She needed a name. At barely 5 feet tall and 100 pounds, she scratched and struggled to fight off her attacker, leaving skin under her fingernails. Men claiming to speak for Mexico's most powerful drug cartel have released a video threatening to murder a prominent female news anchor over what they deem to be unfair coverage. Over the years, kidnappers had already ransomed several members of Lucianos family, including his father, held for 33 days in 2012. And last night my chest was in pain. Two weeks later, the tortured and decapitated body of Notivers police reporter was discovered. They slept in tents pitched in the city center and wore ponchos to weather the seasonal storms. Valeria Velez (?-1993) was a Colombian journalist who had a romantic relationship with Medellin Cartel boss Pablo Escobar from 1981 to 1991. Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York Times. During the 16 months Martnez was alive under Duartes tenure, she chronicled an escalation in violence, with mutilated bodies dumped in public almost weekly. He had learned the lesson her murder was meant to impart: one could only push so far for justice, at least publicly. Im willing to take you to the ranch where they killed them and where their bodies should still be buried, he said in his statement to the police, referring to the victims of the kidnapping ring. The parent company of Spectrum News 13, Charter Communications, said in a statement on Wednesday night that we are deeply saddened by the loss of our colleague and the other lives senselessly taken today, the TV station reported. They called on friends and citizens to march with them, to demand the return of little Luciano. Luis obsessed over who they were. Now Mrs. Rodrguez was sitting down with one of them, imploring him to release Karen as his radio squawked sporadically. Borbolla had other problems with the crime investigation, which was supposed to be done jointly with state authorities. Linares served as director at the Monitor Michoacan website, which on Tuesday continued to show an . The lifeless body of the young woman had signs of torture and was found with gunshot wounds Sunday morning. 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. Newspapers are dropping the Dilbert comic strip after the creator's racist rants. Dec. 6, 2020. Luis took charge of the collective of San Fernando families with disappeared relatives that his slain mother had created. Those still on the street tried to forge new lives as taxi drivers, gas delivery men or, in the case of Enrique Yoel Rubio Flores, a born-again Christian. Cartel violence has long scarred San . Family, friends, even strangers. It was a witchs brew, said Seeley, who now runs Constos Global Risk Management. He was like a clown in a rodeo. The family followed every instruction to the letter. They fired 13 rounds. He drove over in a truck that his family let him use to get around town, and within seconds, armed men forced their way in, shoving him to the side and driving off just as the kidnappers had done to Karen six years earlier. Her family was not satisfied, but she didnt let that stop her. 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. True to form, Mrs. Rodrguez spent days parked near the familys home, waiting for the young woman to emerge. Through the static, she heard someone call him by name: Sama. The pressure worked. We may never know who killed Regina, but I know who didnt kill Regina., Mexican President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador said at a news conference in November that he would ask that the homicide case be reexamined. 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. Mass graves containing tens of thousands have been subsequently discovered across the country. A mariachi band played as mourners paid their respects at the burial. Authorities responded around 9:58 p.m. Saturday to the intersection of routes 130 and 32 . She recognized him immediately from their lunch, the same slender frame and clean-shaven face. Touched, Mrs. Rodrguez entered the room and gave the teenager her lunch, a piece of fried chicken, then went to buy him a Coke. She was identified as Christina Langford Johnson. 1 min read. Crime scene where El Diario Newspaper Crime Reporter Armando Rodriquez was murdered outside his home while warming up his car. Mrs. Rodrguez raced home and dove back into her research, discovering that Ms. Betancourt was involved romantically with one of Karens kidnappers, who was in prison for an unrelated crime. Her husband, inside watching television, found her face down on the street, hand tucked inside her purse, next to her pistol. Mr. Moses was taken to a hospital, where Sheriff Mina said he fought with hospital staff and was restrained, before being transported to the Sheriffs Office. She had said as much in her time, words now carved onto a plaque affixed to her mausoleum. Who knew how many tracts were scored with anonymous graves? When the police came and arrested him, inside the chapel, the parishioners could hardly believe it, her family recounted. As the funeral crowd dispersed, Luis and Azalea went to their mothers grave, a church-like structure lined with cypress trees. The parents speeches brought tears to the crowd, to Luis and his sister Azalea in particular. 