Thread: Mexican Murder Ring Suspects Arrested In U.S.

A video broadcast is available at the article link below.

http://cbs11tv.com/topstories/local_sto ... 24244.html

More articles on the Edgar Alvarez Cruz arrest

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... varez+cruz

Aug 21, 2006 9:57 pm US/Central

Mexican Murder Ring Suspects Arrested In U.S.

Jay Gormley
Reporting

(CBS 11 News/AP) EL PASO A Mexican national is in custody in El Paso for his alleged connection to as many as 14 murders. Police believe the man is part of a larger murder ring responsible for the deaths of as many as 100 women in neighboring Juarez, Mexico.

Edgar Alvarez Cruz is in custody in El Paso, just across the border from Juarez. The Mexican construction worker was arrested Aug. 15 in Denver.

Cruz is implicated in the killings of eight women ages 15 to 21, whose remains were found in Juarez in November 2001.

Last week, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza called Alvarez Cruz's capture "a major break" in the slayings of more than 100 young women in Juarez between 1993 and 2003. Many of the victims were young women last seen in the city's downtown or after taking buses. Their bodies often didn't appear until months later, many of them found dumped in the desert.

Authorities' lack of progress in solving the cases prompted international outrage, as news of the killings made headlines around the world.

In Virginia Jose Francisco Granados de la Paz, who was detained for alleged immigration violations, is suspected of involvement in killings in 2001, the Chihuahua state attorney general's office said in a statement.

The statement did not say when or exactly where Granados de la Paz was arrested or give his age or hometown in Mexico. A spokesman for the prosecutor's office in Chihuahua, which contains Juarez, declined to comment further.

Granados de la Paz is the second confirmed suspect in a two-country investigation that could net several more indictments.

Authorities have arrested and prosecuted a number of suspects over the years, but family members of some Juarez victims say authorities have yet to bring the true culprits to justice.

Federal authorities intervened in 2003, promising to solve 14 rape-strangulation cases involving teenagers and women in Juarez. The federal attorney general's office recently closed those investigations, however, without getting to the bottom of what happened.

Chihuahua Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez said after Alvarez Cruz's arrest that Mexican authorities were holding a Juarez resident named Alejandro Delgado in connection with the killings. But Gonzalez refused to provide further details and later backed away from that statement, saying she didn't want to jeopardize an ongoing investigation.

http://www.dallasnews.com

2 more Mexican men arrested in Juárez rape-murders

3 in custody in El Paso, but concern raised over extent of evidence


12:00 AM CDT on Saturday, August 19, 2006

By ALFREDO CORCHADO / The Dallas Morning News

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico – Two more Mexican men were in custody Friday in El Paso for possible involvement in the killings of women in this border city over the past decade, Mexican and U.S. law-enforcement officials said.

On Thursday, in what was described as a breakthrough in the investigation, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City announced that a Mexican man had been arrested in Denver in connection with the rape and killing of at least 10 of the women. The man, Edgar Álvarez Cruz, was flown Thursday to El Paso and remained in U.S. custody. The arrests Friday of the two other men could be the most solid indication to date that a serial killer or killers committed some of the hundreds of slayings of women in Juárez and Chihuahua state since 1993, authorities said.

"The suspects detained are tied to a critical period in the killings in Ciudad Juárez," Chihuahua Gov. José Reyes Baeza said Friday. U.S. and Mexican authorities have been investigating the men for months, he said.

A Juárez newspaper, Norte de Ciudad Juárez, reported Friday that among the evidence appears to be letters that one of the suspects wrote to relatives in Mexico describing the killings, with details such as how and where the bodies were disposed of. The report could not be independently confirmed.

But concerns emerged late Thursday over the timing of the embassy's announcement and whether Mexican authorities have enough evidence to charge the men. The mother of one victim and a former high-ranking investigator of the cases raised doubts about the significance of the arrests. Oscar Maynes, former state forensics investigator in Chihuahua, said achieving any conviction would be difficult because "of the incompetence of investigators."

"They have botched most of the evidence in the cases," he said. "Some of the women have not even been positively identified. I have many doubts."

"I've been down this road before," said one victim's mother, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Some of us don't even know whether the victims we're mourning are really our daughters."


Arrests in U.S.

Authorities didn't identify the two men whose arrests were announced Friday, and didn't say where they were arrested. But a Mexican official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said one was arrested in West Virginia and the other in Sierra Blanca, Texas.

Mr. Álvarez was to be turned over to Mexican authorities Friday, but that process was halted at the request of the Mexicans, who spent Friday taking statements from the suspects in El Paso. Now the three are expected to be turned over late next week, U.S. and Mexican authorities said.

Some Mexican authorities said privately that they were caught off guard by what they called U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza's "premature announcement" Thursday of the first arrest.

Mr. Garza called the arrest of Mr. Álvarez a "major break" in the investigation. But a Mexican law-enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the announcement could "jeopardize the ongoing investigation."

A U.S. Embassy official said: "Ambassador Garza's statements speak for themselves."

Of the hundreds of women kidnapped and slain in Juárez, the deaths of at least 100 reportedly involved sexual assault and mutilation. The cases have inspired several documentaries and at least three Hollywood movies, two of which are to be released early next year.

Mexican authorities stressed Friday that the investigation is continuing. Additional time is needed to "gather all the necessary evidence" against the suspects, said Sergio Belmonte, a spokesman for the state of Chihuahua and state Attorney General Patrícia González.

Mr. Álvarez is "likely responsible" for the deaths of at least 10 women in Juárez, including crimes known as the Cotton Field murders, named for a field where the bodies of eight women were discovered Nov. 6-7, 2001, the U.S. Embassy statement said.



Evidence called solid

Speaking in Mexico City, Mexican Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca said of Mr. Álvarez: "We don't exactly know how many homicides he may have been responsible for, but there is solid evidence in several cases we know of."

Mr. Belmonte said it isn't known whether the men have organized-crime or drug-gang connections. "It's just too early to say. At this point, we can't even say whether they're part of any gang," he said.

Over the years, there have been several theories about who's behind the murders, from serial killers to a satanic cult, domestic partners or gangs working for drug cartels.

U.S. and Mexican investigators have told The Dallas Morning News that part of the overall investigation centered on drug dealers suspected of raping and killing women during cocaine parties to celebrate successful smuggling operations.

Authorities have arrested several other people in the killings. They included an Egyptian chemist who died in prison earlier this year; a bus driver, Victor García Uribe, whose conviction was overturned; and his co-defendant, Gustavo González Meza, who died in prison before sentencing. Their two lawyers were slain. Not much is known about Mr. Álvarez, a cement worker who lived with his girlfriend in the Denver area, according to Ken Deal, chief deputy of the U.S. Marshals office in Denver. Mr. Deal said his team started following Mr. Álvarez "a little over a month ago."

"We knew based on information that he was someone of importance, but our mission was simply to locate and arrest him," he said.

The Denver Police Department said a 20-year-old man named Edgar Álvarez Cruz has a criminal record for destruction of private property, disturbing the peace, threats to injure a person, and other crimes.

Email acorchado@dallasnews.com