The city lies along a principal route north through the state of Tamaulipas. For many in the northern city of San Fernando, her story represents so much of what is wrong in Mexico and so remarkable about its people, their perseverance in the face of government indifference. She was never able to find the mysterious witness. . 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 . Homicide January 16 Drive-by shooter empties shotgun at British funeral mourners; girls, 7 and 12, among six wounded A gunman fired multiple shotgun rounds into a gathered crowd of funeral mourners. The first thing he asked was whether his two little sisters were safe. Hardly a block has been untouched missing sons, loved ones murdered, houses abandoned. The police came and arrested her, later discovering that some of the ransom calls had come from her house. 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. For the next several hours, Lucianos family fanned out across the city on a manic hunt. I would love to meet you one day.. She parked on the street and lumbered out of the car, moving slowly because of her injury. A former Zetas cartel accountant, Jos Carlos Hinojosa, testified that Torres gave Colorado-Cessa $12million for the governors campaign in 2003. Mrs. Rodrguez went to Aldama, his small hometown of about 13,000 people, and paid a visit to his grandmother. Fontes, who now runs a security company, Fontes International Solutions, said the problem is endemic to Mexico. In the beginning, Luis had tried to help the family by introducing them to a police official who had worked on Karens kidnapping and his mothers death. Murietta was a high-profile figure, known for his outspoken views on crime. 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. The woman, who started being a hit woman aged 15 said killed pregnant women. For the most part, residents dont speak out against organized crime. Others fell into a void of silence, muted by her assassination. She threatened the order of things in San Fernando. Her friends often wondered if she was going too far. I wont make the same mistakes as my mom, Luis said. Im going to take out the people who hurt my daughter and they can do whatever they want to me.. In December 2011, a bombshell news story described cartel penetration of the government in Veracruz, based on a still-confidential report by the Mexican Attorney Generals Office. 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. Woman Cries Out In Pain As Drug Cartels Slowly Dismember Her Alive Before Beheading Her On Video By Andrew Bieszad on July 5, 2020 in Featured, General While the world is filled with great concern about the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, economic collapse, and the future US election, there are a lot of suffering people in many places. It was a company to build highways Though he assumed leadership of his mothers collective, the movement faded in her absence. Like everyone else in the city, Lucianos relatives knew the story of Karens kidnapping and Mrs. Rodrguezs tragic heroism. Azalea hugged Lucianos mother for more than a minute, weeping. Warning: This graphic requires JavaScript. In 2015, Proceso photographer Rubn Espinosa, who had been physically harassed and verbally threatened for taking photos of crime scenes, finally fled to the safety of Mexico City, only to be tracked there and killed by assassins, his colleagues believe. Once lively, he now seldom left home. Keith Melvin Moses (left), 19, shot and killed Nathacha Augustin, 38, T'yonna Major, 9, and Spectrum News 13 reporter Dylan Lyons (right), 24, according With little to lose, Mrs. Rodrguez asked for a meeting with members of the local cartel, the Zetas, and to her surprise, they agreed. And they already did that to us.. She cut her hair, dyed it and disguised herself as a pollster, a health worker and an election official to get their names and addresses. The lifeless body of the young woman had signs of torture and was found with gunshot wounds Sunday morning. 34. He had his child back, in some way. Cartels controlled the state, she told readers, even promoting themselves in YouTube videos. Logan was in Cairo covering. (Miguel Tovar/LatinContent/Getty Images) RIGHT: Martnezs gravesite in Xalapa, Mexico. As Karen lay on the living room floor, bound and gagged, a knock came at the door: her uncles unsuspecting mechanic, who had come to work on the family truck. A Mexican woman who doggedly pursued her daughter's killers in a region plagued by with drug cartel violence has been shot dead in her home, reflecting both the lawlessness plaguing large. In articles for the national investigative weekly Proceso, Martnez, who was killed at age 48, told her readers that two successive governors in her home state of Veracruz looted the treasury and allowed cartels to operate freely with the help of local and state police. Journalist Maria del Rosario Fuentes Rubio, who was killed by members of a drug cartel for threatening to expose them. The "execution" of six men and . Who knew how many tracts were scored with anonymous graves? A catalog of objects recovered by families of Veracruz journalists slain over the past decade. 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. When the police came and arrested him, inside the chapel, the parishioners could hardly believe it, her family recounted. At around 4 p.m., Mr. Moses returned to the site and shot two Spectrum News 13 journalists who were in a vehicle near the homicide scene, Sheriff Mina said. Borbolla said the crime scene did not look like a robbery. Duarte sent a huge flower wreath to Martnezs funeral. Only the inquiry in Spain is known to be closed. For Karen, it was Cristian, the teenager Mrs. Rodrguez had fed. He pleaded guilty to some charges and admitted to working with criminal elements. He was sentenced to nine years in prison but has appealed, and media reports say he could be released early. A disturbing video surfaced of . SAN FERNANDO, Mexico Miriam Rodrguez clutched a pistol in her purse as she ran past the morning crowds on the bridge to Texas. Dana Priest, a reporter at The Washington Post for 30 years, covers national security issues. The body of a woman was found nearby. Every noise from the street startled them. 