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. At least, until the following year, when rampant abductions of bus passengers led to the unearthing of nearly 200 bodies dumped in mass graves along San Fernandos peripheries. 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. Someone wanted to stop the news reports about the executions. Under Duarte, now 47, corruption and violence increased dramatically. She wrote of his increasing wealth at a time when the state debt soared without a clear explanation. Luis, Mrs. Rodrguezs son, knew from his own experience that the only way to find a body was to get someone to talk. Eight others have disappeared. XALAPA, Mexico Regina Martnezs death was brutal. 34. Additional charges were expected for the other shootings in Pine Hills, about five miles west of Orlando, said the Orange County sheriff, John Mina, who said at a news conference on Thursday that he was 100 percent confident the gunman would be charged with homicide for the murders of Mr. Lyons and Ms. Major. The series examines the power and activities of Mexican cartels and their collusion with corrupt government officials. Luis, Karens older brother, had moved away to escape the danger. I knew her quite well, he said of Martnez, who had covered one of his earlier campaigns. They were both in critical condition on Wednesday night. The Barcelona City Council and Catalonian police launched confidential inquiries looking at Herreras links to people in Barcelona with their own legal problems, according to documents and interviews. But Karen stayed, to finish school and help run her moms small cowboy apparel shop, Rodeo Boots. But with each passing day, the trails grew more faint. Both were taken to a nearby hospital, where the girl died. In three years, Mrs. Rodrguez captured nearly every living member of the crew that had abducted her daughter for ransom, a rogues gallery of criminals who tried to start new lives as a born-again Christian, a taxi driver, a car salesman, a babysitter. She went to the authorities local, state and federal but none would help her. The promise, then, was of a book that could not only be a rewarding read but a transcendental one, a novel that would be emblematic, even canonical. At the time, a neighborhood resident she knew well, Elvia Yuliza Betancourt, had been seated at a table by herself, sipping a soda. 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 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. 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. She was murdered by Los Pepes for being "Pablo's whore" in 1993. 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. Police denied his claims, but Borbolla said she believes Silva. Mexican and U.S. authorities declined to say whether their investigations are still active. 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.. In total, reports indicate six cartel members were captured in the raid that killed her on Friday. Cinemas, nightclubs and shops were almost empty, a consequence of the violence, she wrote. NEW! 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. T'yonna was killed Wednesday when a gunman barged into her home outside Orlando and shot the third-grader and her mother, who survived the attack. The police said they sent periodic patrols by her home and work. When questioned about those holdings, the governor said they belonged to his wealthy wife. Since then, at least 39 more journalists have been murdered. It was not an accident, she said. When Borbolla transferred jobs in late 2015, she insisted Martnezs case remain open because we have those two fingerprints that implicated someone, and we didnt know who he was.. The risk is asymmetric. She froze when she found a stack of personal belongings tossed in a pile. Eventually, she found a federal policeman willing to assist. It was Sept. 15, 2014, the day on which Mexican independence is celebrated. By the 2000s, the state of Veracruz, with its huge Gulf of Mexico port, oil industry and hidden trails, had become a key part of the route from South and Central America for cartels smuggling people, drugs and other contraband north to the United States. Azalea hugged Lucianos mother for more than a minute, weeping. She said state police badly damaged the fingerprints they found at the crime scene with smears and excess dusting powder. [The sniper rifles flowing to Mexican cartels show a decade of U.S. failure]. Abigail Geiger contributed reporting from Orlando, Fla. New Details Emerge in Killing of Reporter, Woman and 9-Year-Old, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/22/us/florida-shooting-news.html. Mrs. Rodrguez, whose courage and determination to find her daughter offered a guiding light for the campaign to save Luciano years later, was also a warning of what awaited anyone who pushed too hard. 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. At least, not in the way they had hoped. Escobar cheated with . She is one of three people to testify in front of the Border Security and . 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