Luis obsessed over who they were. LEFT: Signs mark clandestine graves where almost 300 bodies were found in Colinas de Santa Fe, in Veracruz, in 2018. Three of them are bare-chested. The inquiries attempted to determine whether Herrera could be related to money-laundering networks and have criminal relationships with important drug traffickers in Catalonia, said Toni Rodrguez, chief of the criminal investigation division of the Catalonian police force. (Forbidden Stories). Bullet holes pockmarked the outer walls of the adobe house, remnants of a gunfight months earlier. You Might Be Interested In. A decrepit tractor marked the grave at the abandoned ranch, at the end of a dirt road. With every payment, a new hope sparkled for Mrs. Rodrguez. She needed a name. Hope is a toxin that poisons many families of the missing. Authorities in Mexico say a journalist has been murdered in Tijuana, the second killing of a media worker in the border city in less than a week and the latest in a string of killings in one of . Just as she had with the ice cream shop, Mrs. Rodrguez waited for weeks outside of the prison during visiting hours until Ms. Betancourt finally showed. The city placed a bronze plaque honoring her in the central plaza. I wont make the same mistakes as my mom, Luis said. Her friends often wondered if she was going too far. Forensic agents claimed that Karen was not among the dozens of bodies they had identified at the ranch. She was an incorruptible, professional journalist.. Halfway through the year, Adame's death brings to seven the 2017 toll of slain press . a b Marijose Gamboa has one of the most dangerous occupations in the world. She is the Knight Chair in Public Affairs Journalism at the University of Maryland. She sought to prove the traffickers and their accomplices had executed hundreds of people: Teenage dealers and entire families. Lucianos family stayed. She carted her files everywhere, like a door-to-door salesperson for whom a no was never final. The shooting stunned some of the local reporters who were also on the scene that day, as well as some of their colleagues, who expressed disbelief on Twitter that journalists had been attacked while doing their jobs. And by then, the family knew who the masterminds of the kidnapping were: members of their own family. Weeks earlier, volunteers had passed the very spot and missed it. Newspapers are dropping the Dilbert comic strip after the creator's racist rants. A month before she was killed, Mrs. Rodrguez broke her foot chasing down one of the last targets on her list, a young woman who had left town and begun working as a live-in nanny for a family in Ciudad Victoria. Sometimes, they organized death matches between captives for sport. But by then, the cousins were nowhere to be found. Mrs. Rodrguez just needed Sama to slip up. I wont make the same mistakes as my mom, he said. By then, everyone had. What the local press did not want to publish was published through Regina Martnez, said Jorge Carrasco, Procesos editor in chief. He added that the suspect was not speaking to the police, and said that he had acted alone. 1 min read. When she pulled her files onto the table, I had never seen anything like it, said the officer, who remains an active duty commander and asked not to be quoted by name because he had not been authorized to speak publicly. The condition of the 9-year-olds mother, whose name has not been released, was unclear. Others interviewed current and former law enforcement and intelligence officials in the United States, Mexico and Spain, former senior U.S. diplomats and a dozen experts on cartels, Veracruz and Mexican politics. Her colleagues were right to be worried. She had known Ms. Betancourt ever since she was a child, abandoned by a prostitute at the local brothel. She said it matter-of-factly, as though describing her sleep. Azalea hugged Lucianos mother for more than a minute, weeping. She quoted people saying they knew Herrera had given the orders. It was 2014, an especially grim time in San Fernando. Priest reported from Washington. A female cartel boss known as "La Doa" has been sentenced to 22 years in prison in the US after her two sons were murdered in killings that could have been a warning not to cooperate with US. The first thing he asked was whether his two little sisters were safe. While many fled to escape the violence, others stuck it out because they had built a life in San Fernando and would not abandon it for the sins of others. (Flix Mrquez/AP). Ever since 2014, she had been tracking the people responsible for the kidnapping and murder of her 20-year-old daughter, Karen. Lucianos father expressed gratitude. When Herreras term ended in 2010, he expressed a desire to run for president. Herrera belongs to the previous generation of governors, when accountability institutions lacked political power, said Alberto Olvera, a sociologist at the University of Veracruz. At 