Toluca, Mexico – A Mexican priest has confessed to strangling his pregnant lover after Easter Mass and cutting her body into pieces, a state attorney general said Wednesday.
The Rev. Cesar Torres, 42, admitted killing the 22-year-old woman at his parish on Mexico City’s eastern outskirts, Mexico state Attorney General Abel Villicana said.
Villicana read from a statement signed by Torres in which the priest described his affair with the woman, Veronica Andrade Salinas, and said she came to his home at Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in the city of Nezahualcoyotl to say she was pregnant and ask for money.
According to the statement, the two fought and Torres strangled Salinas to death. He then dragged the body to a nearby bathroom and, according to the statement authorities say he signed, used a kitchen knife to cut off her head and hack her body to pieces. He packed the pieces into plastic bags.
According to the confession, Torres loaded the bags into a pickup truck and dumped them near a cemetery in Chimalhuacan, which like Nezahualcoyotl is in Mexico state.
Authorities in recent weeks recovered the bodies of five other women who had been slain and dumped in Chimalhuacan. Some of those victims had been mutilated – sparking speculation a serial killer could be working in the area.
But Villicana said the testimonies of Salias’ family members led to his arrest Wednesday morning and evidence recovered around the parish helped prompt his confession.
He said Torres was scheduled to appear before a judge in coming days to be formally charged with murder.
The victim was expecting a girl at the time of her slaying.
She left behind two other girls, ages 1 and 6 months. It was not immediately clear if Torres was their father.
