June 15, 2020 • 31 mins
Episode 5 - Doubts about the bus drivers' guilt in the Cotton Field murders inspire two prominent lawyers to come to their defense. The lawyers question the police investigation and start to receive threats. Dante Almarez, the "Devil's Lawyer," is on a personal mission to uncover the truth of who is responsible for the murders of the women.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Forgotten is a production of iHeartMedia and Unusual Productions Before
we start. This podcast contains accounts which some listeners will
find disturbing, but without them, the story can't be fully understood.
Please take care while listening. Last time on Forgotten, I said,
(00:25):
what are those around circle marks? Burn marks? They said,
that's cattle Brad's boss. So forget those confessions. If you
see the file, the original file, there is not a
single evidence that connects the boss drivers to the crime.
I protected the file. When I said to Yah, I quit,
I resigned. They were probably the first lawyers to be
(00:47):
so open about, you know, what they understood about the
femicides in Huadis, and they started to mention that there
were people getting away with murder, getting away with murder,
killing without consequences, impunity. It was two thousand and one
(01:09):
and eight women's bodies had been discovered in a well
trafficed part of Juarez called the Cotton Field. Rather than
pursuing a real investigation, authorities had apparently tortured two bus
drivers into confessing. They claimed that the men abducted women
while high on cocaine and marijuana, but as commercial bus drivers,
(01:30):
they were routinely tested for drugs, and they'd never failed.
The police also alleged that the bus drivers used a
van to abduct the women, but there was no evidence
to connect the dead women to the van, and in fact,
the van didn't even work. This was the third time
a mass grave of women had been discovered in Juarez,
and the third time that scapegoats had taken the fall.
(01:53):
But who were the real killers and how did they
keep getting away with it? Those are questions that continued
to haunt Oscars, the city's former chief forensics officer. At
the beginning, I thought it was a typical case of
a serial killer, but as more evidence came in, for me,
at least, it appeared there was a highly organized group
(02:15):
acting on behalf of someone. So someone would have duct,
someone would retain the victims for a while, and then
someone would rape and kill, and probably an arguable disposal
of the bodies. The thing is, the people who did this,
they have power to remain free to not being investigated.
(02:35):
So there's money and power behind these medders, I believe. So, Oscar,
if you had been allowed to do your job to
the end, do you think that your team would have
come up with enough evidence and information that might have helped.
There were a lot of lines of investigation that you
(02:56):
could have developed if views stuck to the case. But
I mean, they don't care. Poor women are disposible, so
they decided to shut the gates to present this image
of having a fish and police department. Protecting the image
of the police department is a more charitable explanation for
the scapegoating around the women's murders. A more chilling explanation
(03:21):
is that somebody was protecting the identity of the true killers,
but Olsco refused to participate in the cover up. In fact,
he tried to hamper the state's case by refusing to
plant evidence that connected the bus drivers to the crimes.
This kept in live the possibility that the true killers
could finally be exposed, especially when some prominent lawyers picked
(03:43):
up where Oscar left off, defending the bus drivers and
publicly alleging a miscarriage of justice. I'm as Voloshin and
I'm monica, this is forgotten. The women of Arras exst
(04:08):
know s hala Felicia. The discovery of the mass grave
(04:35):
at the cotton Field, followed by the scapeguilty of the
bus drivers, ignited a spark around the world. The protest
movement in Juarez was already being led by mothers like
Paula Flores and activists like Esther Chawazcano, but this time
it seemed like real change might be possible. It was
in this context that some prominent lawyers decided to take
(04:56):
on the bus drivers as clients. So these two bus
drivers have given an improbable confession to eight murders. But Monica,
how did they end up being represented after that confession?
So eight bodies are discovered in the cotton field. Four
days later, the police parade these two innocent bus drivers
(05:21):
before the press, and a couple attorneys come out to
be their defenders. Mario Escobedo Junior had a law practice
with his father, Mario Escobedo Senior in downtown Houatis. Mario
Junior was twenty nine years old. He was born and
(05:43):
raised in Huadis, and he took on the bus drivers
case pro bono, and he told the fort Worth Star
Telegram that he wanted the police to find the true
killers because he had two young daughters himself, ages seven
and nine, just like Diana, just like Oscar, just like
(06:04):
the families, the mothers and the wives of the bus drivers.
They wanted to expose the truth and put a dagger
in the lies they believed were being told by the
people who were supposed to protect them, the authorities. So
they're stepping up. How did they go about defending the
(06:26):
bus drivers? What was that case based on? Their case
was largely based off of these allegations and the evidence
of torture present on the bus drivers bodies. After the
bus drivers were taken to jail, the warden organized a
press conference for these two suspects, and it was during
(06:47):
that press conference that the bus drivers lifted up their
shirts and showed the burn marks on their belly. And
so these two attorneys were very vocal in the press,
both foreign and local, about all these holes that they
were punching in the police's investigation into the cotton fields.
(07:12):
Dina Washington Valdez knew the escabados. We asked her what
they were revealed about who was really behind the murders.
They were defending people they felt had been scapegoaded by
the authorities. They were very efficient at their jobs. They
were considered competent lawyers, and they also had a lot
of experience in defending police officers who had been accused
(07:35):
of irregularities and wrongdoing, so they had a lot of
connections with the police community in Wattis. Authorities may have
felt like they could stonewall the mothers and intimidate journalists,
but now they had opponents with real influence. This was
the first instance in which someone with credibility, you know,
a lawyer who's pointing out this investigation is irregular for
(07:57):
these reasons. Images of the tortured bus drivers circulated, but
the authorities maintained that they had not co usked the
bus drivers, that the burnmarks were from the drivers' own cigarettes.
