00 03
The Mexicans call it 'The City of the Lost Girls'.
Ciudad Juarez is held hostage by killers whove slaughtered almost 400 women.
PTC: Were outside a factory, one of hundreds in Ciudad Juarez. It?s almost
midnight so its about time for a shift change and these buses are lined up
to collect the women on their way out. And the idea is that they take them
safely from door to door, except it doesnt always work out like that.
00 32
For ten years the pattern has been the same: abduction, rape, torture and then death. At least fifteen victims this year so far
00 46
For women this is one of the most dangerous places on earth.
00 50
Id come to find out who was doing the killing and why they hadnt been caught.
TITLE: THE CITY OF LOST GIRLS
01 06
Juarez is a city of two million people living in fear.
01 13
Its on the border with Texas. Its prostitutes and bars cater for American tourists, and its become home to the Mexican drug cartels.
01 26
But the girls who are killed arent prostitutes. Many are new arrivals, working in the maquilas, factories set up by US companies to exploit Mexicos low wages.
01 42
The week I arrived the City had opened a new morgue
PTC: Theyre doing the autopsy of a man who was executed by drug dealers,
narco traffickers. And this is a multi-disciplinary team, they deal with
everything to do with forensic medicine.
1 57
But the teams priority isnt drug killings. Its identifying the remains of the murdered women.
2 07
Some victims had just arrived
PTC: These are bodies that have not been identified yet. Theyre being
stored here.
2 26
The murdered women are often dumped on wasteland. It can be months or even years before theyre found.
2 34
Theyd established that this girl had been strangled, like most of the other victims.
2 43
Days before we arrived theyd finally determined her identity.
2 53
Across Juarez, Id noticed little shrines marking where murdered women had been found
03 05
This is where 17 year old Lilia Alejandra Garcia was found.
03 09
Marisela Ortiz her school teacher met me there.
She told me what had happened to Lilia Alejandra.
Like many other victims, she was a factory girl.
Sync: Sandra: She was working in the maquila for three years before she
died. And she was used as a model at one stage, showing the products in a
sales brochure for other countries.
Sync: She had to cross this piece of land to get from the factory, its a
short cut, to get the bus home. The guard at the factory saw her come down
here. She was picked up from this area and a week later her mutilated,
tortured raped body was found in an abandoned dump..
Sync: Sandra: She had broken knees, a broken nose. And she was
raped very many times by very many people, they think.
04 15
One of her breasts had been cut off. Its a trademark of the serial killers.
04 26
We gave Marisela a lift home.
04 33
On the way she showed me a different side of life. In Juarez, this is where you buy a house if you rise to the top of the pile.
04 44
Marisela told me that no girls were ever abducted from these streets.
04 53
Suddenly a police car appeared behind us. I was learning that in Juarez the rich get protection that the poor dont.
Sync: Weve been followed and stopped by the federal police to ask what weve been doing. A complaint has been made against us. But were just explaining what were up to.
PTC: Theres not much you can do here without being monitored, without being followed, without somebody knowing, whether youre talking on the phone or traveling somewhere, after a while you start to feel quite insecure.
05 33
Later I headed through the shantytowns that make up most of the city.
Juarez is where most murders occur. But Id heard about a recent, troubling case in the nearby city of Chihuahua.
05 50
Most victims are poor. But this girls father is a prominent trade union leader
05 58
Viviana was sixteen when the killers snatched her from the city centre
06 05
Id expected her father, Jose Rayas, to be angry. And he was.
But to my surprise his anger wasnt just aimed at the killers, but also at the police.
After Viviana disappeared he spent the next two and a half months campaigning. They had a demonstration and 8,000 people turned up, a lot of them members of unions and he said were not going to demonstrate for salaries, but for justice for Viviana. He conducted his own private investigation. At no time would the police help him in any way or collaborate with him he says.
06 53
Senor Rayas had hired two former policemen to help, but he said theyd fled town after receiving death threats.
