Murders in Cuidad Juarez, Mexico
Fact Sheet & Timeline

• On January 23, 1993, in Cuidad Juárez, Mexico, the body of Alma Chavira Farel was found, the first of what was to be an ongoing series of murders of young, poor women. Since that time, on average one a month, the bodies of 98 other young women have been found -- bound, raped and strangled in a similar fashion and dumped in vacant lots or areas of the desert outside of town. All are young and poor. Many work in the assembly plants know as maquiladoras, many were drawn to the area by the jobs in these factories.
• The overall murder rate for women in Juarez is twice that of Mexico generally (7.9 per 100,000 versus 3.1). The rate for woman age 15-24 in Juarez is five times the rate of Tijuana and more than ten times that of El Paso, TX (12.4 for Juarez, 3.6 for Tijuana and 1.1 for El Paso).
• In 1994, the chief forensic expert in Juarez, Oscar Maynez Grijalva, warned his superiors that there was a serial killer at work in Juarez. Ester Chavez Cano, now the director of Casa Amiga, the area’s only rape crisis center, began to publicly question officials about the number of deaths. A group of women journalists, writers, activists, began to publicize the issue locally. The state of Chihuahua, under pressure appointed a task force to investigate crimes against women (La Fiscalia Especial de Investigacion de Homicidios contra Mujeres). The murders continued.
• In 1995, Abdel Latif Sharif Sharif, an Egyptian national was arrested and charge with being the serial killer. The murders continued.
• In April, 1996, the police mounted a huge sweep of the downtown bar area and took 150 people into custody. All were released except for 15, an alleged gang known as Los Rebeldes. The then Chihuahua State Attorney General Arturo Chavez Chavez told reporters that the state police (PJE) had carried out an “FBI style” investigation. Los Rebeldes were charged with the murders which occurred since the incarceration of Sharif Sharif, citing Sharif at the mastermind who paid $1200 per body from his jail cell. The murders continued.
• In April, 1999, a gang called Los Choferes were arrested and charged with the abduction and rape of a 13 year old. Two members of this group were Juarez city police. They were also said to be in the pay of Sharif Sharif. There followed a relative lag in bodies linked to a serial killing but the background level of violence continued.
• In November, 2001, 8 bodies were found in a cotton field within the city, across from AMAC, an association of the owners of maquiladoras. Two men, bus drivers, were arrested almost immediately and charged with murder, again said to be in the pay of Sharif Sharif, who was by now in prison in Chihuahua and in solitary confinement. The men were beaten by the PJE. This was documented by the jailer who took photos of the men when they entered his custody and after the men were interrogated by the PJE. Oscar Maynez Grijalva resigned as chief of forensics after being asked to plant evidence in the van of the bus drivers. One of their lawyers was assassinated by the PJE, who claim they mistook him for a drug dealer. One of the bus drivers died in custody. Their wives have been threatened.
• The results from DNA evidence from the 8 “cotton-field” bodies found in November 2001 is contradictory and has been repeated several times. Families have repeatedly asked for the results of these samples, sent to Mexico City. Over a year later, in mid- 2002 the government admits that only one of the 8 bodies could be positively identified by the DNA testing.
• Since November, 2001, border NGOs, at the request of the victim's families have been pressuring both the U.S. and Mexican governments to allow the FBI to assist in the investigation. In early 2003, Mexico agrees and the FBI offers technological help to the police forces in Chihuahua. This help takes the form of a class in public relations.
• Also in March, 2003, technical support was offered, in the form of an anonymous tip line staffed by the El Paso Police. Mayor Raymond Caballero of El Paso, in announcing the start of the toll-free number from Juarez stated “crimes that occur in Juarez are 100% under the jurisdiction of Mexican authorities” but he says he wants to “provide as much support as we can in the hope that we can assist in the prevention of further loss of life and in the apprehension and prosecution of those who perpetrated these crimes.” American memories are short. In 1999, an FBI tip line received a report from an informant, naming a drug dealer as the responsible party for one murder. After an investigation of their own, the FBI sent a confidential report to Suly Ponce, the fiscalia. The next day, the report is printed in a Mexico City newspaper. The following day, men purporting to be FBI agents comb one neighborhood, searching for the informant.
• In February, 2003, more three more bodies are found in the desert in an area that residents claim is open only to gravel trucks and police vehicles. These murders now appear to be spreading beyond Cuidad Juarez.
  After years of pressure by Mexican NGOs, the federal police enter the case in March, 2003 by arresting two men and charging them with abducting women in a scheme to sell organs to “El Canario” and “El William” in El Paso for $400 each. The FBI apparently assisted in the crime scene investigation of the residences of those charged, a t-shirt seller and an ironworker. All charges are dropped in July, 2003.
• In July, 2003, Cynthia Kiecker, an American woman and her Mexican husband are arrested and tortured until they confess to killing 16 year old Marcela Viviana Rayas in Chihuahua city.