March 20, 2024 • 53 mins
Last weekend on March 10th the UK celebrated Mother’s Day. They say that there is nothing like a Mother’s Love. When you have a child you vow to love and protect them for the rest of your life. One woman took that vow so seriously that she came up against some of the most dangerous people in Mexico. Often only armed with a gun, fake ID and a disguise she gave hope to hundreds of parents of missing children.
Summary
In this episode, Cherry shares the case of Miriam Rodriguez, a mother in Mexico whose daughter was kidnapped by the Los Zetas drug cartel. Miriam paid the ransom but received no news about her daughter. She took matters into her own hands, conducting her own investigation and eventually discovering the location of her daughter's remains. Miriam faced frustration with the authorities and the lack of response from the government. The case highlights the brutality of the drug cartel and the challenges faced by families seeking justice. Miriam Rodriguez, a mother from Mexico, took on a drug cartel single-handedly to seek justice for her daughter's abduction and murder. Despite facing death threats and lack of support, Miriam went to great lengths to track down and expose the gang members involved. She infiltrated their families, gathered evidence, and handed them over to the police. Miriam's determination and bravery inspired others, but tragically, she was shot and killed on Mother's Day. Her story serves as a reminder of the love between a mother and child and the power of one person's fight against injustice.
Takeaways
Case music:
Stranded by Sascha Ende
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/10375-stranded
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/crimepedia--5894684/support.
Summary
In this episode, Cherry shares the case of Miriam Rodriguez, a mother in Mexico whose daughter was kidnapped by the Los Zetas drug cartel. Miriam paid the ransom but received no news about her daughter. She took matters into her own hands, conducting her own investigation and eventually discovering the location of her daughter's remains. Miriam faced frustration with the authorities and the lack of response from the government. The case highlights the brutality of the drug cartel and the challenges faced by families seeking justice. Miriam Rodriguez, a mother from Mexico, took on a drug cartel single-handedly to seek justice for her daughter's abduction and murder. Despite facing death threats and lack of support, Miriam went to great lengths to track down and expose the gang members involved. She infiltrated their families, gathered evidence, and handed them over to the police. Miriam's determination and bravery inspired others, but tragically, she was shot and killed on Mother's Day. Her story serves as a reminder of the love between a mother and child and the power of one person's fight against injustice.
Takeaways
- The Los Zetas drug cartel in Mexico is known for its violent tactics, including kidnappings, beheadings, and torture.
- Miriam Rodriguez's relentless pursuit of justice for her daughter showcases the challenges faced by families in the face of corruption and lack of resources.
- The case highlights the importance of human rights organizations in documenting violations and pressuring the government to take action.
- The story serves as a reminder of the brutality and impact of drug cartels on communities and families. Miriam Rodriguez's story showcases the incredible determination and bravery of a mother seeking justice for her daughter.
- Her relentless pursuit of the gang members involved in her daughter's abduction and murder led to the capture and imprisonment of several individuals.
- Miriam's tragic end highlights the dangers she faced and the risks involved in challenging powerful criminal organizations.
- Her legacy serves as an inspiration for others to fight against injustice and to never give up in the face of adversity.
Case music:
Stranded by Sascha Ende
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/10375-stranded
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/crimepedia--5894684/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:37):
Hello everyone, and welcome back tocrime Pedia, the podcast that's usually every
week, but for the next coupleof weeks it's going to be every other
week due to some work commitments thatwe've got. So if you're new to
the show, welcome, and ifyou're not new to the show, thank
you very much for sticking with us. This week it's my case, so
it's me Cherry, your host,and with me, as always is my
(00:57):
true crime bff, the lovely MorganLoad Cherry. How are you. I
am great, Thank you? Howare you? I'm doing very well?
Thank you good. We've had agood, busy couple of weeks. It's
been a bit mad, but we'reback again for another episode and in two
weeks time be your episode so wecan have a case from over there.
(01:19):
But this week we've got a bitof a surprise for you. This week
my case is not from England,so if you usually listen, I usually
do like the British or I dothe European cases. But this week my
case is from Mexico. Oh you'reI apologize now. I apologize now for
(01:41):
any mispronunciations that will happen during today'sshow. I'm sure you're going to do
the best you can. Okay.Now, the other thing is this is
not an unsolved case. So usuallywe work I usually do the very old
unsold cases, and you usually domore recent unsolved cases from across the water.
