Suspected serial killer accused of luring women on Facebook with fake job presents: “She disappeared”
State and federal authorities in Mexico stated Thursday they’ve arrested a suspected serial killer accused of luring younger women on Facebook with false job presents.
Authorities stated they’ve surveillance digicam footage from two states exhibiting the person meeting with the victims in public locations, and in a single case driving a sufferer away on a bike.
Prosecutors released several of the images on Wednesday.
The suspect “is a serial killer of women, and there are at least seven cases of women’s killings where this person could be involved,” stated Assistant Public Safety Secretary Ricardo Mejia.
Mejia stated the latest case concerned the killing a 31-year-old girl within the Gulf coast state of Veracruz after she went for a job interview final month.
“Viridiana Moreno Vásquez left her house in (the town of) Cardel, Veracruz, and went to the Bienvenido hotel to attend a supposed job interview she had obtained with someone on Facebook,” stated Mejía. “After that she disappeared.”
Her name was made public by family who mounted protests after her disappearance. Her unrecognizable physique was discovered days later, and was recognized by an ID card discovered close to the scene and by DNA testing.
Veracruz state prosecutors stated Moreno was lured by a Facebook messenger publish below an accounte registered to “Mary Madison” providing a $90 per week job as a receptionist.
“Duties include answering phones and making appointments,” based on a replica of the message distributed by prosecutors.
Prosecutors within the central state of Morelos stated Thursday the identical suspect had killed a 22-year-old pupil searching for work in April. Local activists stated the coed was lured into meeting the suspect at a cafeteria in late March by a Facebook itemizing for a job or articles on the market.
He then took her to a barber store, the place she was apparently killed.
Three days later, prosecutors stated, her physique was discovered: “The victim had been beaten, sexually abused and strangled.”
Protests additionally occurred after her disappearance. One chilling side was that each women disappeared after making contact with the suspect in public locations with loads of individuals round and had accompanied him willingly, apparently satisfied by the job presents.
It was not clear if the victims’ our bodies had been dismembered, however prosecutors in each states talked about discovering their stays in “several places” or in numerous plastic baggage.
The Morelos prosecutors stated the person had an extended string of aliases and had been sought on rape costs in 2012. They listed Juan Carlos Gasperin and Greek Román Villalobos as the 2 most typical aliases.
The man was arrested alongside with a feminine companion within the northern state of Queretaro. It was unclear if he had a lawyer.
Authorities stated he may additionally have been concerned in instances within the states of Queretaro and Puebla.
Activists posted proof {that a} suspect utilizing the identical ways could have been working for a decade.
A 2013 article within the Veracruz newspaper El Buen Tono stated that Greek Román Villalobos, then 28, had been arrested in 2012 “after he contacted young women to offer them jobs and when they showed up for the interview, he locked them in an office and raped them.”
The article listed some of the identical aliases launched by prosecutors Thursday.
Veracruz state prosecutors refused to remark Thursday on what the result of that 2012 case had been, or why he had been launched.
“It is a sign of boldfaced impunity,” stated Maria de la Luz Estrada of the activist group National Feminicide Observatory.
Estrada labored on the case of a suspect who raped a dozen women close to a subway station in Mexico City; authorities have been gradual to carry costs in opposition to the person, and women discovered the authorized course of was stacked in opposition to them. The rapist was finally arrested, however grew to become ever extra violent earlier than he was caught.
“What we found was that each time he became more agressive” within the rapes, she stated.
The overwhelming majority of homicide and rape instances in Mexico go unsolved.
The desperation of women needing work in small, provincial Mexican cities and Mexico’s largely under-the-table financial system offers a fertile subject for fake job presents.
On Thursday, authorities stated they rescued two ladies, ages 13 and 14, who had been lured away from residence with presents of employment within the western state of Jalisco. They have been discovered with a suspected abductor at a Mexico City bus station.
Drug cartels in Mexico have additionally been identified to supply employment on social media websites.
The arrest comes about 5 weeks after the physique of 18-year-old legislation pupil Debanhi Escobar was present in a motel water tank, triggering a public outcry in Mexico. Escobar’s sexual assault and demise is now being investigated as femicide, and he or she shortly grew to become an emblem for an offended women’s rights motion in a rustic the place round 10 women are murdered every single day.
In 2021 alone, Mexico registered 3,751 murders of women, most of that are nonetheless unpunished.
In April, tons of of women marched via downtown Mexico City and its suburbs to protest Escobar’s demise.
Marchers chanted “Justice, justice!” and carried a banner studying “24,000 are missing” about disappeared women. Overall in Mexico, the quantity of lacking individuals of all genders has risen to over 100,000.
