She asked the government for armed guards, fearing the cartel had finally had enough. She said it matter-of-factly, as though describing her sleep. But with each passing day, the trails grew more faint. The place where the body of 14-year-old Luciano Leal Garza was found. Mrs. Rodrguez, already separated from her husband, moved in with her older daughter, Azalea. He lashed out at critics. She was not allowed to interview Silva without the presence of state police and prosecutors. Sheriff Mina emphasized that officials did not yet know the suspects motive for shooting five people or the nature of his connections to them. Through the static, she heard someone call him by name: Sama. Meanwhile, she wrote in 2006, Herrera assures Veracruz that nothing is happening, that there is social tranquility in the state. 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. They have hired gravediggers and forensic experts. Bullet holes pockmarked the outer walls of the adobe house, remnants of a gunfight months earlier. This also deprives real businesses of business., Herrera, now 71, has always denied the allegations. La Voz is one such example of this, as the newspaper is not real . A scarf that belonged to Karen and a seat cushion from her truck lay near the top. Recently, she has investigated Russian disinformation operations, censorship around the world, the massive national security state, CIA operations and veterans issues. Every noise from the street startled them. Very NSFL. The Client Who Got Him Killed. Logan was in Cairo covering. After the shooting, the deputies found Mr. Moses, who was uncooperative, the sheriff said. LEFT: Martnez in an undated photo. 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.. And they knew their prosperity had made them obvious targets, even more so than the Rodrguez family. XALAPA, Mexico Regina Martnez's death was brutal. She Stalked Her Daughters Killers Across Mexico, One by One, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/13/world/americas/miriam-rodriguez-san-fernando.html. 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. Mrs. Garza ignored the calls, as Mrs. Rodrguez had, but the family asked for security from the government. A murder in Veracruz: Slain journalists story a portrait of a violent, corrupt era in Mexico. They are surrounded by 13 masked men, apparently Los Zetas hitmen, who point their rifles at them. Luis arrived late to the funeral, after the procession had already made its way down streets lined with residents watching little Lucianos casket en route to the cemetery. 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. For the most part, residents dont speak out against organized crime. She has lived, worked and. Townspeople marched, demanding justice for Luciano. Cartel violence has long scarred San Fernando, Mexico. and he used them to keep order in some regions of the state., In 2012, after Martnezs death, Herreras name also surfaced in sworn testimony at the U.S. money-laundering trial of Veracruz oilman Francisco Colorado-Cessa in U.S. District Court in Austin. She invented excuses to meet their families, unsuspecting grandmothers and cousins who gave her details, however small. 25. A Mexican drug cartel used Twitter for evil after murdering a doctor and. Someone broke in through the metal door from her beloved garden patio, the tiny patch of tranquility that kept her from . Without showering, she threw a trench coat over her pajamas, a baseball cap over her fire engine-red hair and a gun in her purse, heading for the border to find the florist. Families have suffered kidnappings and cartel-imposed curfews much as big city residents endure traffic and pollution. When she returned, the officer asked her what she had been thinking. She was murdered by Los Pepes for being "Pablo's whore" in 1993. Perhaps softened by her kindness, Cristian told them everything. The series examines the power and activities of Mexican cartels and their collusion with corrupt government officials. The office announced that Isidoro Gonzles Gernimo, a suspected drug trafficker known as "El Isis" who operated in Guerrero, was also shot and killed in Oaxaca state on Friday. A man who fatally shot a 38-year-old woman on Wednesday morning in Orange County, Fla., returned to the scene later in the day and went on a shooting spree, the authorities said, killing a 24-year-old TV news reporter who had been covering the original homicide and a 9-year-old at a nearby home. These horrific crimes prompted the 15 reporters who covered crime in Veracruz to flee town, according to an investigation by the Committee to Protect Journalists. Some members left to form their own groups. The cartel never had intended to keep him, and after they let him go Mrs. Rodrguez mined his memory for everything he had heard or seen. To hear more audio stories from publishers like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android. Hardly a block has been untouched missing sons, loved ones murdered, houses abandoned. Lucianos family had no one. Some of her colleagues fled Veracruz the day she died and have never returned. She had known Ms. Betancourt ever since she was a child, abandoned by a prostitute at the local brothel. She scoffed. Dana Priest, a reporter at The Washington Post for 30 years, covers national security issues. She had said as much in her time, words now carved onto a plaque affixed to her mausoleum. Our hearts go out to the family of the journalist killed today and the crew member injured in Orange County, Florida, as well as the whole Spectrum News team, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said on Twitter. . When I heard him just now it was like my own child.. 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. LEFT: The family of slain Proceso photojournalist Rubn Espinosa during his funeral in Mexico City in 2015. Its really amazing, their bravery.. A dirt road where the first ransom for Luciano was dropped. But Mrs. Rodrguez fought the government on its analysis, and rightly so. Perhaps she had even been watching the ranch in case the police came. Halfway through the year, Adame's death brings to seven the 2017 toll of slain press . Mrs.Rodrguezs son, Luis, at the ranch where the remains of his sister, Karen, were found. 