The lawyers had their first challenge. So all of these
new kinds of side issues, like coming to prove torture
(08:21):
and then holding the police accountable for that torture, became
thorns in the sides of the authorities, and that's when
this whole story begins to take another turn into the darkness.
It was the evening of February fifth, two thousand and two,
almost exactly three months after the bus drivers had been arrested.
(08:42):
Mario Escobado Junior had left the law office he shared
with his father and was driving in his pickup truck
to meet a client when he noticed something strange. Mdio
became aware that he was being followed. Mario drove faster
and faster, hoping to lose his tail, but he couldn't,
(09:03):
so he did the only thing he could think of.
He called his father on a cell phone and said
to help me, help me, and then he crashed crashed
into a tree. All Marios Sor had heard was the
police for help and a loud crash, so he feared
(09:25):
the worst when he rushed to the scene, and when
he arrived, the police told him that his son had
died in a car accident. Later, they admitted to shooting him,
but claimed a case of mistaken identity. Then they changed
the story again and said Mario Junior had been shooting
at them, so they shot back. According to Diana, they
(09:47):
even peppered a police car with bullet holes after the
fact to make it look like they'd been a shootout. Well,
you have to call her a murder, because what else
can it be. Accord new witnesses. Mario Scobelo was driving.
He was driving this truck. He crashes, the policeman jumps
in the back of the pickup truck, breaks the window
(10:10):
behind the driver's seat, and then shoots him in the head.
That's murder. Can you tell us about the community response
in Huades to Mario's death and what the family did
to call attention to it. Mario Scobelo's death is important
(10:30):
for this reason. They've created terror in the community because
it's like a big warning to everybody. Back off, everybody
back off. The families got scared for a while. Everybody
got scared, but they didn't stay scared for long. There
was an outcry, yes, you know. Mario Scobido's family knew
or suspected that his murder was committed by a state
(10:53):
police officer. But beyond that, the family suspected that this
was a state authorized state it ordered execution, okay, and
so in order to drive that point home, the family
took his casket and placed it in front of the
Chihuahua State Attorney General's offices in Huadis is sort of
like a public display of I accuse you of having
(11:17):
killed my son, this young man. The fact that a
lawyer is murdered in such a public way, or shall
we call it an execution, indicates that we're talking about
something very big behind these murders. And that's frightening because
We're dealing with levels of power that beyond the regular
(11:38):
people in the community. It's a very big thing. Within
a year of Mario Escobado Junior's assassination, a newspaper in
Mexico City called La Ronala published an abstract of Diana's book,
The Killing Field Harvest of Women. It was then that
the pitch of threats against Diana reached boiling point. My
(11:59):
book was not written well. It was not a literary effort.
It was not the nest I felt. I had a
very short time in which to get it out, and
there were moments when I would pray, Oh God, give
me enough time, enough life to finish this, because this
may be all I ever can do for the victims
is to document what has happened to them. And now
(12:23):
I don't go over there. I can't go over there.
The US Consulate's office warming not to step over there,
and Diana has avoided hours since two thousand and three.
When we come back, we hear about the chain of
events set off by Mario Escobado Junior's assassination and how
it led to first hand testimony about what was happening
to the women. So there's this sense of escalation. Here,
(13:03):
First you have vulnerable women being murdered and the authorities
refusing to really help in the investigations. Then you have
scapegoats being pinned with the crimes, tortured into confession, and
then you have a lawyer defending one of the scapegoats
who gets assassinated. Monika, you described this assassination and the
(13:28):
uproar that followed as a turning point in the femicides.
Up until this point, it had just been threats. But
here we have someone who's pushing back against the official line,
against the government investigation who gets killed. Mario had recently
announced that he was going to file criminal charges against
(13:51):
the state police for kidnapping and torture of his client,
and Mario Sor calls his son death a cowardly assassination
at the hands of police. He and fellow attorneys take
his son's casket, carry it over their shoulders straight to
(14:13):
the front door of the State Attorney General's office in Wadis,
and with this very dramatic gesture, they accuse the state
of outright murder. Just the picture of this scene is
enough to send shivers down your spine. That gesture is
(14:35):
symbolic of the accumulated anger and frustration over a decade.
It's not only the women who are being murdered, but
it's the people who are coming to the women's defense
who are being targeted. What about the father What kind
of risks do you think he was taking by leading
(14:55):
this protests? The father was taking on tremendous risks. Be angry.
He's so lost in grief that he comes out publicly
and tells the killers, Hey, if you're going to go
after anyone next, come after me, but don't do it
at my home. Do it in my office. Leave the
(15:15):
rest of my family out of this. A few years later,
a local newspaper in wadis uncovers that the state police
commander who shot Madyo Junior was appointed to an anti
corruption unit at the federal level in Mexico City. Well,
talk about impuncy and Mario Junior. How much did his
(15:39):
actions end up helping the bus drivers? His actions did
play a major role in the bus drivers eventual exoneration.
And so yeah, maybe Madia traded his life for the
life of somebody else. He's become a very powerful symbol.