(02:05):
This week, when I was researching, this woman's name popped up and
I googled her name and honestly readfor hours about this woman. She is,
I think one of the most admirablewomen I think ever I've ever ever
read about. She is fantastic,and I wanted to make sure that if
(02:30):
nothing else on this podcast, ifpeople remember nothing else about it, as
long as they remember this woman's name, then I will be really, really
happy. Last weekend, on Marchtenth, the UK celebrated Mother's Day.
(02:54):
They say that there's nothing like amother's love. When you have a child,
you've out loved them and protect themfor the rest of your life.
One woman took that vow so seriouslythat she came up against some of the
most dangerous people in Mexico. Oftenonly armed with a gun, a fake
ID, and a disguise. Shegave hope to hundreds of parents of missing
(03:15):
children. This is crime Pedia,and this is the remarkable story of Miriam
Rodriguez okay, Morgan So. OnJanuary twenty fourth, twenty fourteen, Miriam
Rodriguez said in an English accent,received a call from at four am from
her eldest daughter, Azalea. Now, Azalea told her mum that Miriam's youngest
(03:38):
daughter, twenty year old Karen,had been kidnapped by the Lositas drug cartel
and was being held for seventy seventhousand pounds in row thousand dollars, I
should say in ransom. Okay.Now, I had never heard of the
Lositas before, but I looked themup and they are a Mexican criminal syndicate
and they are a terrorist organized aone of was known as one of Mexico's
(04:02):
most dangerous drug drug cartels. AndI think at one point they were the
biggest drug and criminal organization in Mexico. I don't think that's the case now,
but at one point they were.So they were made up of former
Special Force soldiers. They are knownfor and this is just or it just
gives you goose pin poles. Theyare known for engaging in brutally violent tactics,
(04:29):
okay, such as beheadings, tortures, murder, not just not just
limited to men. Now, whilethey are primarily drug traffickers, they also
run sex and gun rackets, andI don't know what it is, rightly
or wrongly, I don't know whatit is. You can kind of not
excuse, but you can kind oflook over gun racketing, you can kind
(04:54):
of look over protection rackets, youcan kind of look over the crime stuff.
As soon as it gets to sex, torture, that kind of stuff.
Things, you know, things getquite serious and it gets to be
quite it's it's horrible. Now.What was their name again, Los Sitas?
(05:15):
So it is low Sitas is ze t a s pronounced apparently,
Yeah, okay, I'm taking this. I'm taking this from other websites.
I'm taking this from other people.That's how you pronounce it, lositas.
There history los zatas, Okay,they are That's how I would have said
it, losades. Yeah, yeah, apparently it is pronounced with an s.
(05:40):
Yeah, whichever way. Yeah.They actually have a very very interesting
history. I mean that we're notgoing to get into, but the fact
that when you say that their formalformer federalists, they were actually formed by
the by the Mexican government to fightagainst the Mexican drug cartels and so,
(06:02):
and they end up turning into adrug cartel. They turned it into their
own drug cartel. Yeah. Yeah, the information on this case, there
is so much of it, AndI read so much about this drug cartel
because in England, although we havethem, they're not the same as the
Mexican Like it's very famous, isn'tit in films and things like that.
(06:25):
It is very different and here isvery different to there. And so when
I was reading through this, it'sfascinating how this cartel is formed and how
they turn against each other, andhow the government have no power over this
kind of stuff. It's crazy.You would think that the government would be
the top of the tree, youknow, they would be in control of
(06:47):
everything, and it's so not likethat. It's crazy. Honestly. The
amount of notes that I had tocut out of this to make this into
a forty five minute episode is ridiculous. There's so much. So there is
going to be a lot in thisepisode that I am not going to tell
you that you will probably read onlineand go, wow, she never mentioned
this, But that's why. Becausewe have to stick to a time limit,
(07:10):
because you guys, don't want tosit here for three hours and listen
to me bang on about drugs andstuff. Yea, So what everyone missed
out of this, what everyone needsto know is that they're horrible, horrible
people, very very evil men.I don't understand how these men have families
and have relationships because what they dois just evil. It's awful, cold
(07:34):
you. It's the stuff of nightmares. It's the stuff of nightmares. I
don't know how you could do thatjob and then go home to your wife
and kids. And as a wife, right as a female, how could
you even put yourself into that situation? Because not only is your loved one,
your spouse and danger every single day, you're in danger too, because
(07:56):
what they do is they go afterfamilies. It's not just men, it's
kids and wives. And I alwaysthought that there's like a criminal code,
you know, that is that youdon't touch wives and you don't touch kids.
But meanwhile, in this story,you'll understand that it's not just men.
