0:01

Forgotten is a production of iHeartMedia

0:03

and Unusual Productions Before

0:06

we start. This podcast contains

0:08

accounts which some listeners will find

0:11

disturbing, but without them, this story

0:13

can't be fully understood. Please

0:15

take care while listening. Last

0:19

time on Forgotten, would

0:24

run around the house and shout her name with

0:26

all my strength and

0:28

the silence of the night. I felt she could

0:30

hear me, so I would call to my daughter.

0:33

The authorities have the responsibility

0:36

for solving these crimes. They

0:38

have not done this, and perhaps

0:40

never intended to do it. I

0:43

pick it up, and then all of a sudden, there's

0:46

this electric saw sound chaminion.

0:51

They took my phone to try

0:53

and see they could trace it call, and they

0:55

traced it back to Mexican military

0:57

intelligence. Diana

1:04

was disconcerted by that threatening cool, but

1:07

it wasn't immediately clear just how frightening

1:09

it really was. How

1:11

long after you received that call?

1:14

Did your source trace it back within

1:17

a month. At first, I wasn't sure what to do that phone

1:19

call, and I casually mentioned to

1:22

this officer, and

1:25

he said, you know what, can we have your telephone

1:27

to check it out? Lecture tracing

1:30

that cool back helped Diana understand that

1:33

the threats against her were not idle,

1:36

and then she got a visit. A

1:38

friendly source came over one time till pass

1:40

on. We met for coffee and the

1:43

source was told to convey to me. After

1:46

this source met with three police

1:48

officers in Huadis municipal,

1:51

state and federal and

1:53

the message to me was not

1:55

to bother to come to Huadas all

1:58

right. So I

2:01

think that was a very good indicator that I

2:03

needed to start backing way. Yeah. Din

2:07

attracts the escalation of the threats to

2:10

starting to publish articles about the connection

2:12

between the victims and the Echo computer

2:14

schools. The

2:16

computer schools suggested that some kind

2:18

of network was involved in these crimes,

2:21

and the threats suggested that the

2:23

authorities might be protecting the network.

2:27

But all of this time, the Egyptian chemist

2:29

Abdel Latif Sheriff Sharif had

2:31

been languishing in jail, accused

2:34

of being the serial killer and

2:36

continuing to mastermind murders from jail.

2:39

As far as the authorities and even some of

2:41

the local press were concerned, the case

2:44

was closed. Then

2:46

in two thousand and one, something happened

2:48

that made it clear the crimes were not

2:50

just ongoing but escalating.

2:54

The Mexican press had decided that the big

2:56

nightmare of the femicides had ended.

2:59

And I remember and one of the reporters

3:01

in Huadis who had covered the murders

3:04

from the very beginning at turning to me at a

3:06

press conference saying, to me, your problem,

3:08

Diana, is that you do not believe that

3:11

the Egyptian Shadif Shahdif killed

3:13

all those women. And it's over. It's

3:16

ended, all right. I

3:18

just looked at him, you know, and I started

3:21

to think, well, perhaps he's right, maybe it's over.

