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The Daughters of Juárez: A True Story of Serial Murder South of the Border by Teresa Rodríguez
book_concierge's review
4.0
Subtitle: A True Story of Serial Murder South of the Border.
Beginning in 1993, the residents of Juárez, Mexico, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, became aware of a disturbing frequency of murders of young women. The women were mostly young, slender, and with long hair. They disappeared in broad daylight, from bus stops or while walking home from their jobs in factories or downtown shops. Their bodies were typically found in the surrounding desert, usually days or weeks after they disappeared, with the result that there was little evidence remaining. And yet the families claimed that authorities took the murders too lightly.
Investigators bungled or just ignored standard procedures, failed to collect and secure (or just lost or destroyed) key evidence, and relied on torture of random suspects to secure “confessions” and clear the dockets. The continued murders attracted international attention, but despite heightened scrutiny the crimes and lack of prosecution continued.
Journalist Teresa Rodríguez was a reporter for Univision and spent considerable time in the area interviewing families, suspects, prosecutors and police officials (when allowed to). This is her report of the time up to about 2005. It’s well researched and the story is presented in a manner that is easy to absorb, however distressing the subject.
Some estimate that at least 350 women were murdered between 1993 and 2005. It seems that the machismo culture put little value on these women. But Rodríguez makes it clear that there was considerable corruption and/or ineptitude among authorities. The most disturbing thing to me is that the book leaves the reader with more questions than answers.
Beginning in 1993, the residents of Juárez, Mexico, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, became aware of a disturbing frequency of murders of young women. The women were mostly young, slender, and with long hair. They disappeared in broad daylight, from bus stops or while walking home from their jobs in factories or downtown shops. Their bodies were typically found in the surrounding desert, usually days or weeks after they disappeared, with the result that there was little evidence remaining. And yet the families claimed that authorities took the murders too lightly.
Investigators bungled or just ignored standard procedures, failed to collect and secure (or just lost or destroyed) key evidence, and relied on torture of random suspects to secure “confessions” and clear the dockets. The continued murders attracted international attention, but despite heightened scrutiny the crimes and lack of prosecution continued.
Journalist Teresa Rodríguez was a reporter for Univision and spent considerable time in the area interviewing families, suspects, prosecutors and police officials (when allowed to). This is her report of the time up to about 2005. It’s well researched and the story is presented in a manner that is easy to absorb, however distressing the subject.
Some estimate that at least 350 women were murdered between 1993 and 2005. It seems that the machismo culture put little value on these women. But Rodríguez makes it clear that there was considerable corruption and/or ineptitude among authorities. The most disturbing thing to me is that the book leaves the reader with more questions than answers.
lucidstyle's review
3.0
This book presented a good balance of survivor experiences with examination of a very corrupt and outdated approach to crime solving. Sad that this has gone on so long, sad that the response is so lackluster, sad that lives are evidently so devalued. Deeper problems of contention are the machismo paternalism of the culture, and the region's economy and ineptness of government agencies to address the harsh realities that people here face. I know I am lucky to be in America; I don't think that means we should build a fence and say too bad for anyone who doesn't live here. Every human carries a portion of the shame when others are allowed to be treated so terribly.
proseandpostre's review against another edition
4.0
Discovering how deep the corruption goes in Mexico through this book, was frankly disturbing and unimaginable! All I can do is pray that these women, the victims of the depravity in this country, and their families can find solace and peace one day. And that one day the women in Juarez, and all of Mexico can live without the constant fear of being tortured, raped, and killed.
burritapal_1's review
dark
emotional
informative
sad
slow-paced
3.0
"... I wondered if this Mexican visionary ever fathomed that his beloved city would become such an abyss of murder and injustice. Perhaps that's why some swear that they've seen Benito Juarez weep."
Author Teresa Rodriguez
The daughters of Juarez is a story that documents the feminicides, or femicides, shortened, from it's beginning in the early nineties to the date of publication, 2007. The book documents the obvious cover ups of the murders of young women and young girls, some as young as 10 years old, that are violent and sexual in nature, most often with evidenceof torture. Bodies are found in the desert on the outskirts of Juarez, and sometimes right in the downtown, in an empty field, and when parents go to municipal police to report their daughters missing, the police are indifferent, making fun of them, blaming it on the victims, and refusing to investigate. Moreover, crime scenes are deliberately Corrupted, and any DNA evidence that is gathered is corrupted, and/or lost.