He's allowed us to have this conversation and to exposed
(16:01):
the depths of the corruption behind his death and behind
the investigation of these women's murders. Rather than silencing the truth,
the assassination of Mario Escobado Junior in two thousand and
two began to knock down a series of dominoes that
would ultimately expose what was really happening to the women.
(16:23):
After two thousand and three, Dina Washington Valdez stayed away
from Juarez, but that very year another journalist plunged into
the story at the deep end, Alfredo Corcillo, and through
a series of twists and turns driven by one person's
desire for revenge, Alfredo was introduced to a source with
(16:43):
firsthand knowledge of the killings. I was able to interview him.
But so this was the first time that I might
targner someone face took face, and he's given me an
account and I witness account. So before we hear more, Nica,
who is Alfredo? So? Alfredo Corciallo is the correspondent for
(17:05):
the Dallas Morning News, based primarily in Mexico City and
along the US Mexico border. He also wrote a book
called Midnight in Mexico Today. Alfredo is a big shot reporter,
but he comes from very humble beginnings like Paula Flores.
His family is from the Mexican state of Durango. Alfredo's
(17:29):
family immigrated to the US, where he worked alongside his
parents picking vegetables in the San Joaquin Valley of California.
Then later they moved to al Paso. He enrolls in
the local community college where he takes up journalism. It
was an incredible laboratory because you're at student journalists, but
(17:50):
you feel like a foreign correspondent. You're literally crest class
in the border. And he started reporting at this momentous
time on the border where there was growing resistance to
a longstanding one party rule in Mexico. This was a
time that you felt like the revolution was into aquaas
this is where it was taken off. For seventy years,
(18:13):
Mexico was ruled by a single political party, so it
was very hard to enact change and reform, and so
this is why people were out protesting in the seventies
and in the eighties, people would protest wearing white in silence,
holding candles down the main streets of Wattas. Alfredo talks
(18:34):
about his career being shaped by this coverage because he
believed that Mexico's salvation hinged on the democratization of Mexico.
He saw so much hope, you saw the possibility of change.
It's interesting to think of four as at this place.
(18:56):
That's been a crucible of protests for generations. We've had
a lot about Paula Flores, its protest and the Mother's protest.
But long before that, there were these pro democracy protests
in horrors in the eighties. But then they didn't come
to fruition for a while. It wasn't until almost twenty
years later that Precente Fox became president. Yeah, there was
(19:20):
this historic election finally in the year two thousand and
it happens to coincide with the US presidential election of
George W. Bush, and these two presidents are supposed to
begin a new era of unprecedented friendship and cooperation between
the US and Mexico. We consider you a friend, garcias
(19:47):
amigo President Mexico. Sur Recepion Alfelo was sent to Washington,
d C. With the idea that he would allow and
cover the relationship between these two presidents. Then September eleventh happens,
(20:07):
and all these dreams and promises come crashing down because
the US is no longer focused on Mexico. It's focused
on fighting a war on terror, and it's the beginning
of a new era of militarization of the border. So
Alfredo he sees his usefulness in Washington diminishing, and he's
(20:31):
looking for a way to get back into Mexico. His
editors eventually give him that opportunity. I had it just
came back final exam. We'll send you back, but can
you go through see aquas? Can you spend some time
in O Passo? I kept thinking, Oh, I'm in it,
eat my mother's food for a while, and go back home. Sure.
(20:51):
The assignment was can you find out who's killing the women?
Ahuadis why were so many women either missing or kill
or dissappear. As a reporter, I mean it was one
of the most difficult story because, I mean everybody had
their own agenda, or their own theory, or their own conspiracy.
It was two thousand and three. Padrick Crawford was FBI
(21:13):
Special Agent in charge of El Paso and had warned
of an American serial killer. Oscar Minez was sounding alarm
about an organized group, and Diana had published stories about
the Echo computer school. In the midst of this, Alfredo
was on his way back to the border in search
of definitive answers. I mean, it just started asking people,
(21:35):
you know, this was that, And I hooked up with
the reporters in Quis, people who also cover the marches
many years before. Everybody kept telling me talked to a
stead Chavist. A stead Chavist was a known activist and
see the Alquais human rights activist. This was a homecoming
(21:56):
for Alfredo. He was coming back to El Paso and Juarez,
and he was coming back to cover another protest movement.
At his very center was estevez Kana. A few years previously,
she'd help Paulo Flora's break into that meeting with the
Attorney General to demand help finding Sabraria, and now Alfredo
(22:17):
was interviewing Este. When I was doing an interview, it
was kind of funny because I feel like all these
questions I'm asking her are the things questions she gets
asked every day, you know what I mean. She had
an answer for everything, Bam, bam, bam. I kept asking
her who's behind the women and she kept telling me, Look,
I'm not an investigator. My job is really too sort
of raise the profile and try to shame Mexico into
(22:40):
doing something. But she finally said, if you really want
to know the underbelly of what is you need to
talk to. I mean that little phrase just kind of intriguing,
you know, the Devil's lawyer, Dantel Maras. When we come back,
(23:01):
Alfredo tells us about the difficulty of securing an interview
with the so called Devil's lawyer and the revelations that
came when he finally did. It's not clear why Kano
(23:27):
hesitated to introduce Alfredo to Dante Almras, the so called
Devil's lawyer, but it's possible there was out of concern
for his safety. Dante was a colleague and friend of
the Escarbados and was involved in the defense of the
bus drivers at the time Mario Junior was assassinated, but
Dante also had a reputation of being a lawyer for
(23:48):
the Juarez underworld, and that, okay, Dante can maybe you
know what the name like, Dantel Maras. You know, maybe
he does know what's going on. But I kept Colin,
and Colin his daughter was always very polite, and she
would say, my father's very busy but he'll get back
to you at some point. And that's how it began.
