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On Mexican border, three men detained for rape, homicide of young woman


ASSOCIATED PRESS

1:13 p.m. December 29, 2005

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Three men have been arrested for the Christmas Eve rape and homicide of a 17-year-old girl in this violent Mexican border city, authorities said Thursday.
According to statements from two of the suspects, the three men were drinking with Claudia Flores Javier in her home in the early hours of Dec. 24 when one of them proposed having sex with her. She refused and the three then raped her, said Claudia Elena Banuelos, spokeswoman for the state Attorney General's office.

One of the men responded to Flores' resistance by hitting her several times on the head with a blunt object, which has not yet been found, Banuelos said. When the man noticed that he had beaten Flores into unconsciousness, he ran away, she said.

The three suspects were identified as Mario Loya Aguirre and Jorge Armando Sifuentes Martinez – both detained on Dec. 25 – and Eleazar Pena Navarro, who was arrested Tuesday. All were being held in Ciudad Juarez, a city of 1.3 million across the border from El Paso, Texas, that has become notorious for the slayings of women.

Flores' death brought to 32 the number of women who have been murdered in the city this year. Police say they have solved 26 of the crimes.

Federal investigators say that more than 350 women have been slain in Ciudad Juarez since 1993. About 100 killings followed a similar pattern in which young women were sexually assaulted, strangled and dumped in the desert.