07 04
Their contacts had said the search for Viviana was being blocked by senior police officers.
PTC: This is near the spot where Vivianas body was found. Her parents and family and friends made this shrine to her
07 25
Senor Ryas told me that like the parents of other victims he couldnt establish whether there had been a full forensic analysis of Vivians body and clothing to catch the killers.
PTC: Some of her clothes were supposedly found over here, a bra and a blouse and a necklace. Where the clothes were found they also supposedly found her hand, one of her hands and also some socks.
07 55
He was now planning to exhume his daughters body.
He showed me a second shrine. It was where theyd found her skull.
PTC: He said how could anyone do this to her. She wanted to be a doctor so she could help people in the community. Why was this done to her
08 44
Serial killers, allegations of a police cover up. And the mystery was about to deepen.
8 54
The police said that the American owner of a craft shop, Cynthia Kiecker had confessed to murdering Viviana.
09 08
I went to meet two of her friends who had signed statements saying theyd seen her carry out the killing.
Sync: Can you answer a few questions?
19 17
They were in hiding, but with their lawyers and bodyguards they agreed to meet me. Manuel Lopez and Erica Perez said the police had forced them to sign the statements .
Manuel had sketched the conditions under which he was held, gagged and shackled to a bed with handcuffs.
Sync: He said they tortured him by putting electrodes on his testicles, on his back, by electrocuting him, by covering his face with plastic bags to asfixiate him, and a towel on his face, also to suffocate him, and this went on until eventually he gave in and said whatever they wanted him to say.
10 03
Manuel had sketched the police station where he was held.
10 09
I decided to take a look.
Sync: Por aqui.
10 21
For ten years the Mexican courts have jailed people in connection with the serial killings.
But Mexican and international human rights groups like Amnesty say justice hasnt been done.
Sync: Theres a light on here, the air conditioning is on, there should be somebody here, but if there is, theyre ignoring us.
10 44
Time and again theres evidence the police have tortured suspects and witnesses and planted evidence.
Sync: Hola.. se encuentra alguien? Hay alguien a casa?
10 59
Meanwhile the real killers have remained free.
Sync Hola
11 05
And the murders have continued
Sandra: If theres someone there theyre not coming out
Later that day the woman accused of killing Viviana, Cynthia Kieker, called me from a prison telephone
Cynthia Kieker:
You say youre innocent, right?
Yes of course
Can you tell me why you confessed
They were torturing us and my husband was in another room I could hear him screaming they were giving him electric shocks and I was telling her listen I dont have anything to do with this and thats the truth And they said if you dont go along with this story you get another treatment . there was no way you could get out of it and say the truth, they wouldnt let me. And suddenly they took me to a room, there was my husband naked sitting on a crate surrounded by four hooded guys with these electric prodder things and they were burning him with this electricity and they threatened to kill me.
12 22
Cynthias trial began and her mother Carol arrived from America.
It was the day the witnesses Id met intended to retract their statements
Mother: There is no case if you consider that the confession was made under severe torture then there isnt any other link. They dont know this young women that was killed and there are man y inconsistencies in the police story so it all depends on if anyones interested in the truth
12 58
Mrs Kiecker believed her daughter was targeted because the police thought no-one would worry about an American hippie in Mexico.
And your name is spelt the same as your daughters?
13 07
They were wrong
PTC: Were just waiting for the trial to open, to begin. It should be happening now. The lawyers been asked to wait
13 19
But the judge had decided to postpone the trial indefinitely
PTC: The lawyers very angry. He says this is irregular. He says the judge is just trying to put off the point here where theyre going to have to admit that these people are innocent and theyre going to have to be released. They keep procrastinating and perhaps one of the reasons is there are media people here today. They dont want us to be present.
No Comm
Carol: They could do this forever it just theyre apparently not interested in any decent resolution or in justice or the truth. It just makes on feel grossly helpless. I just cant believe it.