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.. The authorities pledged to capture her killers. Female reporters and their family members have been murdered in the drug war for writing anti-cartel articles for newspapers or posting messages on the internet. Not long after Luciano was taken, the kidnappers called his father and handed the phone to the teenager. Bermdez has pleaded not guilty, and the case is pending. . Law enforcement officers at the scene of a shooting in Pine Hills, Fla., on Wednesday. Authorities told. Sure enough, she found him there. They slept in tents pitched in the city center and wore ponchos to weather the seasonal storms. Not everyone got along with her, said Gloria Garza, an official in the state government. Police denied his claims, but Borbolla said she believes Silva. Martnezs homicide shocked many who assumed a reporter at such a respected national outlet was too high-profile to be killed. To gather information for this account, reporters traveled to Veracruz for interviews and to obtain documents. They called on friends and citizens to march with them, to demand the return of little Luciano. It was Sama. In August of this year, the family went to Mexico City to pressure the government. For Karen, it was Cristian, the teenager Mrs. Rodrguez had fed. Luis said he had to sneak onto the street to give her a jump. During the trial, witnesses said he had. [69] [70] [71] [72] [73] The girlfriends, [74] wives, and daughters of male journalists and media workers have been murdered. It is unclear whether the gunman knew that the reporter and photographer in the vehicle were journalists. For a city of about 60,000, San Fernando bears an infamy out of proportion to its size, a misfortune born of geography. She was never able to find the mysterious witness. Now she finally had one a widow called to tell her that he was peddling flowers on the border. After a week, he stopped answering the phone. That is, until July of this year, when a 14-year-old boy, Luciano Leal Garza, was snatched off the streets the most public kidnap-for-ransom case since Mrs. Rodrguezs crusade to find her daughter. 1. nycboots 3 days ago. She had eaten there with Azalea only two days after Karens kidnapping. The following day, Lucianos father deposited a bag of cash on an abandoned dirt road that ran perpendicular to the highway, as Karens father had. His mother made a heart-rending recording, pleading with the kidnappers to return her son. At 17, he was convicted for two murders and sentenced to 70 years in a Texas states prison . By Eduardo Medina,April Rubin and Christine Chung. Follow @Borderland_Beat . Anyone can read what you share. She quoted people saying they knew Herrera had given the orders. Cartels controlled the state, she told readers, even promoting themselves in YouTube videos. to do drilling, to do cleanup, things like that anything that the government hired them to do, the accountant testified. The intruder probably surprised her in the bathroom, from behind, investigators believe. CNN and The New York Times sent reporters. And to get it, she needed to get close. There is a drug war in Nuevo Laredo between rival drug cartels that . (Alberto Morales Garcia/Forbidden Stories) RIGHT: Martnez with Patricio Chirinos Calero, former governor of Veracruz. Frightened colleagues sometimes tried to warn her off investigations. 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. Luis, Karens older brother, had moved away to escape the danger. 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]. Many justify their silence with the belief that victims were engaged in illegal activity themselves. Martnez reported it all: The rape and homicide of a 72-year-old Indigenous woman by army soldiers. Both were taken to a nearby hospital, where the girl died. Mrs. Rodrguez went to Aldama, his small hometown of about 13,000 people, and paid a visit to his grandmother. As Mrs. Rodrguez sat outside the interrogation room, the teenager asked whether he could see his mother. Sign in Women Are Being Killed With Impunity. She sat down with a slender young man at El Junior, a restaurant in town. SAN FERNANDO, Mexico Miriam Rodrguez clutched a pistol in her purse as she ran past the morning crowds on the bridge to Texas. Others called, claiming to be the kidnappers. She joined Proceso in 2000. They had a sort of buzzer for giving electric shocks, and they put it on my chest and gave me shocks. We learn how to do that in the first year of criminal studies and it didnt happen only once.. He was like a clown in a rodeo. The Forbidden Stories investigation found that U.S. and Mexican authorities had long been investigating some subjects that Martnez had been pursuing. Jun 30, 2017, 01:01 PM EDT. 1. And last night my chest was in pain. 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. Lucianos kidnapping stirred something in San Fernando. In the time since Martnezs death, her instincts have been validated. Now, after driving by the restaurant again, it dawned on her: Maybe the young woman knew something. Jesse Walden, the News 13 photographer who was shot, remains hospitalized but is speaking to detectives, Sheriff Mina said. A white Nissan truck carrying men who had escaped prison quietly pulled up behind her, according to the police report. During the 16 months Martnez was alive under Duartes tenure, she chronicled an escalation in violence, with mutilated bodies dumped in public almost weekly. Armed men forced their way into her pickup truck and took off, with her in it. At barely 5 feet tall and 100 pounds, she scratched and struggled to fight off her attacker, leaving skin under her fingernails. And the searches for Luciano had turned up nothing. Feb. 2022: Mexican TV host found dead in string of journalist killings. (Marco Ugarte/AP) RIGHT: Posters of Espinosa and four slain women hang outside Veracruz state government offices in 2015, above posters of then-Gov. Then president Donald Trump had even tweeted about it, offering to send in "an army" to defeat the cartels. I want to say that they hit me on the back and I feel pain, Silva said in a statement provided by his attorney, Diana Coq Toscanini. 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