17, he was convicted for two murders and sentenced to 70 years in a Texas states prison . But with each passing day, the trails grew more faint. They drove her to the family home, where Karen lived during the week while Mrs. Rodrguez, who also worked as a nanny in Texas, was away. Scarred by a decade of violence, a brutal war between cartel factions, the slaughter of 72 migrants and the killing of Mrs. Rodrguez, San Fernando grew quiet for a time, as if spent by its own tragic history. The unit also collected personal information about them, including the names of family members and co-workers, places they frequented, their political affiliations and sexual orientations. Details about the report, which contained U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration data and cited 14 protected witnesses, were published by Grupo Imagen Multimedia, a Mexican media conglomerate with television, radio, newspaper and Internet holdings. Eight others have disappeared. Laura Borbolla, a senior prosecutor in the Mexican Attorney Generals Office who investigated Martnezs homicide in 2012, said in interviews that state police and prosecutors made serious mistakes in their handling of the case. For a city of about 60,000, San Fernando bears an infamy out of proportion to its size, a misfortune born of geography. Proceso paid a very high price for covering these issues: kidnappings, murders, threats, said Carrasco, the Proceso editor, who left the country temporarily after receiving death threats when he tried to investigate Martnezs homicide. The government dispatched convoys of soldiers, police officers and investigators to San Fernando. Living in San Fernando means accepting certain realities. Herrera has not been charged with a crime, and he denied all the allegations against him. 34. She froze when she found a stack of personal belongings tossed in a pile. Now she finally had one a widow called to tell her that he was peddling flowers on the border. Though he assumed leadership of his mothers collective, the movement faded in her absence. He was shot three times: in the leg, torso and fatally in his ear. Lucianos family paid two ransoms for their son, just as Mrs. Rodrguezs family had in its fruitless attempt to free Karen. But you respected her mission.. Mr. Lyons, born and raised in Philadelphia, graduated from the University of Central Florida and had previously worked in Gainesville as a television reporter, according to Spectrum News. This also deprives real businesses of business., Herrera, now 71, has always denied the allegations. Duarte had none of Herreras political charm. Authorities responded around 9:58 p.m. Saturday to the intersection of routes 130 and 32 . He escaped the country in a helicopter and was later arrested in Guatemala. I very much regret each death and each person who receives some mistreatment. The presence of multiple, competing cartels provoked turf battles and an increase in killings. Last year, one female killer known as "La Peque" was captured by the authorities for her work for the Sinaloa Cartel in north-western Mexico. Those who really control everything and who benefit most are powerful political figures and senior security-force officers., [Violent criminal groups are eroding Mexicos authority and claiming more territory]. Rodrguez said the inquiries ended when Herrera, after 14 months, rushed home to Veracruz to answer allegations in a lawsuit that he and his successor, then-Gov. The woman, who started being a hit woman aged 15 said killed pregnant women. Herrera was paid millions of dollars through liaisons to the cartels to let them operate with impunity., Rebolledo, the Veracruz security consultant, said: He was the boss of bosses. At least 27 journalists have been killed in the state of Veracruz since 2003. A man riding in a car with his cousin shot and killed another passenger then returned to the same neighborhood near Orlando hours later and shot four more people, killing a journalist covering. The weeks after Karens abduction had become knotted into a single, nauseating progression of calls, threats and false promises. As for the people who ordered the hit, who feared her activism more than they feared the repercussions of killing her, they remain shrouded in secrecy. His mother made a heart-rending recording, pleading with the kidnappers to return her son. She called herself The Devil and . Some of her colleagues fled Veracruz the day she died and have never returned. Then, there was another 911 call, Sheriff Mina said. Her story offers a singular account of Mexicos deterioration by 2020 into an anguished nation, beset by cartel-corrupted government institutions and haunted by thousands of killings and disappearances. In 2017, remains of 250 people were unearthed in Veracruz. Half of them were already in prison, not because the authorities had cracked the case, but because she had pursued them on her own, with a