3:25

And then a month later, eight

3:27

bodies are discovered, and

3:30

everybody like, oh my god, this

3:33

is like starting over again. For

3:38

the first time in five years, a

3:40

mass grave of women had been discovered in

3:43

Juarez, and even Diana was

3:45

shocked. I remember

3:47

it was in our past with the time there was a report

3:49

about bodies had been discovered. Women's

3:51

bodies had been discovered. This

3:53

is horrible. Not only is it just

3:56

one more murder, it's eight bodies planted

3:58

in one place. What is

4:00

happening to our young ladies. The

4:04

horrific discovery at the cotton Field

4:07

came at a time when Diana still believed

4:09

it was safe for her to travel to Juarez, so

4:12

as soon as she heard about it, she jumped in her car

4:14

and headed for the border. First

4:17

of all, I had to figure out where this place

4:19

was. I imagine something on

4:21

the edge of the city. And so when

4:24

I got directions and I

4:26

saw where this graveyard was

4:28

located as it, I can't believe it. It's

4:30

in the middle of the city and

4:32

across the street is the Association

4:35

of Makilolaus, the organization

4:38

that represents all the assembly plans

4:40

in SuDS. It's in the

4:42

middle of a very active commercial zone next

4:45

to housing development. I

4:47

just couldn't believe it. Somebody has

4:49

to have seen something. Why choose this

4:52

site to dump,

4:55

literally dump eight bodies of

4:57

women. This

5:00

was November two thousand and one. Just

5:03

nine months earlier, in February, Lili

5:05

Alejandra had been abducted and murdered,

5:08

and because of the witnesses and the

5:11

physical evidence from the autopsy, Diana

5:13

believed there were enough leads to finally solve

5:16

the murders. That

5:18

didn't happen. But now there were

5:20

eight bodies in a well trafficed part of town

5:23

known locally as the cotton Field. Just

5:25

two miles from where Lili Alejandra's

5:28

body had been found. The

5:30

cotton Field discovery ignited a global

5:32

interest in solving the murders. ABC

5:35

News at a special edition of twenty twenty,

5:38

and the eyes of the world were on Juarez.

5:41

The cotton Field murders presented

5:43

an opportunity for the authorities to conduct

5:46

a good and thorough investigation

5:50

that leads to the killers, a

5:52

sol these cases maybe prevent more.

5:57

I'm Azveloshim and I'm Monica, or this

6:01

is forgotten the women of Baramo

6:10

La No

6:20

no masque

6:33

hala Feliciva. With

6:43

the cotton Fields discovery, Diana felt

6:45

like the murders might finally be solved. The

6:48

pressure was building, The Mother's

6:50

protest movement had the urgency, the

6:53

international press was demanding answers,

6:56

and her trusted source, Oscar

6:58

Manees, was once again overseeing

7:00

the crime scene. I mean, if

7:02

you have a bodies in an area,

7:06

you can add denize seriality in these

7:08

murders. Isn't that a chance that they appear

7:11

anybody next to each others? You know, had

7:14

you ever seen anything like that when

7:16

you stepped out onto this cotton

7:19

field and saw the bodies, Well,

7:21

I seen many bodies not in the same

7:23

area. For me, it was a highly organized

7:26

crime. You can see it. And

7:29

when you're talking about organization, took it a

7:31

group. If you have a group, you have a

7:33

leader, You have a leader, you have a hierarchy,

7:35

you have resources. So this

7:38

is not like a lon wall for a couple

7:40

of kids. When

7:43

Oscar first began overseeing the autopsies

7:45

of young women in Huarez, he believed

7:48

that a serial killer in the vein of a Ted

7:50

Bundy was responsible, but

7:53

after Lee Alexander's autopsy, he

7:55

began to suspect something more organized,

7:57

perhaps even a group. We

8:00

drove out to the cotton Field with Oscar to

8:02

learn more about a crime scene that

8:04

seemed to confirm his theory. We

8:08

surrounded by hotels, businesses.

8:12

He supposed to the New America

8:14

councilor he

8:18

has some commercial businesses

8:21

next to it. Were you very

8:23

shocked when you when you heard what these bodies were?

8:27

Yes, because I was expected to find the

8:29

bodies. On the Oscar of the city that there

8:35

was a dry dish and

8:37

there were three bodies position

8:40

in line, and then we started just looking

8:42

around and then we started lifting rocks

8:44

and then we found five more bodies

8:47

those were buried, they were not out on the open.

8:50

Oscar had been sounding the alarm, and now multiple

8:53

bodies have been discovered in a single location.

8:56

He was determined to make sure the forensic work

8:58

was unimpeachable, to demonstrate once

9:01

and for all how all these crimes were connected.

9:04

It was like archaeologist, not with that, but

9:06

I just slowly clear and the

9:09

dirt in order to preserve the

9:11

skeletons, because when you have a yeah,

9:14

the skeletons to war, which you need to look

9:16

at every aspect, every

9:18

legion of the vie to try to determine

9:21

the because of death. So and then

9:23

how long did that process take? Like an hour?

9:25

No? No, they take a couple of this night,

9:27

and they how did this

9:30

discovery compare to say, the discovery of the

9:32

body of Lilia Lehundra, well,

9:34

the case of Leandra, it

9:36

was the same part. I believe that those cases

9:39

were related, same people killed.

9:45

This was a bombshell to me, Monica. I

9:47

mean, Lili Alejandra's autopsy had suggested

9:50

all these leads that weren't properly followed up

9:52

on, and here you have this crime scene

9:54

that suggests Oscar and Diana

9:57

were absolutely right to insist on the importance

9:59

abilitious case. How

10:01

did the crime scene first emerge. It

10:04

was a Tuesday morning, November

10:07

sixth, two thousand and one, and

10:09

there was a man who worked as a bricklayer.