There's not just men in this cartel. There are women doing absolutely awful
(08:20):
things, so bad. Honestly,I think this story should be made into
a film. This is when Istart telling you about this there is one
film that you will straightway think ofand it is very, very similar to
that film. But this is reallife and I think this should be made
into a film. So we knowthat that this cartel is awful. We
(08:45):
know that although they do operate protectionrackets, they also perform assassinations. They
have extortion rackets going, they dokidnappings, they do a lot of other
illegal activities. Now, Miriam paidthe answer the seventy seven thousand dollars immediately,
hoping that she would get her daughterback, but there was no news
(09:07):
from the kidnappers. Okay, herand her husband, Her and her husband
weren't together, but they obviously theycome together when this has happened. They
borrowed money from the bank to paythe ransom, and oh my god,
get this. The bank there actuallyoffers loans for kidnap payments. It's that
(09:28):
it's that prolific they actually owe theyactually offer specific loans for kidnap payments.
But you know, I want tobe shocked. I'm want to be shocked
as these banks were in the pocketof these cartels either, right, Well,
it's a question you've got to beasking yourself, isn't it right?
Because it's it's very corrupt. Sois Mariam's family are they Are they well
(09:50):
to do or what do we know? What they're like economic background is the
store? They own their own store, so they own a cowboy a cowboy
store. So I think they're comfortable. But they're not, like they're not
crazily like minted. They're not.It's not like they live in a massive,
great, big castle and you knowthey've got loads and loads of money.
(10:11):
Well yeah, because my question islike they're going and doing his kidnappings,
Like how do they decide like whothey're going after? Is it just
random? And if if if,if it's from a poor family, then
then they're sorry for you. Butwe're going to ask them. You know.
Well a few years a few yearsearlier, the Lost Satas had murdered
(10:33):
almost two hundred people. These peoplewere found in mass graves in the area,
and the majority of those people werekidnapped victims from like bus hijackings,
and literally thousands of people had leftthe area because they were so frightened that
they were going to get hijacked ontheir way home from work, on their
way to kids, on the wayto school. This these people were just
(10:54):
they were just terrorizing, terrorizing thearea. I mean, Karen's brother son
Louis, had already moved away becausehe was frightened of becoming a target.
But Karen was twenty. She wantedto finish her education. Her mum had
to shop at the cowboys store.It was called Rodeo Boots, which is
cute. And it was understood thatKaren was just driving when two vehicles surrounded
(11:20):
her truck. Now men with gunspulled her out of the car, bundled
her into the back of their truck, and then took her back to her
family home and tied her up.And this was going to be the point
that they were then going to waitfor other people to come home and then
they were going to rob them.And whether or they were going to leave
her, I don't know. Buta family friend dropped by to work on
(11:41):
a car at their home, andso they started the kidnappers. So the
kidnappers then took Karen and the familyfriend and left with both victims. Okay,
so obviously Miriam and her husband wereabsolutely frantic. They had borrowed money
from the bank. They paid theransom immediately. They were instructed to take
(12:01):
the money to a local health clinicand leave it there and then wait in
a nearby cemetery. Now they didthat, was waiting in the cemetery for
further instructions. However, nothing came, like nothing happened. So, I
mean, imagine imagine being them.Your daughter's gone missing. You know,
she's been kidnapped because you've had aransom for her. You've paid the money,
(12:22):
and now you hear nothing. You'rejust waiting. It must have been
absolutely agonizing for them to be set. I mean, they've got other children,
They've got an older daughter, they'vegot a son. Thankfully, both
of them were safe. So Miriamwas then contact again by the kidnappers and
they demanded more money from her.Now she begged them to meet her.
(12:43):
She wanted to meet them, soshe went to meet them at a local
restaurant called El Junior. Now,the man that came to meet Miriam said
that he didn't have Karen and hadnothing to do with it, but he
would help find her. So shepaid the kidnappers a further two thousand dollars
and then heard nothing from them.Again, heard nothing from this man.
