The haunting story of a young law student left by a highway late at night in northern Mexico ended in grief, with her decaying body found in an underground water tank at a motel.
Assistant Secretary of Public Safety Ricardo Mehia said on Friday that the woman’s body – apparently unrecognizable after nearly two weeks in the water – had a crucifix necklace and clothes that Debanchi Escobar wore the night she disappeared.
Despite what authorities in the border state of Nuevo Leon described as a mass search for her, the story ended the way it often happens in Mexico: when her body was discovered by locals.
A woman holds a poster with an award during a protest following the death of Debanchi Escobar, an 18-year-old law student who went missing on April 9 amid a series of disappearances of women in Nuevo Leon, Monterey, Mexico, April 22, 2022. STRINGER / REUTERS
“The signal was given by hotel staff because of the unpleasant odors coming from the area,” Mejia said.
State prosecutors later said they had confirmed that the body belonged to Escobar.
Escobar’s case caused a captivating photo taken by a driver who had to take her home that evening. It is unclear why she got out of the car, but her father, Mario Escobar, said prosecutors had told him that surveillance footage showed the driver had touched his daughter inappropriately.
“I guess my daughter didn’t put up with the harassment,” the father said. The driver was questioned, but his full name was not released. Mario Escobar said that although the driver did not kill her, he was responsible for his daughter’s death.
The driver, who worked for a taxi app, took the photo to show 18-year-old Debanchi getting out of his car alive on April 8 on the outskirts of Monterey. Here she is, a young woman standing alone at night by the highway, wearing a skirt and high sneakers.
The image seemed to speak of the young woman’s great vulnerability and self-confidence – or despair.
No one saw her until late Thursday when investigators managed to retrieve her body from a 12-foot water tank near the pool at the roadside motel.
Mario Escobar said “prosecutors have not done their job properly”.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday that the case “logically created a lot of worries, a lot of anxiety” among Mexicans.
Critics are concerned that even when authorities are urged to act in public protest, investigations are rarely very timely or effective.
During the week that investigators said 200 officers used drones, search dogs and surveillance camera footage to search for Debanhi, her body was actually lying not far from where she was last seen.
A flyer with information about Debanchi Escobar, an 18-year-old law student who has been missing since April 9, was photographed during a search conducted by her relatives and security forces in Escobedo, Mexico, April 18, 2022. DANIEL BESERRIL / REUTERS
Murders of women have increased in recent years in Mexico, from 977 cases in 2020 to 1,015 in 2021. And these were just cases classified as “feminicides”, a legal term used in Mexico when women were killed due to their gender. Murders of women are generally much higher.
The disappearance of women is also high, with about 1,600 missing so far this year. Authorities say 829 of them are still missing and 16 have been found dead.
On Tuesday, Nuevo Governor Leon Samuel Garcia said he would increase funding and resources to help fight gender-based violence, Reuters reported.
“We are working very hard to address the causes of this problem and I will be very clear: to the rapists, to those who commit the murder of women, and to all those who injure women in Nuevo Leon, to know that we will find them and we will let’s punish. in full compliance with the law, “Garcia said in a Facebook post.
Just before Debanchi Escobar disappeared, another woman was killed in Monterey, 27-year-old Maria Fernanda Contreras. The suspect – apparently a friend or acquaintance of the woman – was arrested.
Authorities searched for Escobar this week, and local media reported that the bodies of five other women and girls had been found in the state. All the victims were reported missing at about the same time as Debanhi. Four were 16 or younger.
The head of the state search commission, Mary Balderas, later said the reports were wrong. She said all five young women were found alive.
Angelica Orosco, who heads the United Forces for Our Missing Persons relatives in Nuevo Leon, said the problem was not only that the authorities were slow to investigate and did badly, but also tended to blame the victims.
“The first thing is that they do not carry out thorough investigations or searches, and the second is the statements of the authorities, which in some cases link them to illegal activities,” Orosko said.
She was particularly concerned when Nuevo Public Prosecutor Leon Gustavo Guerrero said on Thursday that most women were disappearing voluntarily or as an act of “riot”.
“The main reason for the disappearance of women is due to lack of communication with their families, because of disputes with them, because of the rebellion of young people,” Guerrero said. “The age range of most of the women who are missing is between 14 and 25, but this is not a crime, but rather a voluntary one.
This view was challenged by Maria de la Luz Estrada of the National Feminicide Observatory activist group, who said it had become a depressing pattern that when women disappeared, they were dead.
“This is very serious and deplorable,” Estrada said of Escobar’s case, “but this is the pattern in recent years, with disappearances becoming crimes like the murder of women.”
The problem is also not limited to Nuevo Leon. Authorities in another border state, Sonora, have so many missing women – and men – that state prosecutors there have announced they are sending mobile labs to three cities to “collect mass DNA samples” from relatives of the missing to help identify the bodies. found there.
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