10:12

He was taking a short cut across

10:15

a vacant lot not far from

10:17

a main intersection in a commercial

10:19

area of Wadis and he

10:22

told the local newspaper that

10:24

he smelled something funny

10:26

and went in for a closer look, and

10:29

that's when he saw the body of a woman.

10:33

And so he goes and he alerts the police, who

10:36

show up and find two more

10:38

bodies. By

10:40

the time the forensic team is on

10:42

the scene, there's a total of eight

10:44

bodies. They show various

10:47

stages of decomposition. Some

10:49

look like they've been dead for perhaps

10:52

a couple of weeks and others for as

10:54

much as a few months. And

10:57

one of the bodies is nay

11:00

kid except for a pair of torn

11:02

white socks, and just

11:05

like the other cases before, her

11:08

hands are tied behind her back with

11:10

shoelaces. It appeared

11:13

that this body had been kept in cold

11:15

storage. The

11:19

fact that it's a place which people passed through

11:21

often, and then all of a sudden disguise

11:24

finds the body. It feels like they

11:26

probably weren't there all along, right, someone

11:28

would have noticed them. The fact

11:30

that they show up all at once, you

11:33

know, kind of points to the strong

11:35

possibility that they were placed there

11:38

at the same time. And

11:40

what do we know about who these eight victims

11:43

were? Yeah,

11:45

So the first body that the

11:47

bricklayer discovered was

11:49

identified as fifteen

11:51

year old Esmeralda Erra Montreal.

11:55

Esmeralda's family came from

11:57

the state of Sacatecas. Her

11:59

mom worked at a Phillips factory

12:02

in Wadis and as

12:04

Medala. At the time, she was saving

12:06

up money for her kin Senera, to

12:09

save up money for this party. As

12:11

Meralla starts working as a housekeeper, and

12:14

like so many others, she goes

12:17

to work one day and is

12:19

never seen again. Diana

12:22

interviews as Miralda's mother, Irma

12:25

at some point, and one of the eerie

12:27

details that surfaces from that interview

12:30

is that an Echo recruiter had

12:33

stopped by their neighborhood

12:36

and left them a brochure at their

12:38

house. Some of the connections between

12:40

these women are chilling uncanny.

12:43

Even another woman

12:46

who's identified from the cotton

12:48

field is a twenty year old

12:50

woman named Claudia Yvette Gonzales.

12:54

And Claudia worked at

12:56

a maquila owned by Lear

12:58

Corporation. So the

13:00

day Claudia went missing,

13:03

she showed up to work a few minutes

13:05

late and the factory

13:08

turned her away. After that,

13:10

she was never seen again. You

13:13

have all these details

13:15

that point to a connection, that

13:18

point to an organized

13:21

network behind these killings. We'd

13:25

heard about the shoelaces from Lily Alejander's

13:28

autopsy. We'd heard about the connection

13:30

to the Echo computer schools, and

13:33

we'd heard about victims being snatched at

13:35

moments of maximum vulnerability, just

13:38

like Cloudier Yvette, who was turned away

13:40

from the makil for being late and

13:42

then found herself alone on the streets

13:44

of Juarez. The crime

13:47

scene seemed to confirm so much of the evidence

13:49

that had already piled up about how

13:51

these crimes were connected. Then

13:55

something truly extraordinary happened.

13:58

Just days after the bodies were sound,

14:01

two suspects confessed to all

14:03

eight murders at the cotton fields. About

14:08

every month, we would snatch them a total

14:10

of all,

14:13

take them by force, rape

14:16

them and later strangle

14:18

them. That

14:20

is a translation of a video made by the Horres

14:23

police in which two men confess

14:25

to the murders of those eight women. It

14:28

appears to be a decisive break in the

14:30

case. When we come back, we

14:32

find out who they are. After

14:53

the cotton Fields mass grave was discovered,

14:55

two men confessed to the murders. They

14:58

were bus drivers, Gustavo Siles

15:00

Mezza, known as La Foca or

15:02

the Seal, and Javier Garcia

15:04

Uribe, known as Elio the

15:07

Match. Their job was to drive

15:09

the young women who worked in factories to and

15:12

from work. Bus drivers had

15:14

access and opportunity to

15:16

identify when a young woman like Sagari

15:19

Gonzalez started to commute alone.