I mean, just trying to read as much as I could,
(24:11):
try to interview as many officials, authorities, reporters who cover
this esther, victims, many mothers, and try to piece it together,
hopefully waiting for Dante to call back. Others had warned
you that Dante had a dubious reputation as a reporter.
That's often something you want to stay away from. But
(24:33):
but yet you really wanted to interview him. I mean,
when Ratavis told me that this was a guy I
needed to talk to. I began by asking other colleagues
what do you know about Dante? And most of them
would say, oh, stay away from him. He's bad, his
information is bad, he's dirty. But there was one editor
(24:54):
and he would actually walk from Widesville pastle we meet
right into untown Opasso because he felt more comfortable on
the uside. But he said, you should totally talk to Dante.
I said, well, what about all these things? He says,
that's why you like to talk to Dante, because he's
in the underworld. He knows everyone. The very reason why
(25:16):
journalists would normally have reservations about someone like Dante made
him the perfect source for this story, so Alfredo keeps calling. Finally,
after three months of hounding, Dante called me back and
the Devil's lawyer tells Alfredo the Insta Juarez tomorrow morning
at am. He'd give Alfredo the exact location fifteen minutes
(25:41):
before the meeting. Let's talk about Dante's backstory. One of
the more intriguing parts is that he represented the other
bus driver accused in the cotton Field murders. He was
actually friends with Mario Escobedo and his dad, Madiu Scolo
(26:01):
Junior was someone I knew. He was my sister in
law's cousin. Madriu Scobello Senior told Dante what had happened,
and basically what had happened was the son. He's calling
his father and saying, hey, they're they're coming after me.
I think they want to kill me. He's begging the father,
you know, called the governor, called someone you know, interfeed,
but there was nothing Mary Escobado's senior could do to
(26:24):
save his son. On this set Dante on the path
for revenge. The reasons why Dante got involved it was
his friends, the Scobelo's and Discobezo were really driven by
this because they felt that these two men, said Eu
and La Folca, had been unjustly accused, and they were
forced into confession, and you have done there. You know
(26:46):
who now. As he put it to me later, it
wasn't about rule of law, it wasn't about democracy. This
is about getting even. For Dante, defending the bus drivers
was a way to honor his fallen friend, but it
was also a way to avenge him, because exposing the
(27:09):
truth of the scapegoating would obviously be very uncomfortable to
the people who killed Mario, the state police, and in fact,
Dante received threats that he would meet the same fate
as Mario, but he kept going anyway. He went to
court and MPR reports that he showed the judge pictures
of dried blood on the legs and bruises around the
(27:29):
groin where the electrodes had been attached to the bus drivers.
The judge looked at the photos and responded that the
light in the courtroom was too dim. He couldn't see anything,
so the state's case stood. In this moment, Dante realized
that his only path to justice was outside the system.
(27:52):
He had to expose the real killers himself, and in
Alfredo he saw a means to exact his revenge, but
he was still going to make the journalists work for
the information. It takes a while to get Dante to
open up. It was like little by little by little,
and every time I felt like I was about to
(28:12):
leave and think, you know, maybe my colleagues are right.
This is just it's just it's just going around and
around in circles. And then you began Thatando trying to
figure one on each other, not not revealing our secrets,
I feel, realing our stories, but kind of trying to
figure out, Okay, what are you made of? What are
(28:34):
you made of? That kind of stuff. And then Dante
starts to tell Alfredo this strange story about a cicario,
a hit man who had fallen foul of his superiors
in the cartel. He and another group of people have
been accused of robbing drugs from the cartel. So the
cartel gave chase and shot a lot of these guys
(28:56):
because in the underworld, you don't rob, you're superiors, and
if you rob, you know you get the ultimate because
you're death. Except this young man didn't die. He was
found under this group of bodies you know, Hala bodies
who survived the shootout with cartels, with people who were
(29:17):
there and say hey, you stole from us. The young
man made it back to Juarez and managed to get
in contact with Dante, who promised to protect him in
return for information. Dante, very smart, decided to hide this
guy in prison, took him in to prison under false
charges under a different name. He had very good friends.
(29:43):
He would always leave me with the little titbit and
one of them was this guy's alive if you're interested.
Not only was he alive, but he claimed to know
exactly what was happening to the women, and Dante was
ready to set up the interview that's in our next episode.
(30:09):
I'm as Voloshan and Monica or see you next time.
You know my se? So do you know my sisque
(30:34):
Halla Feliciva. Forgotten The Women of Juarez is co hosted
(31:00):
by Me, Monica and me oswal Oschin. Forgotten is executive
produced by Me and Mangesh Hattikila. Our producers are Julian
Weller and Katrina Norvelle. Sound editing by Julian Weller, Jacopo
Penzo and Aaron Kaufman. Lucas Riley is our story editor.
(31:21):
Caitlin Thompson is our consulting producer. Production support from Emily
Maronoff and Aaron Kaufman. Our theme tune is the rich
Nacimiento as performed by Natalia Laforcae. Music by Leonardo Hablum
and Hakkabo Libermann. Additional music by Aaron Kaufman. Special thanks
(31:42):
to the reporting of Karen Brooks and Scott Carrier, which
contributed to this episode.