14 11
I spotted the judge. It was a chance to ask him why hed cancelled the trial
14 29
There was no answer
I met a respected American journalist whos investigated the killings for five years.
Diana Washington Valdez has exclusive high level sources inside Mexico and in the American FBI across the border. Theyve leaked her confidential documents concerning many of the killings.
The Mexican federal authorities have conducted important investigations of their own already that reveal who the killers are. Five men from Juarez and one from Tijuana who get together and kill women in what can only be described as blood sport. Weve discovered that these people revealed by these investigations are very important people and some of the other people involved are named allegedly as killersare prominent men with important political connections considered untouchables.
15 26
She told me about an FBI document passed to the Mexican police in March. An informant had given names and locations linked to some of the murders.
15 40
She showed me a copy. The FBI agent said the Mexicans had failed to act on it.
We no longer have police who protect people. We have police who are accomplices to the killers
15 57
Diana took us to a downtown restaurant. According to the informant the killers henchmen sometimes lured young girls here.
16 06
Afterwards they were bundled out a back door into a neighbouring hotel.
Here it seems the girls were raped and perhaps tortured.
16 21
Dianas FBI sources are adamant the Mexican police havent properly investigated these allegations.
16 32
The informant claimed that corrupt policemen sometimes helped dispose of the bodies
Diana took me to one notorious spot where eight girls were found
PTC:
This is where the bodies were dumped..five in here, and three over there
These crosses commemorate them. Its a very public place even though it looks like a bit of a wasteland this is the busiest commercial area of Ciudad Juarez and there are often people passing by here. Its amazing that whoever dumped them here was able to get away with it.
Diana: Some of this deciding where to dump the bodies may be deliberate. Maybe jokes among themselves, or messages or simply telling the community so what? We can do what we want
1730
The six men named as the killers have ties to Drug trafficking.
17 35
I met Patricia Garivay, an ex drug trafficker said to understand the killings I had to understand the Juarez drug cartels
Here in C Juarez there is no difference between the cartel and the police and law enforcement its the same thing.
So there are some people in Juarez who are above the law no matter what they do theyre not going to be arrested
Never never ever. The corruption is so high theyre being paid from high up
How high up?
Goodness. Most of the businesses are built by cartel money. This is the biggest money laundering place you can ever find.
How are the cartels involved in killing the women
They do it for sport. They have nothing else to do. They need excitement in their life asnd thats how they get it. Up to a certain point they have so much money they dont know what to do with it, they start looking for new ways of amusement. And I think theyve found it.
18 42
It was a bleak picture. I was beginning to suspect that in Juarez justice would never be done.
Id arranged to meet Oscar Maynez until last year the boss of the forensic team investigating the murders.
He says he resigned when he was asked to plant evidence .
In Juarez he said money can buy you immunity.
Are there some people who are so rich and powerful theyre above the law?
Of course of course, If you have money youre above the law
So if some very rich men were killing women in Juarez would they be investigated and prosecuted
Probably not
So whos running this particular city, the narco traffickers or the authorities
Juarez is run by organized crime. Everyone knows that.
19 32
The investigation into the murders is coordinated in Juarez by a special police unit.
This year Amnesty international said this units work had undermined the credibility of the justice system.
19 45
I went to interview their spokesman, Manuel Esparza.
Amid all the mystery I soon discovered there was one point of which he was completely certain.
Synch: Manuel Esparza: Organised crime , I dont believe that people involved in organized crime in criminal activities involving drugs would risk bringing all this heat to themselves by committing those homicides.
Ive heard from people that they dont care if they bring heat on themselves because they dont believe that anyone in Mexico will ever persecute them, any authority in Mexico.
I can tell you one thing, right now we dont have any information that links our cases to organized criminals, to the big drug cartels, I dont think so. Time might prove me wrong, or even the investigations as they advance may prove me wrong, but right up to this date I dont believe this is the case.
