventeen-year-old Mayra Juliana Reyes Solís, whose body was found in the abandoned cotton field in 2001. Authorities had linked Alvarez Cruz to Reyes Solís's murder, in part because the young woman's body had been wrapped in black plastic when it was found that November, a detail provided by Granados's alleged confession. Alvarez was quickly transferred to a U.S. federal facility in El Paso to wait for a request for extradition to Mexico.
Encouraged by the news, Chihuahua Attorney General Patricia González traveled to El Paso in August to meet with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Marshals, and the Mexican consulate about the men's alleged connection to some of the crimes. Authorities were looking to connect Alvarez to fourteen of the murders.
Denver police officials confirmed that since 2002, Alvarez had been arrested three times in the Colorado capital on minor offenses. According to police, the first arrest was on January 15, 2002, for destruction of private property, disturbing the peace, and threat. He was arrested a second time that October for "threat to injure a person or property" and "disturbance by phone" and again in April 2006 for "destruction of private property." Authorities said they were holding the third man, Alejandro Delgado, who Granados claimed had accompanied the men on their killing spree in Juárez, as a "protected" witness.
But already there were inconsistencies in Granados's account of the crimes. While the twenty-eight-year-old Mexican national had described the murders as stabbing deaths, criminologist Oscar Maynez pointed out that most of the killings had been the result of strangulation. In fact, he said, an autopsy conducted on all of the bodies exhumed from the cotton field revealed that the women had died as a result of strangulation. Maynez insisted that even though many of the bodies were simply skeletal remains when they were recovered, there were no "telltale" nicks that would indicate a knife had been used in the slayings. And he and other forensic experts were convinced the young women had been strangled to death.
During an interview with one U.S. newspaper, Maynez likened Granados's confession to that of John Mark Karr, who in the summer of 2006, claimed to have killed Colorado pageant princess JonBenét Ramsey. Maynez pointed out that during the confession, Granados admitted to closely following the Juárez murder cases on TV.
Maynez also insisted that three men, acting on their own, could not have carried out the numerous murders and the dumping of the bodies without being detected.
Even Alvarez's former common-law wife, Beatrice Sánchez, who was a U.S. resident, told a reporter that she and Alvarez had purchased the red Renault that he had allegedly used to carry out the murders in 1993 and then quickly sold it the following year to cover the medical expenses of their disabled son. Sánchez claimed that when the car's new owner was involved in an accident, Alvarez bought the car back from him, hoping to repair it and get it back on the road. But he never realized that dream. The parts for the car proved too expensive, and the Renault sat on blocks until the couple finally sold it as junk in 1998. A lawyer for Alvarez claimed to be in possession of a receipt documenting that the sale had indeed taken place that year.
In addition, employment records on Alvarez from the Denver construction company Allphase Concrete, where he had worked from mid-July 2001 to November 2001, and again from April 2002 to April 2004, indicated that the alleged killer was not even in Mexico for any except five of the homicides, according to the
Denver Post.
While residents of the border city expressed a certain amount of faith in the latest string of arrests, in part because they had been effected with assistance from U.S. law enforcement officials, the emerging inconsistencies were troubling and many feared that Alvarez and Granados would soon join the growing list of scapegoats who had been charged with the serial killings.
"I can't believe it would be only three people," Esther Chávez told the
El Paso Times
in response to word of the men's arrests in the United States. "I think you would need a much stronger network to do these killings."
U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Antonio Garza was more optimistic. In a written statement in late August 2006, he called the arrests "a major breakthrough" in the investigation into the killings.
Oscar Maynez, however, remained cautious in his reaction.
In an interview in 2006, he adopted a wait-and-see attitude. While he viewed the U.S. ambassor's statements about the men's culpability as positive, he noted that members of the suspects' families were insisting the three were not involved.
By November 2006, the cases against the men were already falling apart.
"We don't want scapegoats. We don't want torture
or lies," said Josefina González, whose daughter, Claudia Ivette, died after being locked out when she showed up three minutes late for her factory shift. "What I want is the truth."
It was a sentiment shared by all the families of the fallen daughters of Juárez.
"We don't have bodies, but we still have missing girls," Maynez said. "The fact that we don't have bodies is circumstantial. We just don't know where they are buried."
Epilogue
SINCE THE YEAR 2000, when President Vicente Fox took the helm, Mexico has received seven visits from human rights experts including representatives from the United Nations and Amnesty International.
In 2005, the U.S. Department of State issued a report on human rights practices in Mexico. The report, released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor on March 8, 2006, cited that while the government "generally respected and promoted human rights at the national level," violations persisted at the state and local level.
"The government investigated, prosecuted, and sentenced several public officials and members of security forces involved in criminal acts; however, impunity and corruption remained a problem," the report noted. "Local police released suspects who claimed to have been tortured as part of investigations, and authorities investigated complaints of torture, but authorities rarely punished officials for torture.
"There were marked increases during the year in narcotics traffickingrelated violence, especially in the northern border region. Violence against women continued to be a problem nationwide, particularly in Ciudad Juárez and the surrounding area.
"Government efforts to improve respect for human rights were offset by a deeply entrenched culture of impunity and corruption," the report maintained. Among the human rights violations cited were kidnappings, including by police; corruption, inefficiency, and lack of transparency in the judicial system; statements coerced through torture permitted as evidence in trials; corruption at all levels of government; domestic violence against women often perpetrated with impunity; and criminal violence, including killings, against women.