In Mexico, drug cartels own the government: politicians, and federal, state, and municipal police. If they don't cooperate, they are assassinated. Cartel operatives sell young women to wealthy men all over the world, who come to Juarez, looking for a "good time," knowing that impunity reigns. Girls and young women are kidnapped off the street, often waiting for buses, or walking the long distances they must to get to their jobs in factories. Families are attracted to Juarez from all over Mexico coming for the plentiful jobs and the factories that are owned by millionaires and billionaires in the United States. Jobs are hard to get in other parts of Mexico, and they don't know what lies ahead of them in Juarez.
However, the government Produces a face of concern, to the United Nations, to amnesty International, to government officials in the United States, And won't speak the truth, for fear of their lives. instead, they choose scapegoats from among their population, and it's obvious to all concerned that they are used for a cover up. Lives are ruined, families and neighborhoods are terrorized, And innocent man languish in jail. Lawyers who try to represent them are gunned down, or must leave the case.
The United States very much enabled this devastation. Nafta, which was signed into law by Bill Clinton on December 8th and took effect on January 1st 1994, text breaks enjoyed by the maquiladora industry with no longer be confined to the border area. Available throughout Mexico, the US government and Mexican government alike
"anticipated that the provision would entice manufacturers to leave the overstressed border area and expand into mexico's interior. "
instead of that, the maquiladores of the northern area Increased Employment. At the same time, there was no planning for how greatly the number of workers would be multiplied. Because companies from outside of Mexico had no taxes to pay, the workers, whose wages were already low, had to fend for themselves. this included roofs over their heads, child care, and Disposal of garbage. families set up camps wherever they could. They crammed into single rooms, made out of scrap wood and cardboard. Their floors were dirt, there was no plumbing, sewage, or electricity. No one picked up garbage so it was dumped wherever. And the housing was only to be reached on foot. Because the factories ran 24 hours A-day, young girls who worked in these companies often had to walk at night, through desert terrain with no lights to see their way. This made it easy for Employees of drug cartels and their police cohorts to kidnap these girls.
It was easy for whoever owned "the plaza" to employ the police. Pay for policemen was the lowest of all municipal jobs. Their only requirements for employment were an elementary school education, and no investigative knowledge was required. Naturally, many police would accept bribes To help pay the bills or they took the job to earn the extra money that came easily from assisting los carteles.
Oscar Maynez Grijalva was a young criminologist with the Chihuahua state Attorney General's office. He noticed a pattern of similarities among the homicides early on when he joined the agency. His idea was to use 2 cases he found in state police files that were similar, and whose victims shared identical physical characteristics and had been raped and killed in a very methodical fashion, to train new police recruits. he wrote a 3 page report, including a psychological profile of The perp, with an argument that this could be a serial killer on the loose in Juarez Remember, this was early on in the occurrence of the femicides.
Maynez was blown away when state police Academy chief Jorge Ostos thanked him for his work, but did not put the report into use. When Maynez found more murders in the mid nineties that followed the same pattern described in his report , he was told to falsify his findings on a wide variety of the cases. He at first thought that the investigators were just trying to find the easy way out. He realized later that the officers were told by their bosses who to target for investigations no matter what evidence was produced.
Maynez was only one of the many professionals, doctors and politicians and criminologists, who were employed to investigate evidence and circumstances in the femicides, whose findings were later then ignored by the government. This was obviously done to show parents of the victims, and officials from North of the border, that something was being done in investigations.
One of the scapegoats that Mexican officials chose to blame the murders on, was named Abdel Latif Sharif Sharif, a middle-aged Egyptian engineer who Had crossed the border to Juarez, trying to escape the prosecution of crimes he had committed North of the border. After committing crimes involving young women in sexual assault, He was held in jail and blamed for many of the murders, despite no evidence linking him to them, and ended up dying in a prison hospital years and years later. I didn't feel sorry for him though, because he had ruined the lives of young women in Florida and Texas, sexually assaulting them.
Because of its publication date of 2007, this book seems dated, but at the time, I'm sure it was eye-opening.
Author Teresa Rodriguez
The daughters of Juarez is a story that documents the feminicides, or femicides, shortened, from it's beginning in the early nineties to the date of publication, 2007. The book documents the obvious cover ups of the murders of young women and young girls, some as young as 10 years old, that are violent and sexual in nature, most often with evidenceof torture. Bodies are found in the desert on the outskirts of Juarez, and sometimes right in the downtown, in an empty field, and when parents go to municipal police to report their daughters missing, the police are indifferent, making fun of them, blaming it on the victims, and refusing to investigate. Moreover, crime scenes are deliberately Corrupted, and any DNA evidence that is gathered is corrupted, and/or lost.