Now, I understand that this manwas wearing like some kind of radio or
(13:05):
some kind of phone, and shecould hear communications on this radio, and
that she believed the man was calledSammer. It's Sama, So I'm not
Mexican, but I'm guessing that's howyou pronounce it. So that's what she
kept hearing. So she then thought, Okay, I'm going to remember that
that's what this guy is called.They then called her her again and asked
(13:28):
for a further five hundred dollars.Now this low. This is quite a
low amount. So I'm thinking,to me personally, I'm thinking, is
this a massive cartail? Is thisor is this like a smaller operation that
are just getting money from her?Because five hundred dollars is not very much
compared to seventy seven thousand, youknow. So they never called again after
(13:50):
that, and there was no newson where Karen was. Now. The
guy that was abducted with Karen wasactually set free as he was apparently no
used to the cartel. They weregetting no money out of anyone for him,
and so they let him go,which I thought I would have expected
them to have just killed him,but they actually let him go, And
(14:11):
my little suspicious little mind is sortof going off there thinking, really,
no use. Wouldn't they just wouldn'tthey just execute him and check him with
everybody else? But apparently not.Because the thing, Miriam, because here's
a good point, right, becauseif if they kidnapped people, and then
also no one's paying the money,and because they know I would not,
(14:33):
then they can release them. They'renot going to get anything, so exactly,
so that's why it's like, Okay, that's a little strange. Your
suspicious little mind is overturning like mine. The first thing I thought, I
was like, well, why didn'tthey just shoot him then? Because surely
they don't care about him, soyou know, surely another one is not
(14:54):
going to make any difference. Imean, thankfully they didn't. And the
guy's okay. But Miriam interrogates thisguy and she explains to him that she
met with this man and that theradio kept saying Samma, and he confirmed
that yes, the man that shemet was involved in the kidnapping of him
and of Karen. So Miriam thenwent on Facebook, of all things,
(15:16):
right, found this profile of thisguy, found a picture of him and
he was standing next to a womanwearing an ice cream like parlor uniform.
So she found out where the parlorwas that this woman worked, wow,
and it was only two hours awayin the same town that her son Lewis
lived in. So she went outthere and basically stalked out this ice cream
(15:39):
parlor, watched the cummings and goings, Watch who turned up, watch when
they turn up, and found thissammer and he turned up to pick up
the woman in the uniform regularly.So she then knew that's where this woman
who's got something to do with himworks, so she followed him home back
to his home address. Right,I mean this is this is a fifty
seven year old woman and she iscarrying out her own investigations. So she
(16:03):
now knew where this guy lived.So she dressed herself in an old work
uniform and disguised herself. So shechanged her hair, she disguised as her
and began knocking on doors in thatman's neighborhood, pretending to do a survey.
Now, obviously he's seen her,so he knows what she looked like,
so she obviously waited until he hadgone and then knocked on the doors.
She gathered intelligence on this guy andon the area as much as she
(16:27):
could, took the evidence to localauthorities, but unfortunately, like we said,
the local authorities one are under somuch pressure because so many people have
gone missing, They've got so muchon that they can't dedicate time. Financially,
they don't have the resources to investigatestuff like this. The other fact
(16:48):
that are they under the thumb ofsome of this cartel you don't know?
And are they not investigating because alot of time they were and are Yeah,
exactly, So she took it,and you know, there was nothing
from the authorities. Now by thetime they had an arrest warrant for him,
she says that it seemed like theauthorities didn't care, which I can
(17:10):
understand if you do. If youare in the pocket of these kind of
things and you're told from higher upto keep your mouth shut or to forget
an investigation, you have to justdo that kind of thing. So if
I'm not saying that is, butif that is the case, you can
see why nothing happened. By thetime the arrest warrant was made, this
Samma had completely disappeared, so wedon't know where he went. But in
(17:33):
a twist of fate, Lewis Karen'sbrother was locking up his shop one day
and a man walked by who herecognized as this Sammer. So he called
the authorities. Sama was arrested andwas interrogated by police. So he then
revealed details of Karen's subduction and thepeople that were involved in Karen's abduction.
(17:55):
Okay, so Samon named a guycalled here we go Zapata Gonzales. The
Gonzales I can do the Zabata notbut that's what he was called. He
was eighteen, okay, he wasauthorities allowed Miriam to talk to him.