15:22

So the suspects seemed plausible,

15:25

but were they actually responsible. Well,

15:29

when the mass grave was discovered and the suspects

15:31

confessed, Fredrick Crawford was

15:33

the FBI Special Agent in charge of El Paso.

15:36

His office was just a few miles away from

15:38

the site of the mass grave, and he'd taken

15:40

a special interest in the murders of women

15:42

in Juarez and was following this

15:45

case closely as a potential

15:47

breakthrough. You

15:49

could sense that the pressure was mounting.

15:52

Political pressure, public pressure, international

15:55

pressure. The families and relatives

15:58

and friends of the disappeared women were allowed.

16:02

Those women would hold the marches, mourning

16:05

the deaths and drawing attention to that. That

16:09

was huge. There was a crescendo,

16:11

it was building. The

16:13

international community was fully aware. So

16:16

the pressure must have been enormous on

16:18

the other side of the border. Politically. It

16:22

was in this context that the Office of the Attorney

16:25

General, known as the PGR, produced

16:28

two suspects. I

16:31

remember the PGR announced

16:33

they had made a rest the bus

16:35

drivers, the bus drivers atisode.

16:37

That's them, the bus drivers,

16:40

and he was showed the bus drivers. They had him in custody.

16:42

So I have my agents come in, all right, give

16:44

me the real story and we

16:46

see what's on there. Immediately, yes,

16:50

I wasn't sure.

16:53

I was thinking seventy thirty it's BS

16:56

in favor of the BS, and so

16:58

I wanted the agents tell me what's going on. They said, hey,

17:01

Boss, I just says

17:03

they confessed. They said, Boss,

17:07

don't ask us where we got this, but these are photos

17:09

of their torsos. And

17:12

I said, well, what are those what are

17:14

those round circle marks burn

17:16

marks? They said, that's cattle Pride's Boss. So

17:20

forget those confessions. I said, oh my

17:22

god. Okay, so they're

17:25

under pressure to solve the crime, and so they

17:27

tortured the confessions. I say, well,

17:31

I'm not one to laugh because many

17:34

African American was tortured in

17:36

the Deep South to confess the crimes that he

17:38

didn't do. Because

17:40

of that, I know full well it's not reliable

17:42

when you tort you somebody. In

17:47

the very moment that it seemed most likely that the

17:49

crimes could finally be sold, two

17:52

innocent men have been co esced into

17:54

taking the full In the video

17:57

produced in house by the Wires Police Department,

18:00

the bus drivers appeared dazed, and

18:02

later they managed to get in front of the media

18:04

themselves and show the world what

18:06

had happened to them. One had

18:08

a knee swollen to several times its normal

18:11

size. There were those burn

18:13

marks that Hardrick described, and

18:15

there were also allegations of suffocation and waterboarding.

18:25

So a few years before Monica Sharif had been

18:27

pinned with these crimes, why

18:30

did the authorities go to such lengths with the bus

18:32

drivers? Every time a mass

18:34

graves turned up in Wattis of women's

18:37

bodies. It's been a turning point for

18:39

the city and it's been a moment when suddenly

18:42

people paid attention and there was great

18:44

fear. The police can sort

18:46

of sweep these individual murders

18:49

under the rug up until

18:52

the point where these mass

18:54

graves are discovered. So they

18:56

had to do something to show they

18:59

were taking these crime seriously,

19:01

because rightly so, the community

19:04

was terrified. The

19:07

first discovery of a mass grave

19:10

happened in late summer

19:12

of nineteen ninety five. There

19:14

were nine bodies found in

19:17

a deserted terrain in the

19:19

southern outskirts of Wadez, not far

19:21

from the airport, in a plot

19:23

of land called Lotte Bravo,

19:26

and bravo in Spanish means

19:29

wild or untamed. Two

19:33

months later, Shadif is arrested.

19:36

He was declared as a primary suspect

19:39

in the women's murders, and when

19:42

he was questioned about this, he

19:44

was stunned. He told the Washington

19:47

Post. I've hung around with a lot of prostitutes

19:49

and drunks and topless dancers. I'm

19:52

not proud of it. I'll admit to my sins,

19:54

but I never killed anybody. Sharif

19:58

is the perfect scapegoa, given

20:00

his outsider's status and

20:03

his violent criminal history. The

20:07

police kept building up cases

20:09

against him that were subsequently

20:12

thrown out in court until

20:14

he died in jail in two

20:17

thousand and six. In

20:24

nineteen ninety five, the first mass

20:26

grave of women in Juarez was discovered,

20:28

and shortly afterwards Sharif was jailed.