Forgotten is a production of iHeartMedia and Unusual Productions Before
we start. This podcast contains accounts which some listeners will
find disturbing, but without them, the story can't be fully understood.
Please take care while listening. Last time on Forgotten, I said,
(00:25):
what are those around circle marks? Burn marks? They said,
that's cattle Brad's boss. So forget those confessions. If you
see the file, the original file, there is not a
single evidence that connects the boss drivers to the crime.
I protected the file. When I said to Yah, I quit,
I resigned. They were probably the first lawyers to be
(00:47):
so open about, you know, what they understood about the
femicides in Huadis, and they started to mention that there
were people getting away with murder, getting away with murder,
killing without consequences, impunity. It was two thousand and one
(01:09):
and eight women's bodies had been discovered in a well
trafficed part of Juarez called the Cotton Field. Rather than
pursuing a real investigation, authorities had apparently tortured two bus
drivers into confessing. They claimed that the men abducted women
while high on cocaine and marijuana, but as commercial bus drivers,
(01:30):
they were routinely tested for drugs, and they'd never failed.
The police also alleged that the bus drivers used a
van to abduct the women, but there was no evidence
to connect the dead women to the van, and in fact,
the van didn't even work. This was the third time
a mass grave of women had been discovered in Juarez,
and the third time that scapegoats had taken the fall.
(01:53):
But who were the real killers and how did they
keep getting away with it? Those are questions that continued
to haunt Oscars, the city's former chief forensics officer. At
the beginning, I thought it was a typical case of
a serial killer, but as more evidence came in, for me,
at least, it appeared there was a highly organized group
(02:15):
acting on behalf of someone. So someone would have duct,
someone would retain the victims for a while, and then
someone would rape and kill, and probably an arguable disposal
of the bodies. The thing is, the people who did this,
they have power to remain free to not being investigated.
(02:35):
So there's money and power behind these medders, I believe. So, Oscar,
if you had been allowed to do your job to
the end, do you think that your team would have
come up with enough evidence and information that might have helped.
There were a lot of lines of investigation that you
(02:56):
could have developed if views stuck to the case. But
I mean, they don't care. Poor women are disposible, so
they decided to shut the gates to present this image
of having a fish and police department. Protecting the image
of the police department is a more charitable explanation for
the scapegoating around the women's murders. A more chilling explanation
(03:21):
is that somebody was protecting the identity of the true killers,
but Olsco refused to participate in the cover up. In fact,
he tried to hamper the state's case by refusing to
plant evidence that connected the bus drivers to the crimes.
This kept in live the possibility that the true killers
could finally be exposed, especially when some prominent lawyers picked
(03:43):
up where Oscar left off, defending the bus drivers and
publicly alleging a miscarriage of justice. I'm as Voloshin and
I'm monica, this is forgotten. The women of Arras exst
(04:08):
know s hala Felicia. The discovery of the mass grave
(04:35):
at the cotton Field, followed by the scapeguilty of the
bus drivers, ignited a spark around the world. The protest
movement in Juarez was already being led by mothers like
Paula Flores and activists like Esther Chawazcano, but this time
it seemed like real change might be possible. It was
in this context that some prominent lawyers decided to take
(04:56):
on the bus drivers as clients. So these two bus
drivers have given an improbable confession to eight murders. But Monica,
how did they end up being represented after that confession?
So eight bodies are discovered in the cotton field. Four
days later, the police parade these two innocent bus drivers
(05:21):
before the press, and a couple attorneys come out to
be their defenders. Mario Escobedo Junior had a law practice
with his father, Mario Escobedo Senior in downtown Houatis. Mario
Junior was twenty nine years old. He was born and
(05:43):
raised in Huadis, and he took on the bus drivers
case pro bono, and he told the fort Worth Star
Telegram that he wanted the police to find the true
killers because he had two young daughters himself, ages seven
and nine, just like Diana, just like Oscar, just like
(06:04):
the families, the mothers and the wives of the bus drivers.
They wanted to expose the truth and put a dagger
in the lies they believed were being told by the
people who were supposed to protect them, the authorities. So
they're stepping up. How did they go about defending the
(06:26):
bus drivers? What was that case based on? Their case
was largely based off of these allegations and the evidence
of torture present on the bus drivers bodies. After the
bus drivers were taken to jail, the warden organized a
press conference for these two suspects, and it was during
(06:47):
that press conference that the bus drivers lifted up their
shirts and showed the burn marks on their belly. And
so these two attorneys were very vocal in the press,
both foreign and local, about all these holes that they
were punching in the police's investigation into the cotton fields.
(07:12):
Dina Washington Valdez knew the escabados. We asked her what
they were revealed about who was really behind the murders.
They were defending people they felt had been scapegoaded by
the authorities. They were very efficient at their jobs. They
were considered competent lawyers, and they also had a lot
of experience in defending police officers who had been accused
(07:35):
of irregularities and wrongdoing, so they had a lot of
connections with the police community in Wattis. Authorities may have
felt like they could stonewall the mothers and intimidate journalists,
but now they had opponents with real influence. This was
the first instance in which someone with credibility, you know,
a lawyer who's pointing out this investigation is irregular for
(07:57):
these reasons. Images of the tortured bus drivers circulated, but
the authorities maintained that they had not co usked the
bus drivers, that the burnmarks were from the drivers' own cigarettes.