Now, she was so nice tohim that he felt really guilty, and
(18:19):
he eventually told Miriam where Karen wasbeing kept. So Karen obviously is like
really excited, she knows where herdaughter is, and so he described this
ranch and gave her the location.However, when she got there, the
ranch was empty and it was completelyfull of bullet holes. So there'd been
(18:41):
some kind of altercation there where thingswere not good. Something's gone down,
and the place is deserted. Unfortunately, when she was looking around, she
was searching the area because she wasdesperate, desperate to find out where her
daughter was. She's kind of gotit in her head that she's going to
get there and she's going to bethere, and unfortunately, she finds Karen's
scarf. Okay, so when soshe knows her daughter's been there, she
(19:03):
knows that, she calls the police. They go out there to see her,
and they search the location. Now, when they search the location,
they found dozens of bodies scattered allaround this property, buried in graves here,
there, and everywhere. So Miriampleaded with authorities to keep searching that
(19:29):
area. Now, on a secondsearch, they find part of a femur
bone, which they eventually test amonth later. It comes back that it
is indeed Karen's fema. So Miriamnow knows that Karen's dead and she's not
going to get her daughter back.But now what fuels her is that she
(19:52):
wants her daughter back to bury.She wants a place to go to see
her daughter and to lay her daughterat rest. All she's got is one
bone. Now, we know howmany bones there are in the human body,
and there's a lot missing. Soshe pleads with authorities. I mean,
when she gets there, there's likea noose in a tree. It's
like when she describes it, itsounds terrible. It's an old, dilapidated
(20:12):
ranch. There's a noose hanging fromthe tree. There's areas that you looks
nefarious that things have gone down there, and then they find all these bodies,
and then they find a bone thatbelongs to her daughter. The ranch
kind of leads Miriam to more ofthe cartel because whilst the searching was going
(20:33):
on, her and her daughter ateat a restaurant close to this ranch because
you got to eat. So whenshe went in there, she recognized one
of the waitresses, a lady calledElvia eu Liisa. Okay, she knew
Elvia, and she'd known her foryears, but she noticed when she was
talking to Elvia that she started tobe a bit weird. She started to
(20:56):
be a bit vague with her anda bit off. Mariam said to her
daughter, that's really strange. She'snever acted like that, like to me
before. I wonder if she knowssomething like this is a bit weird.
I mean, she's just down theroad from where this has all happened.
Do you think she might know something? So her daughter's like says, well,
you maybe, okay, so shehas to now she has to.
(21:22):
Miriam found out that Elvia had beendating one of the kidnappers, who was
already in prison. Okay, shefound out that the calls to Miriam's address
had been made by kidnappers from Elvia'shome. Oh so Elvia was well and
truly involved in all of this.And well, you say that, we
(21:42):
say that, but when you lookat that situation, if she's dating somebody
who's very, very dangerous, she'snot going to stand there and say no,
you can't use my phone because Idon't agree with what you're doing.
Right, It's not going to happen, is it. So whether whether or
not she knew that it was atthe time time she knew it was Karen's
daughter, it was Karen Miriam's daughter, we don't know. But she did
(22:06):
know after she knew afterwards. Yeah, she was a participant, whether or
not willingly, you know, Soshe knew she had information, yes,
And obviously obviously she knew that itwas Miriam's daughter. If you know,
if she's coming in and shacting,so she knew she's like and so she
knew she's being nice to this woman. But she knows, like, yeah,
(22:30):
I mean woman to woman, youneed to say something, don't you.
How can you be serving someone whatever, you know, serving someone on
a semi regular basis, smiling,being friendly, knowing that I know where
your daughter is, you know,yeah, and you know this woman's frantically
(22:51):
looking for a daughter, and youknow, I mean, that's a piece
of work right there. So forthe best part of a year, had
begged and threatened the officials that werein charge of process in DNA of the
human remains at the ranch. SheI mean, the vast majority of other
victims are just seemingly disappeared, andthere are hundreds and hundreds of parents that
(23:15):
are looking for their child and lookingfor their family members, and unlike them
who their families are just missing.She now knows where her daughter had been
killed and buried, So she knowswhat happened to her daughter. She knows
where. And it had been afew months later, in July time,
when forensic specialists discovered three more ribsin the earth at the ranch. Okay,
(23:41):
when they tested those, I meanthere's I mean forensic evidence testing,
although on TV shows is very quicklyand they get the results back within like
an hour, we know it takesmonths and sometimes years for forensic investigation stuff
to come back. Even though we'rereally far ahead with our you know,
forensics. Now it still isn't aquick process. And she campaigned to the
(24:02):
government to assign a forensic analysist tothe case, or an analyst, not
analysis, an analyst to the case. I'm turning into you. So she
had campaigned with the government to dothis, and they did. But the
process of we've talked about this,the process of interviewing, finding, promoting,
(24:23):
or getting somebody in this position tookmonths. And so she's fighting with
all these different officials and all thesegovernment bodies to try and get this case
like looked at by proper special experts. And on January the seventh, twenty
fifteen, the State Laboratory reported apositive match with Miriam's and Lewis's DNA profiles
(24:48):
to those three ribs. So wenow have a femur bone and three ribs
of Karen's. So this poor womanis finding her daughter bit by bit.
And that sounds ridiculous to say,and horrific it does, because normally you
would think, you know, ifyou kill someone and you just you bury
them, you're gonna find everything.Right there, knowing that they're finding bits
(25:12):
and pieces here and there is theabsolute worse, right, because we know
what that means, right, thatmeans that she's in she's in different parts.
