Mexico City - The torture, rape, and coup de grace given to five people including photojournalist Rubén Espinosa and activist Nadia Vera in the Narvarte neighborhood [Mexico City], reveal actions by hired assassins that were carried out by four or five people who "had orders".
Fernando Ruiz Canales, president of the Council for Law and Human Rights, who has been investigating and studying kidnapper profiles since 1991 argues that those who perpetrated the crime were "hired murderers".
Max Morales, the criminal lawyer who made the psychological profile of kidnapper Daniel Arizmendi, El Mochaorejas, shoots down the hypothesis of the Mexico City Prosecutor's Office which has robbery among its main lines of investigation. Morales says that the official story is not properly supported; therefore, he concludes:
"It's a fantasy."Morales's focus is on the stolen suitcase and the fact that neither the laptops nor smartphones were taken.
In an interview, the criminologist—who has been involved in getting to the bottom of several multiple murders that have taken place in Mexico City—does not rule out "political crime" as a motive. However, he explains that he sees that as only one possible motive, since "torture" is used to get information which inclines him more toward motives of theft of information, money, or drugs.
Both investigators agree with the complaint lodged against authorities because of lack of secrecy and leaking investigative information.
Chain of Evidence Broken
Interviewed by Proceso, Ruiz Canales points out that among the Mexico City Prosecutor's first mistakes was the failure to maintain the "chain of custody"; that is, the crime scene was not preserved intact. No profile was made of either the offender or the victim. Profiling involves investigating
"why did what happened to them occur. With this [understanding of motive], you [investigator] get the person responsible. If you apply criminal psychology, you are going to understand the nature of the crime, and why it took place the way it did."Ruiz also demands that Daniel Pacheco Gutiérrez, the only person so far arrested and consigned [to prison awaiting judicial proceeding], take a polygraph [lie-detector] test in the presence of human rights representative and that an analysis of voice stress be performed.
Based only on statements leaked by the Attorney General of the Federal District [Mexico City], Max Morales believes that the threat to the victims, the torture, rape, and the five "shots of resolution" could be carried out in 48 minutes by four or five people, but not by only three as the detainee maintains.
Morales rules out that it might have been a house burglary as maintained by the authority arguing:
"They left many things" that a professional thief would have taken. "They were going for something else."Those who work at robbing houses, Morales declares,
"don't rape or torture. They injure you, threaten you .... During a robbery, they gag you and leave you alive. Then why rape, kill, and torture them? Because you need to know something."Proceso: Could it be about revenge?
"It could be. You are designated to kill, but not to torture or all the rest."Morales notes that certainly it was a theft, because they took a suitcase,
"but they took (whatever it was) that they came for. They left the rest, and there were important things. A directed robbery would be possible."Then he adds that it is important to know what was in the suitcase: drugs, money, information, or documents:
"They planned it very well, and they probably knew someone, because they opened the door to them."It could have been the domestic employee, and, he adds, this has to be investigated. All this can be known with polygraph and voice stress tests. ... One of the investigative lines should target the domestic employee, who was also executed, because of her similar economic status.
Morales maintains:
"This was targeted viciousness; someone opened the door to them. They were meticulous."Given the way they acted, and from information that has been published, it can be considered that there were more than three, and whoever took the suitcase is the boss.
The detainee's face shows an unrepentant sadist. Since he is justifying that he did not participate in the murder, he could be the boss. Morales puts forward:
"If there is a mastermind, he [mastermind] hired him [detainee]. If there was [a mastermind]."Proceso: Could it be about a political crime?
"It's difficult but not impossible. Whatever was in the suitcase has to be seen."Morales does not believe that Nadia Vera was truly frightened during the last interview she gave, but the photographer definitely was:
"It may be that Nadia had discovered information or documents, but they wouldn't have killed either Nadia or Rubén like that. They would fake an assault on the street."Morales agrees with Ruiz Canales that rape couldn't have been the objective, because it would have been done to all five to torment Rubén.