The lawyers had their first challenge. So all of these
new kinds of side issues, like coming to prove torture
(08:21):
and then holding the police accountable for that torture, became
thorns in the sides of the authorities, and that's when
this whole story begins to take another turn into the darkness.
It was the evening of February fifth, two thousand and two,
almost exactly three months after the bus drivers had been arrested.
(08:42):
Mario Escobado Junior had left the law office he shared
with his father and was driving in his pickup truck
to meet a client when he noticed something strange. Mdio
became aware that he was being followed. Mario drove faster
and faster, hoping to lose his tail, but he couldn't,
(09:03):
so he did the only thing he could think of.
He called his father on a cell phone and said
to help me, help me, and then he crashed crashed
into a tree. All Marios Sor had heard was the
police for help and a loud crash, so he feared
(09:25):
the worst when he rushed to the scene, and when
he arrived, the police told him that his son had
died in a car accident. Later, they admitted to shooting him,
but claimed a case of mistaken identity. Then they changed
the story again and said Mario Junior had been shooting
at them, so they shot back. According to Diana, they
(09:47):
even peppered a police car with bullet holes after the
fact to make it look like they'd been a shootout. Well,
you have to call her a murder, because what else
can it be. Accord new witnesses. Mario Scobelo was driving.
He was driving this truck. He crashes, the policeman jumps
in the back of the pickup truck, breaks the window
(10:10):
behind the driver's seat, and then shoots him in the head.
That's murder. Can you tell us about the community response
in Huades to Mario's death and what the family did
to call attention to it. Mario Scobelo's death is important
(10:30):
for this reason. They've created terror in the community because
it's like a big warning to everybody. Back off, everybody
back off. The families got scared for a while. Everybody
got scared, but they didn't stay scared for long. There
was an outcry, yes, you know. Mario Scobido's family knew
or suspected that his murder was committed by a state
(10:53):
police officer. But beyond that, the family suspected that this
was a state authorized state it ordered execution, okay, and
so in order to drive that point home, the family
took his casket and placed it in front of the
Chihuahua State Attorney General's offices in Huadis is sort of
like a public display of I accuse you of having
(11:17):
killed my son, this young man. The fact that a
lawyer is murdered in such a public way, or shall
we call it an execution, indicates that we're talking about
something very big behind these murders. And that's frightening because
We're dealing with levels of power that beyond the regular
(11:38):
people in the community. It's a very big thing. Within
a year of Mario Escobado Junior's assassination, a newspaper in
Mexico City called La Ronala published an abstract of Diana's book,
The Killing Field Harvest of Women. It was then that
the pitch of threats against Diana reached boiling point. My
(11:59):
book was not written well. It was not a literary effort.
It was not the nest I felt. I had a
very short time in which to get it out, and
there were moments when I would pray, Oh God, give
me enough time, enough life to finish this, because this
may be all I ever can do for the victims
is to document what has happened to them. And now
(12:23):
I don't go over there. I can't go over there.
The US Consulate's office warming not to step over there,
and Diana has avoided hours since two thousand and three.
When we come back, we hear about the chain of
events set off by Mario Escobado Junior's assassination and how
it led to first hand testimony about what was happening
to the women. So there's this sense of escalation. Here,
(13:03):
First you have vulnerable women being murdered and the authorities
refusing to really help in the investigations. Then you have
scapegoats being pinned with the crimes, tortured into confession, and
then you have a lawyer defending one of the scapegoats
who gets assassinated. Monika, you described this assassination and the
(13:28):
uproar that followed as a turning point in the femicides.
Up until this point, it had just been threats. But
here we have someone who's pushing back against the official line,
against the government investigation who gets killed. Mario had recently
announced that he was going to file criminal charges against
(13:51):
the state police for kidnapping and torture of his client,
and Mario Sor calls his son death a cowardly assassination
at the hands of police. He and fellow attorneys take
his son's casket, carry it over their shoulders straight to
(14:13):
the front door of the State Attorney General's office in Wadis,
and with this very dramatic gesture, they accuse the state
of outright murder. Just the picture of this scene is
enough to send shivers down your spine. That gesture is
(14:35):
symbolic of the accumulated anger and frustration over a decade.
It's not only the women who are being murdered, but
it's the people who are coming to the women's defense
who are being targeted. What about the father What kind
of risks do you think he was taking by leading
(14:55):
this protests? The father was taking on tremendous risks. Be angry.
He's so lost in grief that he comes out publicly
and tells the killers, Hey, if you're going to go
after anyone next, come after me, but don't do it
at my home. Do it in my office. Leave the
(15:15):
rest of my family out of this. A few years later,
a local newspaper in wadis uncovers that the state police
commander who shot Madyo Junior was appointed to an anti
corruption unit at the federal level in Mexico City. Well,
talk about impuncy and Mario Junior. How much did his
(15:39):
actions end up helping the bus drivers? His actions did
play a major role in the bus drivers eventual exoneration.
And so yeah, maybe Madia traded his life for the
life of somebody else. He's become a very powerful symbol.
He's allowed us to have this conversation and to exposed
(16:01):
the depths of the corruption behind his death and behind
the investigation of these women's murders. Rather than silencing the truth,
the assassination of Mario Escobado Junior in two thousand and
two began to knock down a series of dominoes that
would ultimately expose what was really happening to the women.