meticulous abandon. They felt almost perfunctory now, performative. The intelligence officials said one of those kidnapped disclosed that the group had contacted Martnez. Are they waiting for them to kill us too?. They would deliver little Luciano to the family home that very night. She stopped every few minutes to catch her breath and study the photo of her next target: the florist. A suspect, whom the authorities identified as Keith Melvin Moses, 19, was in custody by Wednesday evening and was charged with one count of murder in connection with the killing of the 38-year-old, whom the police previously described as being in her 20s. She knew their habits, friends, hometowns, childhoods. The lifeless body of the young woman had signs of torture and was found with gunshot wounds Sunday morning. . Perhaps softened by her kindness, Cristian told them everything. We just want our son back.. During the trial, FBI Agent Scott Lawson testified that Colorado-Cessa was established as an intermediary between Zetas leader Efran Teodoro Torres and the government of Veracruz to allow the circulation of drugs freely in the state of Veracruz and, at the same time, to help Fidel Herrera finance his campaign as governor.. Once lively, he now seldom left home. They spent weeks baiting Luciano with a false Facebook account of a young girl. The next year, 168. The pressure worked. She was not allowed to interview Silva without the presence of state police and prosecutors. Violence akin to terrorism including beheadings, dismemberments and hangings, with bodies displayed as warnings pervaded the lives of its 8million residents. (Flix Mrquez/AP) RIGHT: Relatives try to identify their missing loved ones at the morgue in Cosamaloapan, Veracruz, after more than two dozen bodies were found in a mass grave in 2014. The problem is, American Dirt is none of those . Only after his sister opened his Facebook account did they realize what had happened. She has lived, worked and. Martnezs homicide shocked many who assumed a reporter at such a respected national outlet was too high-profile to be killed. Luis, Karens older brother, had moved away to escape the danger. Israel. Jun 30, 2017, 01:01 PM EDT. They were involved in bad things, people often say to one another. As he drove back to San Fernando, the kidnappers called. The local government could connect to peoples phones and know at any moment what they were up to, one of the officials said in an interview, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of safety concerns. Within a few months, it arrested two of the culprits, and killed another in a gunfight. In Plain Sight: Van Zeller says one of the most surprising things about her work, particularly on Trafficked, was that she was able to find underground markets close to home. He also said hed had good luck since childhood, which is how he explained twice winning the national lottery, pocketing $6.8million in 2008 and $3.6million the following year. Luis took charge of the collective of San Fernando families with disappeared relatives that his slain mother had created. Valeria Velez worked as a news anchor during the early 1980s, and in 1981 she interviewed the famous cartel boss Pablo Escobar, forming a romantic relationship with him. Her team found two good prints that state police had missed. In the years after Martnezs death, the mothers of the disappeared across Mexico formed collectives to demand that authorities find the bodies of their missing loved ones. No one slept. Townspeople marched, demanding justice for Luciano. They needed a bit more money, they said, just $500. Its really amazing, their bravery.. His father, also Luciano, owned a thriving construction materials store. The Forbidden Stories investigation found that U.S. and Mexican authorities had long been investigating some subjects that Martnez had been pursuing. Veracruz receives partial information and even lies, she wrote in 2011. Sign in Women Are Being Killed With Impunity. She had been hunting him for a year, stalking him online, interrogating the criminals he worked with, even befriending unwitting relatives for tips on his whereabouts. The gunman shot two other people in Pine Hills, Fla., the Orange County Sheriffs Office said in a news conference on Wednesday: the mother of the 9-year-old and a photographer who worked with the TV news reporter at Spectrum News 13 in Orlando. On Thursday, the Sheriffs Office released the names of the victims: Dylan Lyons, 24, Nathacha Augustin, 38, and Tyonna Major, 9. The murder took place on Sunday night when a gunman shot and killed Lourdes Maldonado inside her vehicle, the Baja California Attorney General's Office revealed. Duarte was obsessed, she wrote in Proceso, with censoring the truth. Family members said Dawna Langford's 13-year-old son, Devin, watched his mother die and then hid his six. Having confessed to the murders of at least five men, she revealed she enjoyed both drinking the warm blood of her victims and having sex with the dead bodies following the homicide. Someone broke in through the metal door from her beloved garden patio, the tiny patch of tranquility that kept her from . They gave news conferences. Dana Priest, a reporter at The Washington Post for 30 years, covers national security issues. Duarte sent a huge flower wreath to Martnezs funeral. He was like a clown in a rodeo. Then president Donald Trump had even tweeted about it, offering to send in "an army" to defeat the cartels. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced he is now permanently deploying National Guard troops to Cancun in a bid to curb the rise in crime. Meanwhile, she wrote in 2006, Herrera assures Veracruz that nothing is happening, that there is social tranquility in the state. He had learned the lesson her murder was meant to impart: one could only push so far for justice, at least publicly. At the burial site, as a crowd surrounded the rectangular pit, he stood to the side, weeping. With little to lose, Mrs. Rodrguez asked for a meeting with members of the local cartel, the Zetas, and to her surprise, they agreed. The gunman, a former reporter for the TV station . A 19-year-old Florida man is now facing three first-degree-murder charges related to shootings last week that killed a television news reporter, a 9-year-old girl and a 38-year-old woman, sheriff . FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) A 19-year-old Florida man is now facing three first-degree-murder charges related to shootings last week that killed a television news reporter, a 9-year-old . Mrs. Rodrguezs son, Luis, looking through his mothers belongings, holding a photo of Sama, right, among other evidence she kept in her black satchel with details of her daughter Karens kidnappers and killers. When I heard him just now it was like my own child.. By the time the government issued an arrest warrant, Sama had already skipped town. A mother of two sons killed by fentanyl gave emotional testimony Tuesday at the House Homeland Security hearing on the border crisis. . Four days after local police began investigating her killing, Borbolla, the federal prosecutor, arrived in Veracruz from Mexico City to do a parallel investigation for a new unit designed to probe crimes against journalists. In the first shooting on Wednesday, the suspect fatally shot Ms. Augustin around 11 a.m. as she was in the car with the suspects cousin, Sheriff Mina said, adding that it was unclear whether the suspect knew the victim personally. To pay the first ransom, Mrs. Rodrguezs family took out a loan from a bank that offered lines of credit for such payments. The now-abandoned market where Mrs.Rodrguez had a cowboy apparel shop. Logan was in Cairo covering. The justice system in Veracruz is rubbish, Borbolla said in her most extensive comments about the case to date. It was not an accident, she said. We must rid ourselves of the fear to stand up and speak out.. It has been a relentless attack against journalists, said Roberta S. Jacobson, U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 2016 to 2018. They were forced out of the field of play. The suspect killed a woman near Orlando on Wednesday morning, then returned later in the day and killed a 9-year-old girl and a journalist who was covering the original shooting, the authorities said. But to force the police into action, she needed more than a location. Unlike Mrs. Rodrguezs relentless pursuit of her daughters killers, Lucianos parents did not seek to punish the powerful cartel. A colleague of Martnez said that she had calculated that the number of dead had increased tenfold in Veracruz between 2000 and 2012, a toll not reflected in official records. The assailant broke her jaw with brass knuckles, then wrapped a rag around her neck, squeezing the life out of the regions best hope for accountability and justice. Eight years after Martnezs homicide on April 28, 2012, a team of reporters from Mexico, Europe and The Washington Post has picked up where Martnez left off. He has not seen the questions, it is medically prohibited by his doctor.. Mexican authorities discovered the charred remains of Salvador Adame's body this week, more than a month after a group of armed assailants reportedly abducted the veteran TV reporter in the crime-plagued state of Michoacn. 1. In Mexico, politicians rely on narcos for campaign funds. She wrote of his increasing wealth at a time when the state debt soared without a clear explanation. Recently, she has investigated Russian disinformation operations, censorship around the world, the massive national security state, CIA operations and veterans issues. Mrs. Rodrguezs husband was different after Karen vanished. The series examines the power and activities of Mexican cartels and their collusion with corrupt government officials. 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