20 41
He said most of the murders had been solved. I asked whether he thought they had the real culprits given the allegations of torture that have dogged these cases.
We havent tortured anyone. Im very sorry if Im going to sound rude with this but I dont think I have to stand for a lot of this. I do consider it a little bit of badgering and weve been very open to whatever we have in our investigations. I wouldnt have to torture anyone for confessions because I trust my work and I trust the people I work with and I know the people we have put in prison are criminals. I can tell you, I dont like the way this thing is going.
21 24
The interview was coming to an end.
21 30
The longer you stay in Mexico the harder it is to trust the authorities.
21 36
Norma Ledesma took me to where 16 year old daughter, Paloma. was found.
Norma told me witnesses had named some of the men involved in the abduction. The police didnt arrest them and now say they cant find then.
Paloma was clutching a handful of pubic hair. It wasnt DNA tested and the police say its been lost.
22 01
Bizarrely Paloma was dumped just a few hundred yards from a new police Head Quarters
22 09
And to round matters off the police officer in charge of the investigation has been suspended for fabricating evidence.
22 38
22 48
I had the feeling that the innocent are being jailed and murderers given immunity.
She said if this stream could talk it would tell me who killed my baby and threw her here. Her head was here and her body was laid out here. She put the flowers here where her head was
In the so-called democracy of Mexico, there is little hope these crimes against the poor will ever be solved.
END CREDITS as at 10.09.03
Reporter
Sandra Jordan
Fixer
Pedro Sanchez Briones
Xochite Zepeda
On line Editor
Richard Cone
Dubbing Mixer
Chris OShaughnessy
Archive
UCT
Graphics
Roger Kennedy
Music
Jason Osborn
Production Manager
Claire Barry
Film Editor
Bob H. Woodward
UK Producer
Flora Gregory
Executive Producer
Eamonn Matthews
Directed and Filmed by
Rodrigo Vazquez
The Mexicans call it 'The City of the Lost Girls'.
Ciudad Juarez is held hostage by killers whove slaughtered almost 400 women.
PTC: Were outside a factory, one of hundreds in Ciudad Juarez. It?s almost
midnight so its about time for a shift change and these buses are lined up
to collect the women on their way out. And the idea is that they take them
safely from door to door, except it doesnt always work out like that.
00 32
For ten years the pattern has been the same: abduction, rape, torture and then death. At least fifteen victims this year so far
00 46
For women this is one of the most dangerous places on earth.
00 50
Id come to find out who was doing the killing and why they hadnt been caught.
TITLE: THE CITY OF LOST GIRLS
01 06
Juarez is a city of two million people living in fear.
01 13
Its on the border with Texas. Its prostitutes and bars cater for American tourists, and its become home to the Mexican drug cartels.
01 26
But the girls who are killed arent prostitutes. Many are new arrivals, working in the maquilas, factories set up by US companies to exploit Mexicos low wages.
01 42
The week I arrived the City had opened a new morgue
PTC: Theyre doing the autopsy of a man who was executed by drug dealers,
narco traffickers. And this is a multi-disciplinary team, they deal with
everything to do with forensic medicine.
1 57
But the teams priority isnt drug killings. Its identifying the remains of the murdered women.
2 07
Some victims had just arrived
PTC: These are bodies that have not been identified yet. Theyre being
stored here.
2 26
The murdered women are often dumped on wasteland. It can be months or even years before theyre found.
2 34
Theyd established that this girl had been strangled, like most of the other victims.
2 43
Days before we arrived theyd finally determined her identity.
2 53
Across Juarez, Id noticed little shrines marking where murdered women had been found
03 05
This is where 17 year old Lilia Alejandra Garcia was found.
03 09
Marisela Ortiz her school teacher met me there.
She told me what had happened to Lilia Alejandra.
Like many other victims, she was a factory girl.
