Murdered women were mothers and professionals

Proceso December 16, 2012

Translated by un vato for Borderland Beat

Background:

On December 12, four women left Ciudad Cuauhtemoc, Chihuahua, to go to a funeral in Guachochi. Their last communication with their families was from Creel at around 4:00 p.m. After that, they disappeared. They were driving a white 2012 VW Jetta.

Authorities searched for them using vehicles and a light aircraft. Their bodies were found yesterday, December 15, in a ranch, La Casita, near the town of Samachique, in Guachochi municipality. They had been tortured and murdered, and their car taken.

It turns out that locals had reported a "narco reten", a road block operated by drug trafficking gangs, at about kilometer marker 35 on the road to Guachochi. A group of armed men was stopping vehicles at gunpoint, robbing the drivers and passengers and assaulting them verbally and physically. The lucky ones were let go.

The locals had reported the road block to state and local authorities several times that day, but municipal and state police,, as usual, ignored the complaints. No police officers were sent to investigate. The four women were apparently stopped by the narcos, and resisted having their car stolen. Their bodies were found about 25 miles from the narco road block.

CHIHUAHUA, Chihuahua.(proceso.com.mx) .-- Surrounded by disbelief and calls  for justice, the four women who were abducted and murdered in the Tarahumara Sierra were laid to rest this Sunday in Ciudad Cuauhtemoc, Chihuahua.

The Mennonite community, students from the Technological Institute of Cuauhtemoc, family and friends, crowded into the Modelo Funeral Home to say their last goodbyes.

One of the victims, Marisa Aide Diaz Peinado [foto at left], 32 years old, was the the head of the Department of Technological Management and Coordination at the Technological Institute of Cuauhtemoc. Her coffin was placed beside that of her sister's, Mayra Lorena, 39 years old. Both were engineers. Mayra was a section chief in an assembly plant in the same city, located south of the state capital. Both were single.

The other two victims were Josefina Diaz de Rempening, 57 years old, and her sister Elisa Diaz Martinez, 55 years old. Josefina was married to Mennonite Walter Rempening, who is a pastor in a church. She was a piano teacher and mother of two children; her sister was single and retired from teaching at Justo Sierra High School.

The bodies of the four women were taken to the offices of the medical examiner (SEMEFO) this Saturday and arrived at the funeral home that night. There, hundreds of loved ones had been waiting for them since noon.

At the funeral home and the Christian temple where a mass was offered, the incredulity and displays of grief were constant. And they did not end when the women were finally buried this afternoon.

The recurring conversations during the funeral were on the subject of the "narco retenes", road blocks operated by drug traffickers, that are very common in the mountains and that, despite complaints to the authorities, have not been adressed.

At noon on December 12, the four women left Cuauhtemoc for Guachochi to attend a relative's funeral, never imagining the tragedy they would suffer.

When they got to Creel, about three hours from Cuauhtemoc, they communicated with their families, but at Kilometer 35 of the highway that links both towns, they were "picked up" ("levantadas") at a narco roadblock by a group of men with organized crime.

According to reports, the women resisted having their car stolen, a white 2012 Jetta they were driving; they were taken by force, tortured and murdered.

The women were found by Guachochi investigators Friday afternoon and taken to the medical examiner in Chihuahua. Their bodies were then delivered to their relatives in Cuauhtemoc.

The state attorney general reports that investigations indicate that robbery was the most probable motive behind the murder of the four women, because in addition to the late model car, they were carrying a substantial amount of money.

The autopsy revealed that the died as a consequence of cranio-encephalic trauma (severe blow(s) to the head), and that the bodies also showed blows and bruising. The cases are being investigated by the Special Prosecutions Unit on Gender Based Crimes Against Women (Fiscalia Especializada de Atencion a la Mujer Victima de Delito por Razones de Genero.)

Other sources: El Diario de Juarez