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"Women Being Murdered for Sport" - Texas Author Getting Death Threats
Last Update: Feb 23, 2007 11:49 AM

Posted By: Maritza Nunez





She has risked her life investigating hundreds of the most sick, twisted murders ever in this part of the world.

You've probably never heard of her -- yet.
But soon the world may know of this brave Texan because of an explosive new book and two new movies coming out. One of those movies features some Hollywood stars.

News 4's Randy Beamer took his camera out west, and then way out west, to get the story of a real hero of Juarez.
The bodies of girls and young and women started turning up in 1993 just across the border in Juarez, mexico.

Soon they noticed a pattern. Many of the victims had been raped, tortured, and mutilated, before they were finally strangled or suffocated.

"There was this sense of dread, almost evil, hovering over the city." Diana Washington Valdez is a reporter at the El Paso Times. "I think about it sometimes when I wake up in the morning."

As the bodies piled up and years passed, she came to know more about the murders than even Mexican police.

At least the police who weren't involved.

She says many are corrupt-- ignoring or protecting powerful men she calls prime suspects in some of the killings.

"(They're) having women abducted for them for the purpose of sex orgies and also in some cases to participate in the killings of the victims."

"They're doing it for sport," says Valdez.

"What got me into this was the brutality in which they were being killed. I felt there were many victims and the authorities kept downplaying everything."

Since 1993, more than 500 girls and young women have been murdered in Juarez. Washington Valdez says about a third of them were sex-murders.

"But the important thing here for me-- they were not murders committed with the motive of some kind of rape or sexual assault. The objective for many of these murders, the systematic murders as we call them, is really to kill the women. The objective always is to kill the women."

Diana's new book, Harvest of Women, is just coming out and she's naming names of any number of murder suspects.

"People are telling us it's a strong book. They can't believe how detailed it is. And well, that was the point, the point was to bring out all this information before the public."

Diana writes detailed accounts of stories we've also brought you over the years. Stories such as the eight bodies discovered near a busy intersection. Of suspects that were quickly arrested. Some were tortured. Some died in jail.

After her own investigation she is convinced "none of these people had anything to do with the murders. None of them!"

And more than a dozen special prosecutors came and went over the years with big promises but no results.

Her investigation is also at the center of a powerful new documentary called "Border Echoes," just featured at a film festival in Seattle.

The publicity tour for her book and the documentary is just beginning.

In Seattle, Valdez is already being treated as a rock star by human rights activists.

But there's also real concern that the publicity could draw the wrong kind of attention from the wrong people.

"I do fear for my life," Valdez admits "I don't focus on that. I just focus on the work at hand. I don't want to be paralyzed by fear."

Diana's had any number of death threats over the years. And she's had more now with the book coming out.

"(I) also found out two weeks ago that the Barnes and Noble in El Paso got threats because they were carrying the book. And that is one of the reasons we try not to publicize it too much in advance."

"I wouldn't risk my life for just covering the inner workings of a drug cartel," she says. "But this I saw as something very different. I saw girls being plucked off the streets... becoming victims of a killing machine."

"She's absolutely been the champion of this case, doggedly going after this story at great personal risk," says Katrin Wilde with Amnesty International.

She credits Diana for helping keep the story alive. "Without her and other people on the ground daring to ask the questions,

And a Hollywood movie is soon coming out with Jennifer Lopez playing... an investigative reporter.

So did Valdez ever think Jennifer Lopez would play her in a movie?

"No. I never thought that. I mean other people have thought that but I have never said and thought that. I just felt it's great they have these big names being lent to a movie about an issue I felt was very important. And it was finally going to get the kind of attention and visibility it deserved."

Still, Diana knows the movie bringing more attention to the murders could bring her more death threats.

"If the worst thing happens to me and I am killed, will it be worth it to me for this or not?... If I can help save lives. If I can help bring justice. If I can just expose this, I think it will be worth it."

You can reach Randy Beamer at randybeamer