In Mexico, drug cartels own the government: politicians, and federal, state, and municipal police. If they don't cooperate, they are assassinated. Cartel operatives sell young women to wealthy men all over the world, who come to Juarez, looking for a "good time," knowing that impunity reigns. Girls and young women are kidnapped off the street, often waiting for buses, or walking the long distances they must to get to their jobs in factories. Families are attracted to Juarez from all over Mexico coming for the plentiful jobs and the factories that are owned by millionaires and billionaires in the United States. Jobs are hard to get in other parts of Mexico, and they don't know what lies ahead of them in Juarez.
However, the government Produces a face of concern, to the United Nations, to amnesty International, to government officials in the United States, And won't speak the truth, for fear of their lives. instead, they choose scapegoats from among their population, and it's obvious to all concerned that they are used for a cover up. Lives are ruined, families and neighborhoods are terrorized, And innocent man languish in jail. Lawyers who try to represent them are gunned down, or must leave the case.
The United States very much enabled this devastation. Nafta, which was signed into law by Bill Clinton on December 8th and took effect on January 1st 1994, text breaks enjoyed by the maquiladora industry with no longer be confined to the border area. Available throughout Mexico, the US government and Mexican government alike
"anticipated that the provision would entice manufacturers to leave the overstressed border area and expand into mexico's interior. "
instead of that, the maquiladores of the northern area Increased Employment. At the same time, there was no planning for how greatly the number of workers would be multiplied. Because companies from outside of Mexico had no taxes to pay, the workers, whose wages were already low, had to fend for themselves. this included roofs over their heads, child care, and Disposal of garbage. families set up camps wherever they could. They crammed into single rooms, made out of scrap wood and cardboard. Their floors were dirt, there was no plumbing, sewage, or electricity. No one picked up garbage so it was dumped wherever. And the housing was only to be reached on foot. Because the factories ran 24 hours A-day, young girls who worked in these companies often had to walk at night, through desert terrain with no lights to see their way. This made it easy for Employees of drug cartels and their police cohorts to kidnap these girls.
It was easy for whoever owned "the plaza" to employ the police. Pay for policemen was the lowest of all municipal jobs. Their only requirements for employment were an elementary school education, and no investigative knowledge was required. Naturally, many police would accept bribes To help pay the bills or they took the job to earn the extra money that came easily from assisting los carteles.
Oscar Maynez Grijalva was a young criminologist with the Chihuahua state Attorney General's office. He noticed a pattern of similarities among the homicides early on when he joined the agency. His idea was to use 2 cases he found in state police files that were similar, and whose victims shared identical physical characteristics and had been raped and killed in a very methodical fashion, to train new police recruits. he wrote a 3 page report, including a psychological profile of The perp, with an argument that this could be a serial killer on the loose in Juarez Remember, this was early on in the occurrence of the femicides.
Maynez was blown away when state police Academy chief Jorge Ostos thanked him for his work, but did not put the report into use. When Maynez found more murders in the mid nineties that followed the same pattern described in his report , he was told to falsify his findings on a wide variety of the cases. He at first thought that the investigators were just trying to find the easy way out. He realized later that the officers were told by their bosses who to target for investigations no matter what evidence was produced.
Maynez was only one of the many professionals, doctors and politicians and criminologists, who were employed to investigate evidence and circumstances in the femicides, whose findings were later then ignored by the government. This was obviously done to show parents of the victims, and officials from North of the border, that something was being done in investigations.
One of the scapegoats that Mexican officials chose to blame the murders on, was named Abdel Latif Sharif Sharif, a middle-aged Egyptian engineer who Had crossed the border to Juarez, trying to escape the prosecution of crimes he had committed North of the border. After committing crimes involving young women in sexual assault, He was held in jail and blamed for many of the murders, despite no evidence linking him to them, and ended up dying in a prison hospital years and years later. I didn't feel sorry for him though, because he had ruined the lives of young women in Florida and Texas, sexually assaulting them.
Because of its publication date of 2007, this book seems dated, but at the time, I'm sure it was eye-opening.
oli_marisol's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
claupinamtz's review against another edition
5.0
En un principio, no podía quitarme de la cabeza el hecho de que estaba leyendo una historia de mujeres mexicanas, en suelo mexicano, relatado por una mujer que cuya realidad es muy distinta. Sin embargo, el libro está muy bien narrado y me gustó el tacto y la perspectiva de Teresa Rodríguez.
Lloré muchísimas veces. Qué terrible es nacer mujer en este mundo y en este país.
Lloré muchísimas veces. Qué terrible es nacer mujer en este mundo y en este país.