Two years ago, Debanhi Escobar's body was found in the cistern of a roadside motel. Two years ago, some teachers lost their only daughter, the Autonomous University of Nuevo León lost a law student, and Mexico lost another living woman. Not even the intense search for Debanhi in April 2022, which was even pushed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, served to find her alive; Nor has the fact that the Attorney General's Office (FGR) attracted the case served to obtain answers. Two years have passed since the disappearance of this 18-year-old girl shocked an anesthetized country and there are still no arrests, results or justice. Her case, which became a symbol of femicides in Mexico, continues at the starting point.
Debanhi Escobar disappeared in the early morning of April 9 in Escobedo, a municipality on the outskirts of Monterrey (Nuevo León). The last image of her places her at kilometer 15.5 of the highway from the capital to Nuevo Laredo (Tamaulipas), shortly before 4:30 in the morning, between the Nueva Castilla Motel and the Alcosa transport company. From there her parents, Mario Escobar and Dolores Bazaldúa, left for 13 days, accompanied by dozens of volunteers, search dogs and drones, to try to find her daughter. On the night of April 21 to 22, authorities found Debanhi's body inside a cistern in a disused pool at the hotel. A few meters from where all the search parties had left.
The discovery revolutionized the country: how had Debanhi not been found before if the motel had been searched on several occasions? Why did the Prosecutor's Office claim that there were no security cameras in the accommodation and then hundreds of hours of recording appeared? Was it a chain of errors or were there attempts to hinder the search? Where was Debanhi those 13 days? Who killed her? Because? All those questions remain, two years later, intact.
Mario Escobar assured from the church where his daughter's wake was organized that he would find justice for her. She repeated it with one foot in the hole where they were going to put her coffin. And this is what he continues to say now, in an interview with EL PAÍS: “My daughter's case is going to be resolved and it will be a certainty for Mexico.” This father, who these months is campaigning because he is running for the position of deputy in the Congress of Nuevo León for Movimiento Ciudadano, the party of the state governor, Samuel García, believes that “the investigation is progressing.”
Officially, since October 2022, it is the FGR that has been handling Escobar's case. After the dismissal of two prosecutors in charge of the investigation and the fall of the Attorney General of Nuevo León, Gustavo Adolfo Guerrero, the federal agency took over the investigation. “With the FGR, unfortunately or fortunately, we made an agreement where everything is being done very secretly. There are some advances in the file, it is a tug of war to have more concrete advances, to have a person responsible or a culprit, or a suspect, which until now we do not have,” says Mario Escobar. In all this time, the federal agency—which handles the two main files of the case, in a unified manner—has not made any arrests.
So far, only two workers at the Nueva Castilla Motel have been charged, who are accused of falsifying statements and concealing information since January 2023. That investigation is still in the hands of the Nuevo León prosecutor's office. “We are waiting for the intermediate phase to be resolved, because so far, their lawyers have filed protections and, after a year and a half, they still have not given any version,” says Escobar, who believes that the testimonies of The employees can help solve the case: “That's where the thin thread can break.”
Two autopsies had to be performed on the young woman, because in the first, the Nuevo León Prosecutor's Office tried to close the case by pointing out that Debanhi had fallen into the water tank and had died from a skull contusion. Regarding that autopsy, there was a second report, to which EL PAÍS had exclusive access, which indicated that the young woman had multiple bruises and she was sexually assaulted. Finally, at the request of her parents, Debanhi was dug up. That last autopsy, which is what her family considers the definitive one, indicated that the cause of death was asphyxiation and that there was death between three and five days before she was found, that is, that a large part of the search had been with life. “My daughter's case will be resolved when the local Prosecutor's Office removes all that rubbish officials,” Escobar criticizes the investigation staff in Nuevo León, where he considers that “there are people who definitively hindered the investigation.”
The Debanhi case, which was plagued from the beginning by irregularities, illustrates the failure of the State to achieve justice. If it has not been resolved who killed the young woman, in one of the most high-profile femicides in recent years, what case is going to be resolved? In Mexico, 10 women are murdered every day, seven are disappeared. 95% of cases remain unpunished. “To the families who are going through this, I would tell them to demand their rights, that society and the people are stronger than any public official, that the Prosecutor's Offices have the obligation to investigate, that they do not give up, that they raise their voices.” .
Subscribe to the EL PAÍS Mexico newsletter and to whatsapp channel and receive all the key information on current events in this country.
#killed #Debanhi #Escobar #years #answer #feminicide #shook #Mexico