It is clear from the findings that more work needs to be done to stop the violence against the country's women.
Local activists continue to work for justice for the women of the state of Chihuahua and of Mexico. Their efforts have served to raise international awareness of the ongoing crisis. Even as these brave women risk their lives to publicize these great atrocities, impunity and corruption continue to thwart their efforts.
Another report by the Comisión Mexicana de Defensa y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos, entitled "Murders and Disappearances of the Women and Girls in Ciudad Juárez and the State of Chihuahua," presented to the special rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the Independence of Judges and Magistrates in Mexico in March 2005, found that the situation in the state of Chihuahua "symbolizes the extreme vulnerability of women in the professional, social and private spheres.
"This stigmatization, within a context of economic liberalization and consequent deterioration of the social fabric, has been exacerbated by the prevalence of discrimination and indifference, in addition to the lack of effort and political will shown by the Federal, Chihuahua State and Municipal authorities in addressing the killings, investigating and prosecuting the perpetrators of the crimes against women, a situation corresponding to what is generally known as 'femicide.' "
In light of the "more than 430 women" murdered and hundreds more who have disappeared in the state of Chihuahua since 1993, the report blamed pervasive sexism in Chihuahua for hindering the adoption of public policies that would protect women.
At the time of this writing, the murder rate in Chihuahua continued to climb, with many of the city's women reporting that they felt no safer in 2006 than they did ten years ago when the serial killings first grabbed the headlines.
Despite the findings of several prominent organizations, the formation of numerous commissions, the appointment of federal special prosecutors, and the undying efforts of local women's rights activists to right the wrongs, the abuses against Juárez's young women continue seemingly unabated.
Happy endings in fairy tales are what everyone hopes for. Yet for the families who have lost a loved one, there remains no closure. For mothers like Ramona Morales, Irma Pérez, Paula Flores González, Celia de la Rosa, and Norma Andrade, there is no justice, only empty promises and nights filled with sorrow and tears. And the list of grieving mothers continues to grow. Statistics from the Washington Office on Latin America and the Mexican press reflect a murder trend in Chihuahua State higher than the rates for either 2004 or 2005 with domestic violence, sexual attacks, and suspected narco-related crimes topping the list of motives.
The names and the faces have changed, but the stories are sadly the same. Although some say that the dead can speak, the families of the victims ask themselves if anyone is listening.
These daughters of Juárez never had the opportunity to speak out. Their cries were brutally silenced. Now those voices ring out from these pages. Perhaps this time someone will listen.
THERE ARE SEVERAL ORGANIZATIONS IN AND OUTSIDE MEXICO CURRENTLY HELPING THE WOMEN OF CIUDAD JUÁREZ, MEXICO, SOME OF THEM INCLUDE:
(IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER)
AMIGOS DE MUJERES (FRIENDS OF WOMEN)
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
CASA AMIGA CRISIS CENTER
JUSTICIA PARA NUESTRAS HIJAS
(JUSTICE FOR OUR DAUGHTERS)
MUJERES DE NEGRO (WOMEN IN BLACK)
MUJERES POR JUÁREZ (WOMEN OF JUÁREZ)
NUESTRAS HIJAS DE REGRESO A CASA
(SO THAT OUR DAUGHTERS MAY COME HOME)
Acknowledgments
THERE ARE COUNTLESS PEOPLE to thank for helping me make this book a reality. If I forget anyone, please forgive me. Because it is a story that I began covering almost twelve years ago, any omission is strictly accidental.
First of all, I wish to thank Diana Montané, a friend and talented writer who talked me into the idea of writing a book about these horrific crimes. It took several years for our manuscript to come together. It began as a first-person account of a journalist and her crew; then it became a fictional story, only to return to the first-person narrative. During the process, I witnessed the tragedies of September 11 and for the very first time felt as violated and helpless in my country as many of these victims must have felt in Mexico. Then on June 6, 2002, my husband Tony passed away of a sudden heart attack. His loss shook our family, but we were blessed with many special friends, relatives, and colleagues who became our pillars of strength. Shortly thereafter circumstances beyond our control made it impossible to publish our original manuscript.
Then, about two years ago, I received a phone call from Johanna Castillo, editor for Atria's Spanish-language division. She remembered reading that manuscript and wondered what had happened to it. "It's sitting on a shelf gathering dust," I replied. "Well, not anymore," she answered. To Johanna and Judith Curr, executive vice president and publisher of Atria Books, I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude for believing in this story and considering it compelling enough to publish. Both of you and Wendy Walker, the remarkable editor, embraced this project from the beginning, knowing our journey would take us into unfamiliar territory. It was a harrowing tale of murder, corruption, and deceit in a foreign country where the rules of justice seem quite different from the ones we are accustomed to in the United States.
Wendy, I've witnessed your commitment, dedication, and belief in this manuscript. Your assurances that we would make this happen, despite the obstacles along the way, gave me strength to keep going.
And to Lisa Pulitzer, who has done such an outstanding job of transforming a first-person narrative into a true crime story, your professionalism, sensitivity, compassion, and sense of humor have made working with you a true pleasure. Last year, when we met at a fashionable bistro in New York, perhaps you never imagined that our work would take us to the shantytowns of a Mexican desert plagued with poverty and crime. Our trip took us far away from the city that brought us together, but I commend you for agreeing it was necessary. I thank you for your willingness to immerse yourself in all that is Juárez, its smells, tastes, laughter, and pain. I will always appreciate how you stressed it was my book and my story. Today I am proud to say that