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. But the kidnappers knew exactly how to strike. To gather information for this account, reporters traveled to Veracruz for interviews and to obtain documents. She froze when she found a stack of personal belongings tossed in a pile. Watch the exact moment a man is executed with machine gun fire by cartel members until his guts protrude from his belly. Mexico: In a horrific cartel attack against Mexico police, a female cop was allegedly kidnapped, raped and mutilated when she was performing her duties in the area. Their sister had died, their mother, too, even their mothers friend, Ms. Saldivar Villavicencio, who recently had died of Covid-19. The parents speeches brought tears to the crowd, to Luis and his sister Azalea in particular. She has lived, worked and. Townspeople marched, demanding justice for Luciano. Lucianos family paid two ransoms for their son, just as Mrs. Rodrguezs family had in its fruitless attempt to free Karen. 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. International press groups consider Veracruz to be the most dangerous place in the world to report the news. They stripped their hopes to something far more basic the return of their son. On the bridge, she scoured the vendors for flower carts, but that day he was selling sunglasses instead. The extortion of 80 small-town mayors. a b Marijose Gamboa has one of the most dangerous occupations in the world. A noose hung from the branch of a gnarled tree. She sought to prove the traffickers and their accomplices had executed hundreds of people: Teenage dealers and entire families. Anyone can read what you share. The only professional, working journalist to die while covering the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City was photojournalist Bill Biggart, who was killed by falling debris as he was taking photographs. A Mexican drug cartel used Twitter for evil after murdering a doctor and. Newspapers are dropping the Dilbert comic strip after the creator's racist rants. Mrs. Rodrguez, 56 at the time, grabbed him by the shirt and wrestled him to the rails. [The sniper rifles flowing to Mexican cartels show a decade of U.S. failure]. MEXICO CITY When Gildo . Luis obsessed over who they were. Mexican and U.S. authorities declined to say whether their investigations are still active. Mrs. Rodrguez picked through the debris left by the kidnappers: grisly stains on soiled tabletops, bones of varying sizes, some mere shards. A portrait of MiriamRodrguez hanging on the wall of her home, now owned by her husband. A scarf that belonged to Karen and a seat cushion from her truck lay near the top. Family members said Dawna Langford's 13-year-old son, Devin, watched his mother die and then hid his six. I want to end this. Mrs. Rodrguez, already separated from her husband, moved in with her older daughter, Azalea. She's a journalist in the Mexican state of Veracruz, and the things she has endured for her work are comparable to the brutalities suffered by prisoners of war, including imprisonment, torture, and sexual assault. After tracing the fake Facebook account, the police discovered what Mrs. Garza had long suspected that several of her cousins were involved in organized crime and had teamed up with local cartel members to extort the family. Never in my career had I seen such an altered crime scene. One, Cristian Jose Zapata Gonzalez, was barely 18 when the police grabbed him, young even by cartel standards. He then had to be subdued after becoming physical with detectives, Sheriff Mina said. I wont make the same mistakes as my mom, he said. 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. He was frightened during questioning. They were both in critical condition on Wednesday night. The walkie-talkie hanging from the kidnappers belt buzzed repeatedly, interrupting Mrs. Rodrguez as she begged him to return her daughter. The day came on July 8, 2020, with an agreement to meet briefly in a park. True to form, Mrs. Rodrguez spent days parked near the familys home, waiting for the young woman to emerge. A white Nissan truck carrying men who had escaped prison quietly pulled up behind her, according to the police report. Neither matched anyone in the countrys crime databases. Raul aka "Mini 6", born in 1991 and was killed by police in Jalisco in 2010 when he was 18 years old. Since then, at least 39 more journalists have been murdered. But by then, the cousins were nowhere to be found. But with each passing day, the trails grew more faint. The police are unlikely to do anything, while the cartel almost certainly will most often in the form of revenge. He insisted that the cartel did not have her daughter, but offered to help find her for a fee of $2,000, and Mrs. Rodrguez paid. But you respected her mission.. When professors at the University of Veracruz would not stop publicly criticizing him, he denied the university millions in state funds and created a new university where he handed out credentials to students loyal to him, according to press accounts at the time. 25. Instead, he agreed to become a political adviser to the PRI, Mexicos long-ruling conservative party. A day after Coronel Aispuro's court appearance, Jessica Oseguera, the 34-year-old daughter of El Chapo's rival cartel boss, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, was sentenced to two and a half years in. Both were taken to a nearby hospital, where the girl died. Priest reported from Washington. The pressure worked. At least, not in the way they had hoped. She knew their habits, friends, hometowns, childhoods. But they felt they had nothing to lose. She studied journalism in college and began her career in the early 1980s at a state-run television channel. Brigades searched mile after mile of barren scrubland for signs of him. Pablo Escobar died in a rooftop shootout in Medellin on Dec. 2, 1993. After that, the trust seemed to be broken, and Luis went his own way. No one slept. Crime scene where El Diario Newspaper Crime Reporter Armando Rodriquez was murdered outside his home while warming up his car. 