FBI Profilers: Serial Killers Involved In Juarez Murders
EL PASO, TX
El Paso's special FBI agent in charge said it is possible that serial killers are responsible for about 30 murders of young girls across the border in Juarez, Mexico, and they could be living in El Paso.
"If there is a serial murderer active in Juarez, we need to know that, because if he should start plying his trade here, we need to be on guard and be ready to respond," special FBI agent Hardrick Crawford Jr. told the El Paso Times for its Thursday editions. "He could live in El Paso. He could be my neighbor."
Preliminary results from FBI profilers indicate that serial killers are responsible for about 30 of the more than 300 murders of young girls and women in Juarez since 1993, Crawford said.
Crawford said that conclusion is based on a close examination of between 25 and 30 cases that was done in 1999, and the fact that the murders have continued. But he said a more conclusive result would require additional analysis, which would require a return trip to Juarez.
"We weren't invited back following that initial review, in as much as our Mexican colleagues advised us they had made an arrest that satisfied them as to (who) was responsible for the murders," Crawford said.
Three years ago, Chihuahua state authorities accused Abdel Sharif Sharif of paying five bus drivers and an El Paso man with a petty crime record to kill several women to deflect suspicion from Sharif. The bodies of eight young women were found Nov. 6 and 7 in a lot at a busy intersection in Juarez. Within days, authorities charged two other bus drivers with those crimes.
The suspects, Victor Garcia Uribe and Gustavo Gonzalez Meza, claimed they were tortured into confessing and recanted their confessions. Chihuahua officials denied the men were tortured.
The latest victim was Merced Ramirez Morales, 35, who worked at the Ademco maquiladora in Juarez. Her body was discovered Sunday in an area near downtown Juarez where the bodies of four other women previously were found.
Jose Ortega Aceves, Chihuahua state deputy attorney general overseeing the Juarez investigations, said he welcomes any information the FBI has about unsolved cases that would provide a profile of the perpetrators.
Mexican President Vicente Fox recently announced that Mexican federal agents would investigate the Juarez murders to determine whether they should take over some of the cases.
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press