(16:23):
After two thousand and three, Dina Washington Valdez stayed away
from Juarez, but that very year another journalist plunged into
the story at the deep end, Alfredo Corcillo, and through
a series of twists and turns driven by one person's
desire for revenge, Alfredo was introduced to a source with
(16:43):
firsthand knowledge of the killings. I was able to interview him.
But so this was the first time that I might
targner someone face took face, and he's given me an
account and I witness account. So before we hear more, Nica,
who is Alfredo? So? Alfredo Corciallo is the correspondent for
(17:05):
the Dallas Morning News, based primarily in Mexico City and
along the US Mexico border. He also wrote a book
called Midnight in Mexico Today. Alfredo is a big shot reporter,
but he comes from very humble beginnings like Paula Flores.
His family is from the Mexican state of Durango. Alfredo's
(17:29):
family immigrated to the US, where he worked alongside his
parents picking vegetables in the San Joaquin Valley of California.
Then later they moved to al Paso. He enrolls in
the local community college where he takes up journalism. It
was an incredible laboratory because you're at student journalists, but
(17:50):
you feel like a foreign correspondent. You're literally crest class
in the border. And he started reporting at this momentous
time on the border where there was growing resistance to
a longstanding one party rule in Mexico. This was a
time that you felt like the revolution was into aquaas
this is where it was taken off. For seventy years,
(18:13):
Mexico was ruled by a single political party, so it
was very hard to enact change and reform, and so
this is why people were out protesting in the seventies
and in the eighties, people would protest wearing white in silence,
holding candles down the main streets of Wattas. Alfredo talks
(18:34):
about his career being shaped by this coverage because he
believed that Mexico's salvation hinged on the democratization of Mexico.
He saw so much hope, you saw the possibility of change.
It's interesting to think of four as at this place.
(18:56):
That's been a crucible of protests for generations. We've had
a lot about Paula Flores, its protest and the Mother's protest.
But long before that, there were these pro democracy protests
in horrors in the eighties. But then they didn't come
to fruition for a while. It wasn't until almost twenty
years later that Precente Fox became president. Yeah, there was
(19:20):
this historic election finally in the year two thousand and
it happens to coincide with the US presidential election of
George W. Bush, and these two presidents are supposed to
begin a new era of unprecedented friendship and cooperation between
the US and Mexico. We consider you a friend, garcias
(19:47):
amigo President Mexico. Sur Recepion Alfelo was sent to Washington,
d C. With the idea that he would allow and
cover the relationship between these two presidents. Then September eleventh happens,
(20:07):
and all these dreams and promises come crashing down because
the US is no longer focused on Mexico. It's focused
on fighting a war on terror, and it's the beginning
of a new era of militarization of the border. So
Alfredo he sees his usefulness in Washington diminishing, and he's
(20:31):
looking for a way to get back into Mexico. His
editors eventually give him that opportunity. I had it just
came back final exam. We'll send you back, but can
you go through see aquas? Can you spend some time
in O Passo? I kept thinking, Oh, I'm in it,
eat my mother's food for a while, and go back home. Sure.
(20:51):
The assignment was can you find out who's killing the women?
Ahuadis why were so many women either missing or kill
or dissappear. As a reporter, I mean it was one
of the most difficult story because, I mean everybody had
their own agenda, or their own theory, or their own conspiracy.
It was two thousand and three. Padrick Crawford was FBI
(21:13):
Special Agent in charge of El Paso and had warned
of an American serial killer. Oscar Minez was sounding alarm
about an organized group, and Diana had published stories about
the Echo computer school. In the midst of this, Alfredo
was on his way back to the border in search
of definitive answers. I mean, it just started asking people,
(21:35):
you know, this was that, And I hooked up with
the reporters in Quis, people who also cover the marches
many years before. Everybody kept telling me talked to a
stead Chavist. A stead Chavist was a known activist and
see the Alquais human rights activist. This was a homecoming
(21:56):
for Alfredo. He was coming back to El Paso and Juarez,
and he was coming back to cover another protest movement.
At his very center was estevez Kana. A few years previously,
she'd help Paulo Flora's break into that meeting with the
Attorney General to demand help finding Sabraria, and now Alfredo
(22:17):
was interviewing Este. When I was doing an interview, it
was kind of funny because I feel like all these
questions I'm asking her are the things questions she gets
asked every day, you know what I mean. She had
an answer for everything, Bam, bam, bam. I kept asking
her who's behind the women and she kept telling me, Look,
I'm not an investigator. My job is really too sort
of raise the profile and try to shame Mexico into
(22:40):
doing something. But she finally said, if you really want
to know the underbelly of what is you need to
talk to. I mean that little phrase just kind of intriguing,
you know, the Devil's lawyer, Dantel Maras. When we come back,
(23:01):
Alfredo tells us about the difficulty of securing an interview
with the so called Devil's lawyer and the revelations that
came when he finally did. It's not clear why Kano
(23:27):
hesitated to introduce Alfredo to Dante Almras, the so called
Devil's lawyer, but it's possible there was out of concern
for his safety. Dante was a colleague and friend of
the Escarbados and was involved in the defense of the
bus drivers at the time Mario Junior was assassinated, but
Dante also had a reputation of being a lawyer for
(23:48):
the Juarez underworld, and that, okay, Dante can maybe you
know what the name like, Dantel Maras. You know, maybe
he does know what's going on. But I kept Colin,
and Colin his daughter was always very polite, and she
would say, my father's very busy but he'll get back
to you at some point. And that's how it began.