Sync: Sandra: She was working in the maquila for three years before she
died. And she was used as a model at one stage, showing the products in a
sales brochure for other countries.
Sync: She had to cross this piece of land to get from the factory, its a
short cut, to get the bus home. The guard at the factory saw her come down
here. She was picked up from this area and a week later her mutilated,
tortured raped body was found in an abandoned dump..
Sync: Sandra: She had broken knees, a broken nose. And she was
raped very many times by very many people, they think.
04 15
One of her breasts had been cut off. Its a trademark of the serial killers.
04 26
We gave Marisela a lift home.
04 33
On the way she showed me a different side of life. In Juarez, this is where you buy a house if you rise to the top of the pile.
04 44
Marisela told me that no girls were ever abducted from these streets.
04 53
Suddenly a police car appeared behind us. I was learning that in Juarez the rich get protection that the poor dont.
Sync: Weve been followed and stopped by the federal police to ask what weve been doing. A complaint has been made against us. But were just explaining what were up to.
PTC: Theres not much you can do here without being monitored, without being followed, without somebody knowing, whether youre talking on the phone or traveling somewhere, after a while you start to feel quite insecure.
05 33
Later I headed through the shantytowns that make up most of the city.
Juarez is where most murders occur. But Id heard about a recent, troubling case in the nearby city of Chihuahua.
05 50
Most victims are poor. But this girls father is a prominent trade union leader
05 58
Viviana was sixteen when the killers snatched her from the city centre
06 05
Id expected her father, Jose Rayas, to be angry. And he was.
But to my surprise his anger wasnt just aimed at the killers, but also at the police.
After Viviana disappeared he spent the next two and a half months campaigning. They had a demonstration and 8,000 people turned up, a lot of them members of unions and he said were not going to demonstrate for salaries, but for justice for Viviana. He conducted his own private investigation. At no time would the police help him in any way or collaborate with him he says.
06 53
Senor Rayas had hired two former policemen to help, but he said theyd fled town after receiving death threats.
07 04
Their contacts had said the search for Viviana was being blocked by senior police officers.
PTC: This is near the spot where Vivianas body was found. Her parents and family and friends made this shrine to her
07 25
Senor Ryas told me that like the parents of other victims he couldnt establish whether there had been a full forensic analysis of Vivians body and clothing to catch the killers.
PTC: Some of her clothes were supposedly found over here, a bra and a blouse and a necklace. Where the clothes were found they also supposedly found her hand, one of her hands and also some socks.
07 55
He was now planning to exhume his daughters body.
He showed me a second shrine. It was where theyd found her skull.
PTC: He said how could anyone do this to her. She wanted to be a doctor so she could help people in the community. Why was this done to her
08 44
Serial killers, allegations of a police cover up. And the mystery was about to deepen.
8 54
The police said that the American owner of a craft shop, Cynthia Kiecker had confessed to murdering Viviana.
09 08
I went to meet two of her friends who had signed statements saying theyd seen her carry out the killing.
Sync: Can you answer a few questions?
19 17
They were in hiding, but with their lawyers and bodyguards they agreed to meet me. Manuel Lopez and Erica Perez said the police had forced them to sign the statements .
Manuel had sketched the conditions under which he was held, gagged and shackled to a bed with handcuffs.
Sync: He said they tortured him by putting electrodes on his testicles, on his back, by electrocuting him, by covering his face with plastic bags to asfixiate him, and a towel on his face, also to suffocate him, and this went on until eventually he gave in and said whatever they wanted him to say.
10 03
Manuel had sketched the police station where he was held.
10 09
I decided to take a look.
Sync: Por aqui.
10 21
For ten years the Mexican courts have jailed people in connection with the serial killings.
But Mexican and international human rights groups like Amnesty say justice hasnt been done.
Sync: Theres a light on here, the air conditioning is on, there should be somebody here, but if there is, theyre ignoring us.