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. One morning, while stretched across the sofa, she discovered a Facebook photograph tagged with the name Sama. A lot of Narcos: Mexico is based on truth and is a retelling of historical events, but not everything is actually what happened. The killing came just a day after Lpez Esquivel, 21, a female member of the Jalisco cartel, died during a showdown with Mexican cops in La Bocanda. As the funeral crowd dispersed, Luis and Azalea went to their mothers grave, a church-like structure lined with cypress trees. One of these five, who asked to remain anonymous for personal safety reasons, nicknamed this group the band of undesirables. Martnez and the other four journalists often coordinated to publish sensitive news simultaneously to cover up which one had done the work and to ensure that no one journalist was stranded at sea.. ,federal,local police are sometimes paid to allow it or they try to stop them and be killed themselves or their family killed. The gunman, a former reporter for the TV station . Rarely did she talk to her co-workers about her sensitive investigations. Source: Twitter. She had said as much in her time, words now carved onto a plaque affixed to her mausoleum. The Push for a $60K Base Teacher Salary Gains Steam as Bernie Sanders Signs On. He recognized her and ran. Authorities told. She had already confirmed his involvement in Karens kidnapping, thanks to the mechanic abducted along with her daughter that night. Luis took charge of the collective of San Fernando families with disappeared relatives that his slain mother had created. The team of reporters discovered that law enforcement authorities in Mexico, the United States and Spain had opened inquiries into allegations that Herrera colluded with leaders of the Zeta cartel while he was governor and took money from them for his campaign, as well as allegations that he was involved in money laundering while later serving in a diplomatic post in Barcelona. Armed men forced their way into her pickup truck and took off, with her in it. Mexican video confirms death of female drug cartel gun woman January 13, 2020 MEXICO CITY (AP) Videos and photos of a woman killed in a drug gang shootout appear to confirm she was "La Catrina," a female member of a cartel hit squad that massacred 13 police officers in October. No one challenged organized crime, never mind put its members in prison. We felt that, on one hand, I was being told, Yes, of course, prosecutor, whatever you need. And I would turn around, and he would be talking to them and telling them not to give us anything.. Cartel violence has long scarred San Fernando, Mexico. Duarte next to a Proceso headline reading Veracruz: State Without Law. (Yuri Cortez/AFP/Getty Images), The United States took note of Martnezs homicide, too. 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. The relatives took precautions, at times monitoring their children with an intensity that bordered on surveillance. At least 27 journalists have been killed in the state of Veracruz since 2003. In June 2011, the deputy editor of the largest newspaper in the state, Notiver, was shot dead in his home along with his wife and son. During the 16 months Martnez was alive under Duartes tenure, she chronicled an escalation in violence, with mutilated bodies dumped in public almost weekly. She said it matter-of-factly, as though describing her sleep. At the time, a neighborhood resident she knew well, Elvia Yuliza Betancourt, had been seated at a table by herself, sipping a soda. 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. In the U.S., we have big corporations that give money to politicians through legal lobbying, he said. When she finally found him, she got too excited, and too close. But the kidnapping of an innocent 14-year-old boy broke the quiet understanding that the cartels had with the people of San Fernando. But Karen stayed, to finish school and help run her moms small cowboy apparel shop, Rodeo Boots. Herreras presence set off alarms. The international collaboration was organized by Forbidden Stories, a nonprofit group based in Paris whose mission is to continue the reporting of murdered journalists. Animal / Animal Attack / Cartel / Crime / Mutilation / Punishment / Pure Gore / Torture. She was an incorruptible, professional journalist.. Instead of answers, the family received threats, anonymous calls and messages warning them to stop the search. Duarte is serving a nine-year sentence for embezzlement and money laundering. It was 2014, an especially grim time in San Fernando. 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. Millan-Vasquez was found guilty last July of murder, violence, drug and weapons trafficking, and employing minors in a drug crime - a total of 10 counts. Hes still a child, no matter what he did, and I am still a mother, Mrs. Rodrguez said, according to her friend, Idalia Saldivar Villavicencio, who was with her at the interrogation. After the shooting, the deputies found Mr. Moses, who was uncooperative, the sheriff said. Even then, they weighed the immense consequences of going to the police. Mrs. Garza ignored the calls, as Mrs. Rodrguez had, but the family asked for security from the government. One asked Mrs. Rodrguez for mercy. We just want our son back.. Mexico's notorious drug cartels appear to have resumed some of its bloodiest tactics, after nine half-naked and tortured bodies recently were found hanging from a bridge on a federal highway in. A MEXICAN cartel leader's sister was shot and killed at the church altar on her wedding day by rival gangsters, it has been reported. 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