Yeah, she's in sax. Soit's like, like, what did
they do to this girl? Youknow, it's horrific, just the thought,
(25:34):
and that's got to play on yourmind as a parent, or as
a family member or a friend ofthat person. Everybody wants their family and
friends to have a peaceful fallard sleepand die in your sleep death. Everybody
wants that. When you look atthe facts of this case, it's just
it couldn't be worse. It couldn'tbe a poor woman. It must have
been going round around in her head. You know, her daughter had an
(25:57):
absolutely horrific ending. It must beawful more than murder in that case.
This is a desecration of a party. Yeah, why why? Why?
And the other thing is that she'sonly finding bits of her so her daughter.
She can't rest, She cannot restuntil she has her daughter home in
(26:21):
her entirety. And I understand that, I understand that I would be the
same. I would be wondering whereis she. I want her all back,
I want her back where I cango and visit her. So in
twenty fifteen, she was literally atthe end of her tether. She sent
a letter to another Mexican agency calledthe State Commission for Human Rights. Now,
(26:42):
this was a group that was setup to protect and promote the rights
of humans and victims. Now,I can't don't know if I can say
this, Tamolopus, tamolopus. Thisis where it happened. So it's tama
Ulipas, t am au l ip a s tam Olipas is how I'm
(27:03):
going to pronounce it. So ifyou're Mexican and you're hearing this, you're
probably cringing and you know, wantingme to shut up right now. But
that's the place. I'm not sayingit again. Yeah, there they go.
That's where it is. So thisis where the ranch was, and
this is the area that they livedin. Now, in reality, this
(27:26):
agency basically just recorded these violations.They didn't actually do anything about it.
They just produced documents of all ofthese different violations. They didn't they didn't
do anything to stop or help promote, you know, human rights. They
literally just documented what was going on, so that they were of no use
whatsoever. So people like Miriam wrotecomplaints to the Commission to create records so
(27:49):
that there was this actual record withthis human rights group to give to the
government. So the more complaints theygot, the more records they got,
the more the government could then see. Asked what a grand scale all this
is? All this is in?Miriam told them that she was completely frustrated
with the government's lack of response,and that she had been on and on
(28:10):
at them and literally had nothing back. They were they were doing nothing.
She recounted every time she asked investigatorsif they had any news, any any
more news on the remains at theranch, any more remains that had been
found on the ranch, because Imean they didn't find the ribs on the
first search. They found the ribson subsequent searches down the line, so
they weren't searching properly because had theyhave been, they would have found the
(28:33):
ribs the first time round. Soher argument is like, Okay, it's
taken you like five digs to findone femur bone and my daughter's ribs,
so what else are you going tofind? You need to keep going,
and they're kind of saying, look, no, we've exhausted our efforts there.
We don't need to carry on,and she's obviously frustrated, No,
(28:55):
because you found four bones of mydaughter's obviously, and many many other bodies.
Yeah, there is a lot moreout there that you still need to
find. And they're buried on thispiece of land. I mean there was,
there was lots of bodies buried onthis piece of land. I doubt
(29:15):
they're going to go and take herother parts and put them somewhere else,
because they're not. They're not worriedabout it. They're just burying right there.
So Miriam wants understanding, he wantsthe rest of her, her daughter
back. Now. She went togreat lengths to find her daughter's killers,
right, She basically turned into thewoman from Taken Okay, get rid of
(29:37):
what's his face? The dad?She basically was him. No FBI training,
no police background, no investigative skillsto mention this woman. She got
fake id's. She pretended to bea health worker, She pretended to be
an election official. She pretended tobe friends of the gang members, which
helped her get close to the gangmember's family. Right that family, she
(30:00):
spoke to, their neighbors, theircousins, their employers. All these people
gave her because she was like afifty year old, cute little woman,
they gave her all this information onthis on this cartel and the people that
were involved in her daughter's abduction andmurder. She's really dangerous, basically it
is. And she gives no shits. She just wants her daughter back,
(30:22):
right. Yeah. She gets allthese snippets of information which help her build
this story about the men that she'shunting. She cut her hair, she
dyed her hair, She turned upat their locations, She watched them,
she stalked them. She built databaseson them, where they worked, where
they went, who they were marriedto. Even while she was campaigning to
(30:44):
government officials, she was still carryingout investigations on the names of the kidnappers
she was given by Sannah. Right, she worked her way one by one
through the list of names. Sonext up was a guy called Enrique Flores.