10 44
Time and again theres evidence the police have tortured suspects and witnesses and planted evidence.
Sync: Hola.. se encuentra alguien? Hay alguien a casa?
10 59
Meanwhile the real killers have remained free.
Sync Hola
11 05
And the murders have continued
Sandra: If theres someone there theyre not coming out
Later that day the woman accused of killing Viviana, Cynthia Kieker, called me from a prison telephone
Cynthia Kieker:
You say youre innocent, right?
Yes of course
Can you tell me why you confessed
They were torturing us and my husband was in another room I could hear him screaming they were giving him electric shocks and I was telling her listen I dont have anything to do with this and thats the truth And they said if you dont go along with this story you get another treatment . there was no way you could get out of it and say the truth, they wouldnt let me. And suddenly they took me to a room, there was my husband naked sitting on a crate surrounded by four hooded guys with these electric prodder things and they were burning him with this electricity and they threatened to kill me.
12 22
Cynthias trial began and her mother Carol arrived from America.
It was the day the witnesses Id met intended to retract their statements
Mother: There is no case if you consider that the confession was made under severe torture then there isnt any other link. They dont know this young women that was killed and there are man y inconsistencies in the police story so it all depends on if anyones interested in the truth
12 58
Mrs Kiecker believed her daughter was targeted because the police thought no-one would worry about an American hippie in Mexico.
And your name is spelt the same as your daughters?
13 07
They were wrong
PTC: Were just waiting for the trial to open, to begin. It should be happening now. The lawyers been asked to wait
13 19
But the judge had decided to postpone the trial indefinitely
PTC: The lawyers very angry. He says this is irregular. He says the judge is just trying to put off the point here where theyre going to have to admit that these people are innocent and theyre going to have to be released. They keep procrastinating and perhaps one of the reasons is there are media people here today. They dont want us to be present.
No Comm
Carol: They could do this forever it just theyre apparently not interested in any decent resolution or in justice or the truth. It just makes on feel grossly helpless. I just cant believe it.
14 11
I spotted the judge. It was a chance to ask him why hed cancelled the trial
14 29
There was no answer
I met a respected American journalist whos investigated the killings for five years.
Diana Washington Valdez has exclusive high level sources inside Mexico and in the American FBI across the border. Theyve leaked her confidential documents concerning many of the killings.
The Mexican federal authorities have conducted important investigations of their own already that reveal who the killers are. Five men from Juarez and one from Tijuana who get together and kill women in what can only be described as blood sport. Weve discovered that these people revealed by these investigations are very important people and some of the other people involved are named allegedly as killersare prominent men with important political connections considered untouchables.
15 26
She told me about an FBI document passed to the Mexican police in March. An informant had given names and locations linked to some of the murders.
15 40
She showed me a copy. The FBI agent said the Mexicans had failed to act on it.
We no longer have police who protect people. We have police who are accomplices to the killers
15 57
Diana took us to a downtown restaurant. According to the informant the killers henchmen sometimes lured young girls here.
16 06
Afterwards they were bundled out a back door into a neighbouring hotel.
Here it seems the girls were raped and perhaps tortured.
16 21
Dianas FBI sources are adamant the Mexican police havent properly investigated these allegations.
16 32
The informant claimed that corrupt policemen sometimes helped dispose of the bodies
Diana took me to one notorious spot where eight girls were found
PTC:
This is where the bodies were dumped..five in here, and three over there
These crosses commemorate them. Its a very public place even though it looks like a bit of a wasteland this is the busiest commercial area of Ciudad Juarez and there are often people passing by here. Its amazing that whoever dumped them here was able to get away with it.
Diana: Some of this deciding where to dump the bodies may be deliberate. Maybe jokes among themselves, or messages or simply telling the community so what? We can do what we want
1730
The six men named as the killers have ties to Drug trafficking.