Profile of a Hitman
Ruiz Canales who was close to the legal process for the murder of Fernando Martí's son in 2008, and who has participated in the investigation of at least a 1,500 homicides across the country says clearly: it was not robbery; murder is not part of the criminal profile of thieves. He, too, considers that four or five perpetrated the rape, torture and executions:
"A kidnapper is not the same as a rapist. The thief goes for the goods. He doesn't leave them behind: he wouldn't like abandoning the red Mustang, the telephones or the computers. The rapist exercises power over his victim through sexual submission.
"Rape, torture, and execution are atypical acts for a robbery. These peculiarities fit more the profile of a contract killing. I see a set of actions where gunmen were paid to make them suffer. They are trained to handle weapons and objectify their victims. They do not see the virtues of a human being."Ruiz adds:
"What I see is that this group exercised passions; that is, feelings, particularly hatred and contempt. Even if you are hired, you are the extension of the one who hires you. The one who paid you gave you an order, and the hit man does as they paid him to do. The assassin is the extension of whomever hired him. He expresses his boss's feelings, but he also manifests his own illness. A gunman would definitely use a tube to rape, because they hired him to cause suffering.
"The torture shows that information was sought, that's why they did it. If it is true that a potato peeler was used, then it was a prolonged, hard torture. They took their time. The torturer seeks methods to cause pain and cause the greatest terror in his victims. In this torture, I'm sure, he presided over an interrogation."In 48 minutes, more than four gunmen can kill, rape and torture, he maintains, and he believes that all were armed.
For Ruiz Canales it is laughable to say that the only person arrested for presumed involvement is a street juggler and an informal car parker*.
"These presumed house robbers leave the most precious good, the Mustang, which can be sold with legal papers in two days. They leave two laptops and [smart] phones that can easily be sold in hours and get at least 5,500 pesos [US$333]. But not only that ... they say that one of them was a friend of the model.
"I know models. They do not go around with people who earn less than they do. They say that the viene-viene* worked on Calzada del Hueso and Miramontes Streets. That's no more than a shopping center where he would get 200 pesos [US$12.10] per day. Someone with an income of 200 pesos a day cannot have a nine-millimeter gun, a Renault, and models as friends. It doesn't fit."Ruiz is familiar with the area. Since 2010 he's been making a documentary about the people who work in the street; [hence] he knows perfectly well who works there
"and there is no one matching the details that the detainee gave."Ruiz argues:
"Nothing sounds logical, and achieving this level of crime isn't done overnight. There's an entire process. Therefore, he is not a criminal just for being a person who works in the street as a juggler. Many [jugglers] are people with training who have decided to earn an income through the art they practice and know. They are known, they meet in University City [campus of National Autonomous University of Mexico] to practice, and there are no jugglers with those characteristics on Miramontes Avenue."Ruiz Canales elaborates about the robbery, saying:
"A person who has to share the rent does not have great resources [victims shared the apartment], and anyone engaged in robbery knows how much he can get and if the victim has money. The event fits the profile for a hired assassin better. It cannot be forgotten that both Nadia and Rubén had been harassed and threatened. Do not forget that in Veracruz a hitman can be hired for only 10,000 pesos [US$605].
"I think they were going for them [Rubén and Nadia]. Señora Alejandra was collateral damage and so was Yesenia Quiroz. The prosecutor has the obligation—and the profile of the victim so marks it—to establish as a line of investigation the threats received by the victims. But these threats never existed for the Prosecutor. He didn't notice."Spanish original
*MV Note: Almost sixty percent of workers earn their living in Mexico's "informal economy"; i.e., without benefits. In order to make money, men perform juggling acts (balls, sticks, etc.) at busy intersections then pass by the stopped cars to collect money. Similarly, other men (also "informal" subsistence workers) claim stretches of a street and help people to park, then take care of the cars in public spaces in exchange for some money. They are called "viene-viene" (come-come) because that's what they say to help car owners park quickly.