MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico City prosecutors sought Thursday to downplay the case of a suspected serial killer who kept women’s bones and a saw in his room and appeared to have targeted women for more than a decade.
The city’s top prosecutor said the remains of six women were found in the suspect’s rented room, “not 20 as some unsubstantiated reports suggest.”
City prosecutor Ulises Lara stressed that only three of the man’s alleged crimes were committed during the current government, which took office at the end of 2018. He said the others appeared to have happened in 2012, 2015 and 2018, meaning the killer wasn’t caught for at least 12 years.
Lara criticized reports that all the crimes took place in 2023 and 2024, during the term of former mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, who is now running for president. He called these reports “absolutely false and baseless.”
The prosecutor claimed the killer was essentially unstoppable because “he showed no signs of violent or aggressive behavior in his daily life.”
Under Mexican law, the suspect can only be identified by his first name, Miguel. Local media reported that he worked as a chemist.
Lara did not specify the type of remains found during a search of the suspect’s rented rooms last week, but local media reported they were skulls.
Investigators also said they found blood stains, bones, a saw, cell phones and missing women’s ID cards and other “biological material” in the rooms. Lara said five of the IDs belonged to women who were found alive, but did not say how many belonged to women who are still missing or among the dead.
Last week, Lara said investigators had also found “a number of notebooks that may well contain accounts of the acts committed by Miguel against his victims.”
The prosecutor rejected criticism that Mexico City authorities are doing little to investigate cases of missing women until their bodies pile up, saying the number of reported killings of women has declined.
The suspect in this case was caught when he allegedly broke into a neighbor’s apartment last week to kill his seventh victim, was interrupted and left behind a surviving witness.
According to prosecutors, last week the man apparently waited for a woman to leave her apartment, then stormed in and sexually assaulted and strangled her 17-year-old daughter.
The mother returned and saw the man leaving, but he slashed her neck and fled, authorities said. The mother survived, but her daughter did not.
The suspect lived near the crime scene and was quickly identified and arrested. He was held for trial on murder and attempted murder charges, both related to the recent victims.
Without adequate funding, training or professionalism, prosecutors in the Mexican capital routinely fail to stop serial killers until the number of victims reaches a point that can no longer be ignored.
For example, Lara said his office contacted the families of four missing women because there was reason to believe they might be among the current suspect’s victims.
Juan Carlos Gutiérrez, a lawyer representing the family of one of these women, questioned why authorities did not investigate her disappearance sooner and only acted when evidence related to her case appeared at the suspect’s apartment.
“Why was there never an investigation, why were people never questioned, even though reports of missing persons had been filed since 2015?” said Gutiérrez.
In 2021, a serial killer in a Mexico City suburb was caught only after years of alleged crimes – 19 bodies were dismembered and buried in his home – because his last victim was the wife of a police commander.
In 2018, a serial killer in Mexico City responsible for the deaths of at least 10 women was only caught when he pushed a dismembered body in a stroller down the street. He had dumped most of his victims’ bodies in vacant lots.