20:32

In nineteen ninety six, another mass

20:34

grave of women was discovered, and

20:36

the authorities claimed Shariff was orchestrating

20:38

the murders from prison to prove his

20:41

innocence, using a gang called the Rebeldez.

20:45

Now it was two thousand and one and another

20:48

mass grave had been discovered, and

20:50

even before seeing the images of torture, Dinah

20:53

believes that the process of scapegoating that

20:55

usually followed such discovery was

20:58

happening all over again. They

21:01

were obviously given the script. They

21:03

seemed frightened. To me, you

21:06

know, to just nonchalantly admit

21:08

to eight murders is quite a feat. And

21:11

that again spoke to the idea that here we

21:13

go again scapegoats. All right, they have the

21:15

boilerplate language. Somebody is in

21:18

charge of right now, the the novella

21:20

of how this is going to play out. You know, someone

21:22

in law enforcement, and here's what you're

21:24

going to say. In period, it

21:27

was just a matter of like two days

21:29

after the human remains were gathered and

21:31

taken to the morgue, and already

21:34

they had two men that the authorities that were responsible

21:36

to bus drivers, and we saw

21:38

that as very suspicious. I mean, how can

21:41

you have suspects already five

21:45

days after the bodies had been discovered at the cotton

21:47

Field, Diana attended a press conference

21:50

where she got a sickening sense that history

21:52

was repeating itself. One

21:56

of the reporters from white As asked the

21:58

state attorney general, Jesus

22:01

he is it possible that Shadif is involved

22:04

in these murders too? And he turned

22:06

to the rest of the reporters. This

22:09

state attorney general is said, you know, we're looking

22:11

into that. Here we go

22:13

again. But they have the perfect scapegoat.

22:16

He's been in jail this whole time, and they

22:18

may try to find a way to link him to

22:20

these bus drivers, and then the bus drivers, of course

22:23

to the eight murders of these young

22:25

women. One

22:31

of the things you can't fail to notice in Juarez

22:34

is buses, often

22:36

repurposed American school buses

22:39

which are everywhere and

22:41

which I used to transport

22:43

maquila workers to and from their jobs. When

22:46

you and I went to downtown Juarez.

22:49

We went to Mina Street, which is where

22:51

many of the young women were last seen alive, but

22:54

also the central bus exchange in Juarez.

22:57

So it's easy to see how bus drivers might

22:59

have the access or the opportunity

23:02

to kidnap, abduct, and

23:04

kill women. How much

23:06

of that drove the authority's

23:09

decision to focus on these two men. There

23:11

is evidence to support the

23:14

notion that the victims

23:16

were scouted and selected in

23:19

the same way it appears

23:22

the scapegoats were also scouted

23:25

and selected because

23:28

they themselves had vulnerabilities

23:31

that made them less able to

23:33

defend themselves. And

23:36

why bus drivers, Well,

23:38

it so happened that before

23:41

the cotton Fields, a woman

23:43

had survived an attack

23:46

by a bus driver on her

23:48

way home from work, and so bus

23:51

drivers were already seen

23:53

as an enemy in the public's eye,

23:56

and so police just kind of picked

23:59

up on that threat and

24:02

arrested two more bus drivers, saying

24:05

these guys are responsible for

24:08

the deaths of those women found dumped

24:10

in the cotton field. You could say

24:12

they were easy targets, just like Sharif

24:17

we don't hear as much about

24:19

the individuals who are falsely

24:22

accused of committing the crimes,

24:25

and one of those who was accused

24:28

was the bus driver named Javier

24:31

Garcia Uribe no relation

24:33

to me. I went digging through

24:36

news archives around

24:38

the time they were arrested, and

24:41

I came across this article written

24:44

by a reporter named Minervacanto,

24:47

and she traveled to Hawadis and spent

24:49

several days with the bus driver's

24:52

wife. Her name is Miriam Garcia.

