A teenage killer has told police how she videoed the brutal gangland execution of two women, who were beaten and strangled and then buried in a backyard.
Victims Gabriela Janeth Lopez Pedroza, 26, and 24-year-old Maribel Garcia Trevizo were finished off when they were choked with an electric heater flex.
Maribel’s body was so disfigured she was only identified by her five tattoos, reported media in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
One suspect – named only as Brenda Janeth Z. M., 18, who filmed the slayings – told police that the killings had been ordered by her mother.
Four other suspects have been seized by police after the double killing on the night between 4th and 5th January.
Chihuahua State Public Prosecutor’s Office named them on 14th January as Omar Antonio R. R., 24, Heriberto M. L., 21, Brayan G. M., 21, and Vanesa A. D., 26.
Both victims had been reported missing by their families after failing to return home after a night out.
Police discovered their bodies in shallow graves on 10th January and are expected to charge the five suspects with aggravated femicide.
They were kept in preventive custody following a hearing on 15th January and their next hearing is scheduled for 19th January.
Local media reported that investigators found photos and videos of the attack on the two women on the mobile phone of teenage suspect Brenda Janeth Z. M.
They added that she said that it was Brayan G. M. – her mother’s boyfriend – who strangled the women with an electrical flex.
Ciudad Juarez – which is located on the Rio Grande opposite El Paso, Texas, USA and is famous for its export-oriented assembly plants – is notorious for femicides.
After surveying 155 killings out of 340 documented between 1993 and 2003, a government committee found that roughly half were prompted by motives like domestic violence, robbery and gang wars, while a little more than a third involved sexual assault.
It is believed that the killings of Gabriela and Maribel are gang-related.