Organ theft charges stir city Witness tells Juárez police of women's dissections

El Paso Times ^ | Monday, May 5, 2003 | Diana Washington Valdez

[FITZ]

JUAREZ -- Allegations that young women in Juárez are being killed to harvest their organs are causing a sensation in a border city that has experienced a decade of unpunished sex murders.

Mexican federal officials announced Wednesday that they are investigating at least 14 murders that could be linked to a band of men who abducted and killed women to remove their organs.

A prostitute known only as "La Morena" and "Susana" allegedly told the authorities that one of two men who are in custody in connection with the case gave her a cell phone that belonged to Mayra Yesenia Najera Larragoiti, 15, a Juárez teen who has been missing since Oct. 8.

Vicky Caraveo, founder of Women for Juárez, said authorities had asked Najera's parents for blood samples to conduct a DNA test to help confirm the teen's identity.

But Chihuahua state officials, who admitted last week that they had not disclosed finding another body, refused to confirm any details about the victim.

Federal officials said the two suspects are Miguel Vazquez Villegas, a T-shirt vendor, and Hernando Valles Contreras, a law student and construction worker. Both denied the allegations, and Vazquez claimed he was tortured into signing a confession at the state police academy in Juárez. Mexican officials, who denied the torture allegations, said they have more suspects.

Officials said that "La Morena" allegedly met Vazquez at the Capital bar in central Juárez and that he gave her a cell phone that belonged to the missing teen. Authorities allegedly found the prostitute after tracking calls made from the phone.

A man who is now a protected witness told authorities that he wrapped the dissected bodies of the women in blood-soaked sheets, snuck them out of the bathroom of a Juárez home and buried them in vacant lots. He also said he helped lure the young women to the Juárez home where the surgeries took place.

He reportedly told police he was aghast at what he found when he removed the sheets before burial.

"The girls were all cut up. They were opened. And they didn't have any internal organs left," two people familiar with the man's confession quoted him as saying.

Drs. Enrique Silva Perez and Maria Carmen Sanchez, who conducted or supervised autopsies of the murder victims, said they haven't seen any evidence of organ trafficking.

"This requires a great deal of infrastructure and medical expertise," Silva said.

But Hector Garcia Rodriguez, director of the federal attorney general's office in northern Chihuahua state, said authorities have "statements from many people, and some evidence we are developing" to support the idea that organized crime was involved in the slayings.

More than 320 girls and women have been killed in Juárez since 1993, and about 100 of them were sex-murder victims. Theories on who's killing them include two or more serial killers, drug dealers and gangs. According to other Mexican federal investigators, a band of rich men was also involved in several of the deaths.

Diana Washington Valdez may be reached at dvaldez@elpasotimes.com; The Associated Press contributed to this story.

[FITZ]

I missed your post the other day ---found it on the search to post this article ---anyhow here's an update.

[humblegunner]

This from the folks who brought us the Chupacabra.

[FITZ]

Here's an update ---I thought before the organs were missing because often they find the bodies near the outside of town where dogs and coyotes have gnawed on them ---but apparently there are reports some at least were freshly carved out. I think it's satanic sacrifice ---I don't see how the organs would be too good for transplanting handled this way ---however they do things different in Mexico.

[jordan8]

These murders have all the hallmarks of ordinary sex murders. The organ-theft rumors are just the traditional Mexican habit of denying unpleasant, distasteful, self-critical realities and blaming all their troubles on Norte Americanos.

[FITZ]

I don't know if they're blaming the organ theft on Americans ----they do organ transplant in Mexico ---but I'm not sure how the organs could be used being handled this way. Many Mexicans believe their own wealthy would kill the rest of them if they wanted their organs.

[boris]

"The brain is my second-favorite organ."--Woody Allen

[Nachoman]

What happened to leaving them in tub of ice, with a note to call paramedics?

[Eric in the Ozarks]

This story made the rounds for several years in various parts of S. America. The spin was that children were being kidnapped for their organs to be sent to the US.

[xm177e2]

The organ-theft rumors are just the traditional Mexican habit of denying unpleasant, distasteful, self-critical realities and blaming all their troubles on Norte Americanos.

That sounds about right, especially considering how the Mexican police do what they can to hush up the existence of the murders.