Got that one all right, now. Miriam befriended his grandmother, right,
So she made friends with his grandmotherto see what information she could find
(31:06):
out about the grandson. The grandmotherobviously welcomed her with open arms because she
weeded her way in and pretended tobe a friend. She told that the
grandson started to go to church,which church he went to, that he
was a born again Christian. Hewas like turning his life around. So
she goes to church. Miriam's nowgot a place to find him. So
she turns up the church and watcheshim over so many weeks, right,
(31:29):
she finds him chatting amongst all thechurch people, and they're all saying these
lovely things about him. They've gotno idea what he's involved in, absolutely
no idea. So she eventually shehands over this whole folder of information on
this guy to the police who comeand arrest him in church in front of
everybody. And so that's another guyin prison. So like Miriam is,
(31:52):
she is just a force to bereckoned with. So because of the way
she was feeling and the lack ofsupport, she decided to set up this
support for parents of kidnapped children.And I don't only mean children because obviously
it's her child, but she's inher twenties. And in English it's called
the Vanished Collective. I'm not evengoing to attempt it in Mexican, so
there were over six hundred members worSpanish, there were over six hundred members
(32:16):
in this group. She received deaththreats on a daily basis from gangs,
from family members of the gang membersshe'd arrested, but she still didn't care.
She just didn't. So the nextguy on the list, which is
probably one of the most famous onesyou'll read about, and I love this
bit, she tracked down this guywho was a florist and in a lot
(32:39):
of the stuff you'll read, he'sjust known as the florist. She spent
a year tracking this guy down.She found out that he peddled flowers at
the Mexican border. Now she hadbeen I think by this point she had
been It was a few years sincesince Karen had been killed, and she'd
been looking. She'd gone down theline, and she was like quite a
(33:00):
way through the list of the people. She interrogated other criminals that this florist
guy worked with. She infiltrated relativeswho gave her unwillingly gave her tips on
where this guy was working and when, and she managed to find him.
Now, on the day that shefound him, she was dressed in just
(33:20):
a trench coat over the top ofher pajamas. Okay, she had a
baseball cap on. And she finallysees him. She got so excited of
finding this guy that he clocks her, realizes who she is and makes a
run for it, so oh wow. Miriam, not deterred in her fifties,
sprints off after this guy manages toget behind him, grabs hold of
(33:45):
him, and he trips and fallsinto some railings. She puts a gun
in his back and she keeps himthere for an hour an hour until the
police arrive. And every time hemoves she tells him, if you move,
I'm going to kill you. Andshe keeps him there against these railings
until the police get there. Sheis so bad ass, it is unbelievable.
(34:07):
This is a movie. This isone percent of movie. It is
one hundred percent of movie. Andthis is one hundred percent true. This
is completely true, this woman,And this is why I did it,
because it was Mother's Day last weekendand she I just think everyone needs to
know about this woman, because shetook on something an institution that is the
most scariest thing. And you'd beforgiven for being frightened enough to just let
(34:30):
it be and accept, you know, accept what's happened. But she would
not rest. She wouldn't leave italone. It took her three years to
track down almost all of the livinggang members who kidnapped and killed her.
Daughter, and so far at thispoint in the story, she had found
ten and she had got ten putaway. So in April twenty seventeen,
(34:52):
Miriam found another one of the gangmembers and handed into him into police.
Now, this took the total toeleven, but weeks later, one of
the daughter's killers escaped from prison,and on the tenth of May twenty seventeen,
which is Mother's Day in Mexico,Miriam was shot twelve times and killed
in her own front garden. MI know, I know, I was
(35:21):
gutted when I read that. Literallymy eyes just welled up, absolutely gutted
to hear that. Now, eventhough Miriam's son Lewis took over the support
group, people obviously now that theyhad heard that Miriam was killed and how
she was killed, they then startedto leave this support group because they were
in fear of their own lives.They didn't want to be chasing the cartel
anymore, because, I mean,she was doing it single handedly. These
(35:44):
people were giving her moral support,but nobody was with her doing it.
She's doing it on her own.And they then sort of basically the fears
that they had basically came back again, and the thought that they would never
see their family members again, andbecause Miriam gave them hope, she was
their lead in the fight. Buteven in death, this woman didn't stop
(36:07):
because a month after Miriam died,police arrested a woman in Vera Cruz,
five hundred miles from San Fernando.And before her death, Miriam believed that
this woman was a suspect in Karen'smurder and tipped off police. Now by
now police know Miriam, they knowthat the leads she gets are pretty damn
accurate, and this woman had fledfled San Fernando to Vera Cruz with her
(36:31):
son. It turned out after thepolice investigations that this woman had been Karen's
torturer and she had beaten Karen asshe had hanged from her wrists. So
Miriam Mariguez had tracked down another gangmember, taken the final total to twelve.
