Two Women From Texas Found Dismembered, Stuffed in Trash Bags In Juárez, Chihuahua

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Two women from Texas, who were 25 and 30 years old, were found dismembered inside black plastic trash bags near the city of Juárez, in Mexico.

The women were a couple who had been married for three years and were living in El Paso, Texas, along with their three children. The young family traveled to visit family just across the border in Juárez. 

On Saturday afternoon, relatives saw the women alive for the last time. By Sunday morning, they were found dismembered and stuffed inside trash bags on a highway nearby.

Yulizsa Ramirez was 28 years old and she lists out her hometown as the city of Juárez, in Mexico. She lists El Paso, Texas, in the US as her current city on her Facebook account. Nohemí Medina Martínez was also 28 and she lists Juárez city as both her hometown and her current city on her Facebook account. 

Of note, multiple news outlets are reporting that the couple was married “recently”  because on July 28, 2021, Yulizsa added their marriage under the “Life Events” feature of Facebook. 

However both Yulizsa’s and Nohemí’s Facebook profiles actually show that they got married on November 18, 2018, which means they have been married for a little over 3 years. The 2021 date was just when their wedding was added to the Life Events feature section. 

The couple were raising three children, two girls and a boy, together at their home in El Paso, according to news website Canal 44. On January 7, 2022, less then two weeks before their murder, both Yulizsa and Nohemí posted photos of the two of them sitting in a car with all three of their children, seen below with a note about the photo having been taken on January 4, 2022. 

The Double Homicide

The last reported sighting of the couple was by family members and it occurred during the afternoon of Saturday, January 15, 2022. The couple was said to have been in Juárez to visit family at the time. 

On the morning of Sunday, January 16, 2022, at two black trash bags were discovered to be lying on Federal Highway 2 (also called the El Porvenir - Ciudad Juárez highway) by patrolling members of the National Guard (Guardia Nacional, GN), near where Federal Highway 2 crosses the town of San Agustín. Inside the two bags, dismembered human remains were found. 

A few minutes later, near where Federal Highway 2 crosses the town of Jesus Carranza, three more plastic bags were found. The remains inside these bags were also said to belong to Yulizsa and Nohemí. El Diario newspaper writes that these three contained “the arms and legs of the victims, in addition to the heads.”

Their remains reportedly showed evidence of torture. La Polaka reports that there were a total of “at least 8 bags scattered around the area,” and “there were heads, legs, arms and other organs” inside. 

On Monday, January 17, 2022, at around noon, the families of both women went to the Specialized Prosecutor's Office to identify the remains that were found and claim them in order to later bury them, following an autopsy.

The Investigation

The discovery was made just a few hours prior to the start of the regularly scheduled Chihuahua Security Roundtable meeting, where members of law enforcement/the military from all three levels of government convene to discuss crime and crime prevention in Juárez city. 

Certain news outlets were quick to point out the timing with La Polaka writing “This is starting to get really bad: Two dismembered women were dumped on Porvenir highway at the same time as the Security Roundtable in Juárez.”

Governor of Chihuahua, Maria Eugenia Campos Galvan, was asked if she had heard about the double homicide by reporters and she said "We saw it right now in the Security Roundtable. It is a loss that we deeply regret. It will not go unpunished. I have just asked the State Attorney General (Roberto Fierro), in the Security Roundtable, precisely, about the identification of these two bodies and what was being done to find out what happened." 

She later responded to a reporter, saying "We are still investigating. These bodies were just found unfortunately (...) as governor, but also as a woman, I have already said it, and I have promised it, and we have been working on it here in Ciudad Juarez: We will not leave the issue unpunished and we will not stop working."

The homicide investigation will be handled by Chihuahua’s Specialized Prosecutor's Office for Women (FEM). Newspaper El Diario de El Paso reports that FEM investigators were working on establishing gathering information on where the women were in the hours immediately leading up to their murder. The newspaper also wrote that “there is little progress in the investigation file.“ Canal 44 reports that “there is no clear line in the investigation [potential motive].”

The Chihuahua Diversity Committee released a statement "Nohemí and Yulisza were a couple and had three children. They were brutally murdered in Ciudad Juarez this weekend. The characteristics of the crime confirm to us that this was a hate crime that cannot go unpunished.”

It is unclear whether the committee is referring to specific unreleased aspects of the double homicide when they mention “characteristics of the crime” or if this is more of a general statement, made without insider knowledge of the criminal investigation. 

*Please Note: There is some discrepancy in reporting on how to spell Yulizsa’s first name, with newspaper El Diario de El Paso spelling it “Julissa Ramírez”. Yulizsa chose to spell it “Yulizsa Ramirez” on her personal Facebook account so that is what Borderland Beat has chosen to primarily spell it as. 

Sources: El Diario de El Paso, ElDiario.mx Article 1, Article 2, Article 3, Vanguardia, Canal 44, El Paso ABC Station KVIA, El Paso Station KFOX14/CBS4, People , Codigo 13 Parral, La Polaka, NOTICIAS YA, , NewsBreak, El Albanaque, Univision

Other Sources: Yulizsa Ramirez’s Facebook Account, Nohemia’s Facebook Account