17 35
I met Patricia Garivay, an ex drug trafficker said to understand the killings I had to understand the Juarez drug cartels
Here in C Juarez there is no difference between the cartel and the police and law enforcement its the same thing.
So there are some people in Juarez who are above the law no matter what they do theyre not going to be arrested
Never never ever. The corruption is so high theyre being paid from high up
How high up?
Goodness. Most of the businesses are built by cartel money. This is the biggest money laundering place you can ever find.
How are the cartels involved in killing the women
They do it for sport. They have nothing else to do. They need excitement in their life asnd thats how they get it. Up to a certain point they have so much money they dont know what to do with it, they start looking for new ways of amusement. And I think theyve found it.
18 42
It was a bleak picture. I was beginning to suspect that in Juarez justice would never be done.
Id arranged to meet Oscar Maynez until last year the boss of the forensic team investigating the murders.
He says he resigned when he was asked to plant evidence .
In Juarez he said money can buy you immunity.
Are there some people who are so rich and powerful theyre above the law?
Of course of course, If you have money youre above the law
So if some very rich men were killing women in Juarez would they be investigated and prosecuted
Probably not
So whos running this particular city, the narco traffickers or the authorities
Juarez is run by organized crime. Everyone knows that.
19 32
The investigation into the murders is coordinated in Juarez by a special police unit.
This year Amnesty international said this units work had undermined the credibility of the justice system.
19 45
I went to interview their spokesman, Manuel Esparza.
Amid all the mystery I soon discovered there was one point of which he was completely certain.
Synch: Manuel Esparza: Organised crime , I dont believe that people involved in organized crime in criminal activities involving drugs would risk bringing all this heat to themselves by committing those homicides.
Ive heard from people that they dont care if they bring heat on themselves because they dont believe that anyone in Mexico will ever persecute them, any authority in Mexico.
I can tell you one thing, right now we dont have any information that links our cases to organized criminals, to the big drug cartels, I dont think so. Time might prove me wrong, or even the investigations as they advance may prove me wrong, but right up to this date I dont believe this is the case.
20 41
He said most of the murders had been solved. I asked whether he thought they had the real culprits given the allegations of torture that have dogged these cases.
We havent tortured anyone. Im very sorry if Im going to sound rude with this but I dont think I have to stand for a lot of this. I do consider it a little bit of badgering and weve been very open to whatever we have in our investigations. I wouldnt have to torture anyone for confessions because I trust my work and I trust the people I work with and I know the people we have put in prison are criminals. I can tell you, I dont like the way this thing is going.
21 24
The interview was coming to an end.
21 30
The longer you stay in Mexico the harder it is to trust the authorities.
21 36
Norma Ledesma took me to where 16 year old daughter, Paloma. was found.
Norma told me witnesses had named some of the men involved in the abduction. The police didnt arrest them and now say they cant find then.
Paloma was clutching a handful of pubic hair. It wasnt DNA tested and the police say its been lost.
22 01
Bizarrely Paloma was dumped just a few hundred yards from a new police Head Quarters
22 09
And to round matters off the police officer in charge of the investigation has been suspended for fabricating evidence.
22 38
22 48
I had the feeling that the innocent are being jailed and murderers given immunity.
She said if this stream could talk it would tell me who killed my baby and threw her here. Her head was here and her body was laid out here. She put the flowers here where her head was
In the so-called democracy of Mexico, there is little hope these crimes against the poor will ever be solved.
END CREDITS as at 10.09.03
Reporter
Sandra Jordan
Fixer
Pedro Sanchez Briones
Xochite Zepeda
On line Editor
Richard Cone
Dubbing Mixer
Chris OShaughnessy
Archive
UCT
Graphics
Roger Kennedy
Music
Jason Osborn
Production Manager
Claire Barry
Film Editor
Bob H. Woodward
UK Producer
Flora Gregory
Executive Producer
Eamonn Matthews
Directed and Filmed by
Rodrigo Vazquez