24:56

The couple they have two children, and

24:59

so one night in two

25:01

thousand and one, all of a sudden,

25:04

they are surrounded by armed

25:06

men whose faces

25:09

are covered with Halloween masks,

25:12

and they threaten Javier, Miriam

25:14

and their two kids and eventually

25:18

take Kavier, stuff

25:20

him in a car and take

25:22

him away while

25:25

Miriam protests, but she's really helpless

25:27

to do anything these men are armed.

25:31

She spends the next three days

25:34

desperately searching for her

25:36

husband, just like the mothers

25:38

are searching for the daughters. The

25:42

next time that Miriam sees

25:44

her husband is on television

25:47

confessing to the murder

25:50

of these eight women who

25:52

were found in the cotton field. Miriam,

25:58

just like Baola, She's desperate

26:00

to come to the rescue

26:03

of her husband, who she

26:06

firmly believes is being

26:09

scapegoated. On

26:11

one of the Governor's visits to Wattis,

26:14

she manages to push her way

26:16

to the front of the crowd and

26:19

denounces her husband's arrest

26:21

and please with the governor, show me one shread

26:23

of evidence, one shread of evidence to

26:26

prove my husband's guilt. And

26:29

she surrounded and moved away

26:31

from the governor. Just the brazenness

26:35

by which this is all playing out that

26:37

inspires this passion, in these rage and these

26:39

loved ones that are like, how dare you? How

26:42

dare you? And they call him out in these very

26:44

passionate public ways. All

26:49

of this scapegoating raises a very serious

26:51

question. Why would

26:53

the authorities do it? Well, they're

26:55

trying to protect the real killers all along, and

26:58

if so, how could the killers have so

27:00

much power over the authorities. When

27:03

we come back, we hear from Oscar Mines

27:06

about some strange details of the cotton

27:08

Field crime scene that revealed the extent

27:11

of what the killers might be capable of, and

27:14

Heredrik Crawford takes the case to the very

27:16

top of the FBI in

27:35

whirez the women's murders and scapegoating

27:38

seemed to be two sides of the same coin,

27:41

but not every official was content to

27:43

let the true killers go free, and

27:45

before the bus drivers confessed, Oscar

27:47

Minez was generating some telling leads

27:50

at the crime scene about a sinister

27:52

network responsible for the murder. We

27:55

started working on now Thursday. By

27:58

Sunday, the attorney of

28:00

the state gave up press interviews,

28:02

saying that he had apprehended

28:05

the murders and that the whole day victims

28:07

have been identified. What I mean,

28:09

we're just in the process of I

28:12

mean, those are not the guys. This is

28:14

not their profile I'm looking for. It

28:18

was clear from Dinah's reporting that at least

28:20

one of the ways the victims were selected using

28:23

Echo computer schools was highly

28:25

methodical, and Oscar

28:27

saw clear signs that the way the women

28:29

in the cotton field had been killed and dumped

28:32

was also organized. Who

28:35

could be capable of these kinds of crimes

28:38

and why would they leave bodies in such a brazen

28:40

spot. Those

28:42

were the questions on Oscar's mind as he worked

28:44

the crime scene. Then all

28:46

of a sudden he became aware of something

28:49

suspicious and disconcerting. I

28:53

noticed that there were these men with

28:56

nice cars, clean and

28:58

shape, and everything in Bermudas

29:01

and they were very happy. I

29:03

mean they seem suspicious. I mean, these

29:06

people were too quickly to arrive

29:09

there. And if you had to guess who they were,

29:11

these people they don't have like a ninety five

29:14

yeard in that you know, and like

29:16

so I don't know, the

29:19

fact that these sharply dressed men could turn

29:21

up to the crime scene suggested they didn't

29:23

have an office job or a factory job,

29:26

and also wanted to learn more about who

29:28

they might be. I took picture with

29:30

the telescopic lens, and I took the photographs

29:33

of the license plates. Like I said,

29:35

their leads that you follow for

29:38

reasons that will become clear. Oscar

29:41

wasn't able to follow up on that lead, But

29:43

the men weren't the only unexplained presence

29:45

at the crime scene. There were a lot

29:47

of areas of research in this case

29:50

that could have led to something relevant.

29:53

Bosom was promising. I believe there

29:55

was connection with some construction companies

29:58

because the second globle of bodies, the ones who were

30:00

buried, they were buried under

30:02

rubble, and it was enough

30:04

material to cover the bodies. You

30:07

need like a dump truck to do that. The

30:10

people who do this have access to equipment

30:12

for a constructure company, you can identify

30:15

that where their rubble came from. The

30:19

cotton field had so many promising leads,

30:22

the connection between the victims, the

30:24

license plates of the men who turned up

30:26

at the crime scene, and then

30:29

there's this rubble from a construction site.

