Omissions, errors, dismissed prosecutors, video leaks from security cameras, a great media hype and still unresolved questions are part of the elements surrounding the still inexplicable death of Debanhi Escobar, whose body was found on April 21 at a depth of more than 4 meters in the cistern of a motel, in Nuevo León (Mexico).
(Read here: Debanhi Escobar faced a group of men, reveal new videos)
Your demise between the night of Friday, April 8, and the morning of the following day kept the Escobar family in suspense for almost two weekswhich has denounced irregularities during the investigation process to clarify what happened to Debanhi.
Faced with questions about the actions of the authorities, the father, Mario Escobar, said that he is carrying out on his own account – and with his own resources – an expert opinion and an independent forensic analysis to clarify what happened to his 18-year-old daughter, and compare it with the official results for inconsistencies.
(You may be interested in: Debanhi Escobar: although they investigate femicide, they outline that it was an accident)
What happened to Debanhi?
It all started on the night of Friday, April 8. That day, Debanhi went out partying with two friends: Sarahí and Ivonne. According to the testimony they gave to the Prosecutor’s Office, which was obtained by the Mexican newspaper The universalBoth arrived at Debanhi’s house around 10:47 pm and from there they went to a store located in San Nicolás de los Garza, an area that makes up the Monterrey metropolitan area.
The young woman got into the vehicle, from which she later got out minutes later for reasons that are still unclear, according to several testimonies. According to Cuellar, the young woman wanted to return to the party.
Then they went to the site, where they participated in games where they consumed alcohol, according to the testimony. After a couple of hours, the three of them ordered a ride through an electronic platform. That is how they arrived at an establishment called Quinta El Diamante at 1:30 am on April 9, where they continued the party. The three friends kept the number of the driver in case they needed to move later.
After an hour, a camera in the vicinity of Fifth The Diamond recorded the moment Debanhi ran from the scene, apparently after an altercation. It was 2:45 am Behind her was a young man who tried to stop her, but she evaded him by throwing a punch. Then, another group of people approached her and they decided to send her home because “they couldn’t control her” due to her intoxicated state, according to one of her friends.
(In context: Debanhi Escobar: the doubts left by the case that shocked Mexico)
What happened in the car?
After a while, Sarahí and Ivonne called Juan David Cuellar againthe driver who left them at the party and who returned to the place around 3:45 am At that time, both ask Cuellar to take Debanhi home.
The young woman got into the vehicle, from which she later got out minutes later for reasons that are still unclear, according to several testimonies. According to Cuellar, the young woman wanted to return to the party. However, at the time he denied some accusations who pointed him out for having groped her inside the vehiclewhich would have caused her to leave by her own means, according to Mario Escobar.
After getting off after 4 am, the driver took the last photo of Debanhi alive, supposedly to contact her friends and let them know that the young woman had left. The picture shows the young woman on the verge of the Laredo-Monterrey highway (in the Escobedo municipality), with crossed arms, long hair, a bag, a white top, a long skirt and Converse shoes.
(See also: The three key places in the disappearance of Debanhi Escobar)
Debanhi was running away?
What happens next is even more confusing. According to images from a security camera, at 4:29 am that Saturday, the young woman wandered alone along a highway and initially approached a transport company called Alcosa. She followed her lead for a few minutes and headed towards the Motel Nuevo Castilla. Security cameras show her. running towards that place.
Debanhi hurried around a restaurant that is part of the motel. Although the cameras do not capture anyone else, it is still not clear if she was fleeing. Later, she is seen looking through one of the windows of the restaurant, which is not in operation. The place has a garden in the back, where there is a pool and three pits about 4.3 meters deep that function as a cistern.
Then, around 4:56 am, Debanhi walked in the direction of those cisterns and then nothing is heard from her again until April 21. Although justice investigates the case as a femicide, and no hypothesis is ruled out.s, the authorities try to prove that she would have accidentally fallen into the cistern, a version that the Escobar family questions.
(Read more: Debanhi Escobar: the route he traveled before he disappeared in Mexico)
When did they find the body?
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the personnel of the place reported fetid odors in the area of the cistern on April 21, when the body was found. In the autopsy carried out by the authorities, the day after the discovery, it was established that his body was in the emphysematous phase of putrefaction, that is, that he had been dead for five days to two weeksand presented various injuries from which they concluded that Debanhi died from a blow to the front of the head.
His body was found in the first pit, his tennis shoes, his bag with some belongings were recovered; in the second pit, a lighter, keys, his cell phone, a small bag and a plastic container. The Prosecutor’s Office assures that the young woman fell into the well alive and she remained there until she died.
Despite this, prosecutor Guerrero reiterated that “no line of investigation is ruled out, including a murder by organized crime.”
The truth is that the attorney general of the Mexican state of Nuevo León, Gustavo Adolfo Guerrero, dismissed this week the Specialized Prosecutor for Disappeared Persons and the Anti-Kidnapping Prosecutorwho headed the case, for serious “omissions and errors” in the investigation.
(In other news: Debanhi Escobar: they reveal videos of the young woman walking and entering the motel)
Irregularities in the Debanhi case
“Due to omissions and errors, the decision was made very energetically to remove Rodolfo Salinas, Specialized Prosecutor for Disappeared Persons, and Javier Caballero, Anti-Kidnapping Prosecutor,” Guerrero said.
The removal is due to the fact that the search groups investigating the case reviewed the motel up to four times, the same in which they did not find the body, which was finally located inside a cistern located in a corner of the building’s patio. thirteen days later. A point that raises doubts about whether the body was there since the 9th.
However, in the last few hours, local media in Mexico circulated a new video released by the Nuevo León Prosecutor’s Office that could question the version of the alleged accident.
In this new piece, a motel camera shows that at 5:47 am a car stops right in front of the aforementioned restaurant, and a person gets into it. In statements to the press, Griselda Núñez, Specialized Prosecutor for Femicide, said that she is now studying the possibility that Debanhi is the person who got into that vehiclewhich would indicate that she could have left that place alive.
In various statements to the media, Mario Escobar has insisted that the authorities have not provided him with enough information about what happened to his daughter. He claims that his daughter was “sown” in the cistern in which she was found. Besides, recently denounced that he had received threats of death of those who want to silence him for wanting to discover the truth of what happened.
The Debanhi case maintains a pattern common to the disappearances and deaths of women in Mexico: “The indolence of the authorities, the complicities, the little capacity to investigate
Escobar has also strongly questioned that the prosecution has leaked the videos in which her daughter is seen during the hours prior to her disappearance, which are a key part of the evidentiary material. The father assures that this leak revictimizes his daughter.
Although Debanhi’s case is one among hundreds occurring in Mexicothe actions of said Prosecutor’s Office, the increase in disappearances and crimes against women have raised questions in a country where the Government acknowledges the murder of more than 10 women a day and more than 99,000 missing people. In addition, in 2021 they added more than 1,000 femicides, gender-based crimes. So far this year, the state of Nuevo León has registered a wave of disappearances with at least thirty women still unaccounted for.
Speaking to the AFP agency, Valeria Moscoso, a specialist in work and psychosocial support, points to the fact that the Debanh casei maintains a common pattern to the disappearances and deaths of women in Mexico: “The indolence of the authorities, the complicity, the little capacity to investigate, the blaming of the victims, the criminalization of the families and the impunity with which the aggressors remain”, he details.
The truth is that the authorities still have a debt to answer several questions. Why didn’t prosecutors find Debanhi despite searching the motel four times? Why did the Prosecutor’s Office decide to filter the evidentiary videos, as the Escobar family denounces? And, above all: how did Debanhi really die?
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