CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — Gunmen killed a mother who had been protesting for three days in front of a governor’s office in northern Mexico to demand justice for her slain daughter, authorities said Friday.
The brutal killing of activist Marisela Escobedo Ortiz stunned people across Mexico, and a group of women angrily demanding justice gathered outside the state prosecutor’s office in this border city, where the victim’s daughter was killed.
Escobedo’s slaying “shows that in Mexico, it is the victim who suffers,” said anti-crime activist Alejandro Marti.
The uproar resulted in the suspension of three state judges who had ordered the freeing of the main suspect in the slaying of Escobedo Ortiz’s daughter — the same man who was identified as a chief suspect in the mother’s death.
The vicious nature of the killing — which was caught on a security camera and broadcast repeatedly on national television — added to the anger. The video shows masked men pulling up in a car Thursday night in front of the governor’s office in Chihuahua city, the capital of Chihuahua state, where Ciudad Juárez is located.
One man appeared to exchange words with Escobedo Ortiz, who tried to flee by running across the street. The gunman chased her down and shot her in the head, said Jorge Gonzalez, special state prosecutor for crime prevention.
A spokesman for the state attorney general’s office, Carlos Gonzalez, said investigators think one of the gunmen was Sergio Barraza, the main suspect in the killing of Escobedo Ortiz’s 17-year-old daughter, Rubi Frayre Escobedo, whose burned and dismembered remains were found in a trash bin in Ciudad Juárez on June 18, 2009.
He was absolved by a court in April for lack of evidence.