30:32

But the authorities never pursued those lines of investigation

30:35

because the bus drivers had already confessed.

30:39

Then the crime scene gets even weirder. The

30:44

families, in their demand for justice and

30:46

Monica are one of the key engines

30:49

that keeps pressure up on the authorities in Huarez.

30:52

What do the families do about this crime scene? Three

30:55

months after the cotton field discovery,

30:59

a group of a volunteers

31:01

and international reporters went

31:04

back to the scene of the crime to do

31:06

a sweep at the request of the families.

31:11

One of those volunteers was an American

31:14

professor who describes how

31:16

they lined up and combed the

31:18

lot in one long, single

31:21

row. They carried sticks

31:23

with pointed ends and were

31:25

instructed to put anything they

31:27

found in a plastic bag, And

31:30

it turns out they found quite a lot

31:33

women's underwear, book bags,

31:35

purses, a high heeled shoe, clumps

31:38

of hair, But

31:42

the most significant thing they

31:44

found that day was a pair of overalls.

31:48

A teenage boy found them in a

31:50

plastic bag, and one

31:52

of the mothers saw them, and she

31:55

ran over there and took those overalls

31:58

in her arms. It

32:01

turns out they belonged to her daughter, Claudia,

32:04

who was turned away from the makila for

32:06

being late. One

32:09

of the students captured that moment

32:11

in a photograph. It shows

32:13

this mother sobbing, clutching

32:16

the overalls, embracing them

32:19

as if they were her daughter. What's

32:28

odd about this sweep is

32:30

that it happens three months after

32:33

the bodies were discovered, and

32:36

nobody has been able to explain how

32:38

those items got there, especially

32:41

the overalls, and how they could

32:43

have been there this whole time without

32:46

anybody discovering them sooner.

32:50

This wasn't the first time evidence

32:52

had turned up in suspicious circumstances.

32:55

In the days after the cotton Field discovery, Oskaminez

32:59

received a rice visit agent

33:03

comes to my office and I need you to put this in

33:05

the evidence of the case.

33:07

And I said, no, dissent order

33:10

by the Attorney General. I was saying, no, if he wants to

33:12

do it. I skim to send bread in order.

33:16

Oscar was being asked to plant evidence by

33:18

a state official, and he was pushing

33:20

back. What evidence

33:23

was he asking you to plan? Apparently there were

33:25

drugs and Braley hairs. I

33:27

didn't even open the back because

33:29

when the Attorney General gave the press

33:31

conference, he said that this buzz

33:34

driv drug addicts and

33:36

they have found evidence in their van

33:39

that the girls have been abducted

33:42

there with the band. I believe it was drugs,

33:44

and then some kind of evidence connecting

33:47

the disease to the vehicle. Whoever

33:50

it is, who doesn't want the truth of these murders to

33:52

come to night. I want to stop at death

33:55

threats or even torture. They

33:57

also seem to have some sort of swam

34:00

over the police and the Attorney General's

34:02

office, and Oscar's resistance

34:05

wasn't going unnoticed. I mean I received

34:07

treads. I was careful. I didn't went

34:10

to at night during that time.

34:12

I'm yes, you know, but I didn't study

34:14

or prepared to plant evidence. You

34:16

know what I mean. It's like, but ask

34:18

you the way you tell this to us, you say

34:21

it come okay, very nonchalantly.

34:23

Well, at that time I was very angry.

34:26

I don't tend to get scared, geted to get angry.

34:29

So I was very angry. And when you're angry, you don't

34:31

stop to think clear of the consequences.