I mean, just trying to read as much as I could,
(24:11):
try to interview as many officials, authorities, reporters who cover
this esther, victims, many mothers, and try to piece it together,
hopefully waiting for Dante to call back. Others had warned
you that Dante had a dubious reputation as a reporter.
That's often something you want to stay away from. But
(24:33):
but yet you really wanted to interview him. I mean,
when Ratavis told me that this was a guy I
needed to talk to. I began by asking other colleagues
what do you know about Dante? And most of them
would say, oh, stay away from him. He's bad, his
information is bad, he's dirty. But there was one editor
(24:54):
and he would actually walk from Widesville pastle we meet
right into untown Opasso because he felt more comfortable on
the uside. But he said, you should totally talk to Dante.
I said, well, what about all these things? He says,
that's why you like to talk to Dante, because he's
in the underworld. He knows everyone. The very reason why
(25:16):
journalists would normally have reservations about someone like Dante made
him the perfect source for this story, so Alfredo keeps calling. Finally,
after three months of hounding, Dante called me back and
the Devil's lawyer tells Alfredo the Insta Juarez tomorrow morning
at am. He'd give Alfredo the exact location fifteen minutes
(25:41):
before the meeting. Let's talk about Dante's backstory. One of
the more intriguing parts is that he represented the other
bus driver accused in the cotton Field murders. He was
actually friends with Mario Escobedo and his dad, Madiu Scolo
(26:01):
Junior was someone I knew. He was my sister in
law's cousin. Madriu Scobello Senior told Dante what had happened,
and basically what had happened was the son. He's calling
his father and saying, hey, they're they're coming after me.
I think they want to kill me. He's begging the father,
you know, called the governor, called someone you know, interfeed,
but there was nothing Mary Escobado's senior could do to
(26:24):
save his son. On this set Dante on the path
for revenge. The reasons why Dante got involved it was
his friends, the Scobelo's and Discobezo were really driven by
this because they felt that these two men, said Eu
and La Folca, had been unjustly accused, and they were
forced into confession, and you have done there. You know
(26:46):
who now. As he put it to me later, it
wasn't about rule of law, it wasn't about democracy. This
is about getting even. For Dante, defending the bus drivers
was a way to honor his fallen friend, but it
was also a way to avenge him, because exposing the
(27:09):
truth of the scapegoating would obviously be very uncomfortable to
the people who killed Mario, the state police, and in fact,
Dante received threats that he would meet the same fate
as Mario, but he kept going anyway. He went to
court and MPR reports that he showed the judge pictures
of dried blood on the legs and bruises around the
(27:29):
groin where the electrodes had been attached to the bus drivers.
The judge looked at the photos and responded that the
light in the courtroom was too dim. He couldn't see anything,
so the state's case stood. In this moment, Dante realized
that his only path to justice was outside the system.
(27:52):
He had to expose the real killers himself, and in
Alfredo he saw a means to exact his revenge, but
he was still going to make the journalists work for
the information. It takes a while to get Dante to
open up. It was like little by little by little,
and every time I felt like I was about to
(28:12):
leave and think, you know, maybe my colleagues are right.
This is just it's just it's just going around and
around in circles. And then you began Thatando trying to
figure one on each other, not not revealing our secrets,
I feel, realing our stories, but kind of trying to
figure out, Okay, what are you made of? What are
(28:34):
you made of? That kind of stuff. And then Dante
starts to tell Alfredo this strange story about a cicario,
a hit man who had fallen foul of his superiors
in the cartel. He and another group of people have
been accused of robbing drugs from the cartel. So the
cartel gave chase and shot a lot of these guys
(28:56):
because in the underworld, you don't rob, you're superiors, and
if you rob, you know you get the ultimate because
you're death. Except this young man didn't die. He was
found under this group of bodies you know, Hala bodies
who survived the shootout with cartels, with people who were
(29:17):
there and say hey, you stole from us. The young
man made it back to Juarez and managed to get
in contact with Dante, who promised to protect him in
return for information. Dante, very smart, decided to hide this
guy in prison, took him in to prison under false
charges under a different name. He had very good friends.
(29:43):
He would always leave me with the little titbit and
one of them was this guy's alive if you're interested.
Not only was he alive, but he claimed to know
exactly what was happening to the women, and Dante was
ready to set up the interview that's in our next episode.
(30:09):
I'm as Voloshan and Monica or see you next time.
You know my se? So do you know my sisque
(30:34):
Halla Feliciva. Forgotten The Women of Juarez is co hosted
(31:00):
by Me, Monica and me oswal Oschin. Forgotten is executive
produced by Me and Mangesh Hattikila. Our producers are Julian
Weller and Katrina Norvelle. Sound editing by Julian Weller, Jacopo
Penzo and Aaron Kaufman. Lucas Riley is our story editor.
(31:21):
Caitlin Thompson is our consulting producer. Production support from Emily
Maronoff and Aaron Kaufman. Our theme tune is the rich
Nacimiento as performed by Natalia Laforcae. Music by Leonardo Hablum
and Hakkabo Libermann. Additional music by Aaron Kaufman. Special thanks
(31:42):
to the reporting of Karen Brooks and Scott Carrier, which
contributed to this episode.
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