Escobedo, Nuevo León: The Murder Of Debanhi Susana Escobar Balzaldua

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

Little by little, the veil of mystery has begun to lift from the case of Debanhi Susana Escobar Balzaldua, that 18-year-old girl who was studying law at the Faculty of Law and Criminology at the Autonomous University of Nuevo León who was reported missing on April 8. And found dead inside a Motel cistern, on Thursday 21, in the municipality of Escobedo, located in the State of Nuevo León.

According to new results of investigations provided to this news outlet, Debanhi was the victim of a couple of "narco juniors" who attended the same party as her, who was invited by her "friends" Jehieli Sarahi López and Ivonne Alejandra Ramírez whom she met on Facebook only five months earlier. They didn’t meet each other frequently but they did have long talks through said social network and even exchanged cell phone numbers to stay in contact, at any time.

During this period, that "friendship" grew to the point that Jehieli and Ivonne even began to propose to Debanhi that she exploit her physique "by making money from rich guys" and that together they could start a good business without the need for their families to find out.

Unfortunately Debanhi Susana took the bait and in order to experience new things, she agreed to work with her "friends" and waited for them to notify her of any event that would take place within High Society in the municipality of Escobedo and in San Pedro Garza García in the City of Monterrey.

And so it happened at some parties attended by the three girls in San Pedro Garza García, where they charged for their services those young clients who hired them at that time.

According to police officers in charge of the case, they continued to work like this, until that fateful day came when Debanhi and her two friends went to a farm located in the Nueva Castilla neighborhood, which apparently is owned by Juan Cisneros Treviño alias "El Juanito" current leader of the Northeast Cartel, attended by several young people who are children and relatives of powerful drug traffickers who operate in the northern part of the country. Many of them are based in San Pedro Garza García, Monterrey and in the Nueva Castilla neighborhood.

During the gathering, the three girls drank alcohol in addition to trying some toxic substances and it was then that they began to offer their sexual services and when the first clients "fell", they agreed to leave the party to go to the Nueva Castilla Motel which is owned by José Fernández Pérez and José Barros Janeiro, both of Spanish nationality and who for more than 30 years have been dedicated to the business of tourist and “transit” hotels.

In a telephone conversation that they had with the author of this column, the businessmen assure that the Castilla Motel used to have a tourist twist and over time they decided to change it to its current functions, since it didn’t pay them enough for its maintenance or for the salaries of their workers.

“It is the first time that this type of situation has happened to us, here no crime had ever been committed nor had any problems arisen, we have installed security cameras at strategic points to monitor every movement that is recorded in the building. And there are indeed videos where the girl is seen walking into the Motel and heading towards the office, employees told her that some clients were already waiting for her. 

The owners of the Motel assure that they don’t know if their employees have any type of connection with members of groups that are dedicated to human trafficking, a situation that is already being investigated by the authorities. Although it was a reason for said property to remain seized until the conclusion of the investigation. 

However, there are other videos that were captured by the security cameras where the moment is observed when Debanhi enters the Motel, goes to the reception and receives an indication from one of the employees that they are already waiting for her, she heads down a hallway and into a room.

There, two young "narcojuniors" were waiting for her -whose identity has not been provided- to satisfy their sexual needs under the influence of alcohol and drugs. It should be noted that both subjects entered a red Mini Cooper car whose plates cannot be distinguished and "curiously" they were not asked to register as guests.

Informants say that Debanhi's surprise was that when she entered that room there were two guys instead of one, so she got upset and didn't want to agree to offer her services and tried to get out, but her victims prevented her from doing so. They began to wrestle with her.

The young woman tried to scream but one of them knocked her down on the bed, began to choke her, while the other tried to remove her clothes, but as she defended herself with kicks and scratches, she unexpectedly received strong blows to the head with the butts of a long weapon they were carrying, which caused her death.

Once they committed her murder, those criminals, who surfaced were already known to the Motel reception employees, took the girl out towards their car and took her away. It is not known at the time where they kept her hidden for 13 days, but when the body began to decompose, they chose to return in another car and, under the supervision of the same reception employees, passed through an area where they could not be be seen through the cameras and went to the back of the building, removed the body from the car that was wrapped in sheets and put in a black plastic bag.

Once they unwrapped it, they placed it in a cistern that was no longer in use, which hours before had no water, only mud whose thickness was not even fifty centimeters thick. But at that time, "coincidentally" it was already filled with water. Once this action was committed, the alleged perpetrators withdrew from the scene.

Hours later, it was when the same employees who participated in the "planting of the corpse" called the police to report that they had noticed a fetid odor emanating from the back of the hotel and that when they approached they could see that there was a corpse inside one of the tanks.

The investigations continued and the Nuevo León Attorney General's Office assured that Debanhi Susana's death was accidental due to a deep bruise on her skull. Debanhi's family wasn’t satisfied with their expert opinion.

In statements to the media, Debanhi's father, Mario Escobar questioned the actions of his daughters friends after leaving her alone at her party. (although that wasn’t the case, as explained above). He also assured that she was the victim of sexual harassment by the "trusted" driver Juan David Cuéllar, which is why she got out of the vehicle in the middle of the road. Which was not the case either, because we insist, Debanhi went to fulfill a service that she had already scheduled by "friends of hers", who in fact also do the same thing.

It was said from the beginning that Juan David worked as a driver on the Uber and Didi platforms, but both companies have already denied the fact and assured that he had never been registered to offer their transportation services either. After this data, several photographs began to circulate on social networks showing that this subject is very close to Mariana Rodríguez Cantú, wife of the governor of Nuevo León, Samuel García Sepúlveda, which, "curiously" were deleted from the internet, so that the investigations were diverted and couldn’t be concluded.

The gossipmongers involved in this investigation say that Mariana Rodríguez Cantú, a businesswoman and former model, in the past dedicated herself to "running" attractive young women to offer them to her wealthy friends and that she charged them between 5 and 10 thousand pesos for each service, depending on the physical characteristics of each girl, and that it was at that time that she met Juan David Cuéllar "the trusted driver", who was dedicated to taking them to the places where they would have their sexual or company encounters.

Mariana married the governor, and apparently withdrew from that sort of activity, but Juan David continued within that circle, met Jehieli Sarahi López and Ivonne Alejandra Ramírez, Debanhi's "friends", who are now the objects of investigation by the Nuevo León authorities.

The strong media pressure of the case has reached the Presidency of the Republic and the prosecution authorities are beginning to "get their act together".

It is known that Jehieli Sarahi is a psychology student at a private university, while Ivonne Alejandra is not currently studying and doesn’t belong to Debanhi's circle of close friends.

This was corroborated during the funeral of the young university student when consulting her friends from high school who reported that the friendship with these young women was recent and had told them little about who they are. By the way, since the beginning of the investigation, Mario Escobar, the young woman's father, has criticized the actions of the two young women. He hopes that the corresponding authorities find the whereabouts of the real murderers of Debanhi and that they don’t try to using scapegoats. As they are trying to do with the owners of the Hotel Nueva Castilla, hold them responsible for the case.

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