34:35

What was it important to you to put

34:37

your job at the least

34:39

and at the most your safety on the line in this

34:41

particular case, I mean, just because

34:43

my jab is to get to the truth

34:46

of the case. And also if

34:49

we're talking about a serial killer

34:51

or killers, or a group acting in

34:53

this way, if you close

34:56

a case with a scapegoat, this

34:58

is not the end of it, and he's going to continue

35:01

and continue and continue. But

35:04

the order was coming from a powerful

35:06

place, and when you don't obey those

35:09

who are politically powerful,

35:11

you tend to suffer the consequence I

35:14

had to I quit. I tried

35:16

to protect the file when the file went

35:19

to the Josh is more

35:21

difficult to manipulate that

35:23

when I decided to present my resignation

35:26

later, But like I said, I was out

35:28

anyways. It was a matter of men

35:30

as probably Oscar

35:34

Health Firm, not just because

35:36

of principle, but for very practical

35:39

purposes. He knew the bus drivers

35:41

would have to be tried, and he wanted

35:43

to make it as hard as possible to secure

35:46

a conviction, hoping that that would

35:48

force the authorities to lead a real

35:50

search for the guilty parties. If

35:53

you see the file, the original file, there

35:56

is not a single evidence that connects

35:58

the bus drivers to the crime. There

36:00

is no evidence that the victims that the state

36:02

says belong to. There's no

36:04

proof of that. And the only proof

36:06

you find is that this guys were torture.

36:09

That was a fact, even though it was clearly

36:12

a case that was manipulated

36:14

about the state. Even

36:16

though Oscar was essentially forced to resign

36:19

within days of the discovery of a crime

36:21

scene that he felt could finally have exposed

36:24

who was killing the woman in Huarez, his

36:27

protection of the bus driver's file, his

36:29

refusal to plant evidence, was consequential.

36:32

It made the state's case much harder to

36:35

prove, especially when a prominent

36:37

father and son team of lawyers, Mario

36:40

Escobedo Senior and Junior, took

36:42

them honest clients his dinner

36:44

again. They were probably

36:46

the first lawyers to be so open about

36:49

what they understood about the femicides in

36:51

Huais, and they started to mention

36:54

that there were people getting away with murder, but

36:57

this resistance to the official narrative bring

37:00

heat Mightio became aware

37:02

that he was being followed. He called

37:04

his father in the cell phone and said to help

37:06

me, help me. Meanwhile,

37:09

across the border in El Paso, Modred

37:12

Crawford couldn't believe what he was seeing, and

37:14

he was more determined than ever to do something

37:17

about the crimes. I'm

37:19

stunned and amazed at the response

37:22

of our colleagues in Mexico to an

37:24

enormous crime on my numbing

37:27

cry. Andrew couldn't intervene

37:30

directly in the affairs of another sovereign nation,

37:33

but in two thousand and two he visited

37:35

the jay At Cahoover Building in Washington,

37:37

DC because he wants

37:39

to get approval to keep digging from

37:42

his boss, Robert Mueller. Oh,

37:44

yes, director Robert Muller. And I was in the director's

37:47

office on the seventh floor. We call it

37:49

Mahogany Row, all the mahogany

37:51

tables, and I expressed concern

37:54

that my outspoken activities

37:57

interaction with my colleagues on the

38:00

other side of the border. I was concerned

38:02

that I was doing something that they did not find

38:04

to be in the best entrance of the FBI

38:07

and Deputy Director Bruce Gappard

38:09

said just keep

38:11

doing what you're doing, and the director just nodded affirmatively.

38:15

It wasn't long before Hendrik Crawford

38:17

clearly understood that something even

38:19

darker was happening in Juarez than

38:22

his initial hypothesis about a cross borders

38:24

serial killer. And although

38:27

the bus drivers were in jail, the true

38:29

killers remained free. So as

38:31

the investigations continued on both

38:33

sides of the border, so did

38:36

the killings of women in Huirez. In

38:38

our next episode, death threats

38:41

against investigators graduate

38:43

into outright murder. Imoz

38:46

Veloschen and see

38:49

you next time, que

39:10

Halla Felicia Forgotten.

39:35

The Women of Juarez is co hosted

39:37

by Me Monica and

39:39

me oswald Oshan Forgotten

39:42

is executive produced by Me and Mangesh

39:45

Hatigia. Our producers

39:47

are Julian Weller and Katrina

39:49

Norvelle. Sound editing by Julian

39:52

Weller and Jacopo Penzo.

39:55

Lucas Riley is our story editor. Caitlin

39:57

Thompson is our consulting producer. Production

40:01

support from Emily Maronoff and

40:03

Aaron Kaufman. Recording assistance

40:05

this episode from Melissa Kaplan.

40:08

Music by Leonardo Hablom and

40:11

Hakkabo Libermann. Additional music

40:13

by Aaron Kaufman. Special

40:16

thanks to Cecilia Vai and Minerva

40:18

Canto, whose research and reporting

40:21

contributed to this episode.