This remarkable woman took on our wholecartel on her own. And although
(36:55):
since her death, no one's continuedto fight against, this one's fighting for
the missing people of Mexico, andthis story will make history. She never
gave up. She never gave upfighting, She never gave up campaigning to
end all of these drug wars,the murders, the kidnappings, the trafficking.
Right up until the very end,she was still going. And I
just think that there should be somekind of legacy for Miriam. There should
(37:21):
be some kind of statue or somekind of a ward or something, just
so that people never forget who thiswoman is, because she's done stuff for
thousands of people. And I thought, with Mother's debn last weekend, this
was a really it's a sad story, but it's also a positive one in
that if one woman can do this, what could those five six hundred people
(37:46):
in that support group have done together? She was just one woman on her
own in her fifties. What couldthey have done, all six hundred of
them, if they had had thedetermination and the tenacity that she had,
What could they have done? Iknow? And they killed her on Mother's
Day. They killed her on Mother'sDay in her front garden. The excuse
(38:09):
my language, but I was sobecause they did. Of course they did,
and even though she had police protection. In air quotes, but Miriam,
I know you can't hear me,but I just want to say,
I think you are bloody fantastic,and I think that it just goes to
show the love between a mother anda daughter, or a family member to
(38:31):
a family member. It just goesto show you what that can do,
and that you know, you putyour mind to it, you can do
anything. She tracked these people down, she got them put in prison.
I know she lost her life inthe end, and her children obviously are
now missing their sister and their mum. Yeah, but by god, am
I in awe of her. Whata woman, What a woman? And
(38:52):
so I thought, we have totell this story. I want everyone to
know about her and how brilliant sheis. The one thing I and say
is she did not she did notdie for nothing. That makes sense,
right, No, Like she puteverything into this, into her search for
her daughter, search for justice.Yeah, no one else was doing it.
(39:15):
So she's I'm going to do itmyself. Unbelievable and she did.
Yeah, And I just can't believehow fantastic she is. I've told everyone
about her, everyone I've spoken tosince I've been researched in this case.
And there was so much more Morgan. There's so much more that she did.
Like if you actually go and readthrough the articles and the stories online,
(39:36):
and there's a book that there's actuallya book about her. I'll find
it and I'll put it on oursocials, because there is actually a book
that tells you so so much morethan what I've just told you. This
is literally just skimming the surface ofwhat happened. That woman did so much
stuff in such a short amount oftime, just through pure determination. I'll
find out what the name of thebook is and I will put it on
our socials. So you know,but because if I'm going to definitely buy
(39:59):
the book, I'm definitely going toread it because I just think she's fantastic,
absolutely fantastic. I mean, it'sso unfortunate that she had to be
put in that place to begin with, right, I mean, yeah,
no one deserves to have your liferipped completely, no at the ground for
what? Right, I mean,it's like for peanuts. Right, This
(40:23):
is seventy seven thousand dollars for acartel. Is nothing life, It's nothing,
It's nothing. And it's difficult toit's difficult to comprehend because I think
these men that are in the womanand the women that are in these cartels,
in these groups, they've got familymembers, you know, They've got
(40:45):
brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, children. They're not just lone soldiers
on their own. They've got families. Like, how would you feel if
somebody did that to your family member? Karen did nothing, She did nothing,
She was abducted out of her carand tortured for what You've got,
the money you got, the moneyout of her parents? Like, why
(41:06):
why did she need to die likethat? Why did you need to torture
her? That's like, they's justsick. There's no need for it.
It's because they enjoy doing it,that's why. Yeah, But I don't
believe that there isn't a point atsome point where that torturer or that person
doesn't think what are going to bethe consequences to this? What if that
(41:29):
was my daughter? They must thinkit. They're human. Although they're behaving
despicably, there must be a pointwhere they're laying in bed, any little
noise they're going to be jumping upbecause they think someone's coming to get them.
Because they're always looking over their shoulders, because they do bad stuff.
Yeah, they can't rest easy atnights, surely, I mean so they
(41:50):
must. They must have feelings becausethey've got family members. I just don't
I don't know how you could dothat to somebody so innocent. I just
don't. I just don't get it. I don't understand how you could do
that to somebody. I don't understandor what's terrible or what I mean,
you know, drug cartail to drugcartel when you're fighting each other. I
get it. But why go andkidnap and to her? Why? Like,
(42:16):
she's got nothing to do with you, She's done nothing to you,
She's got no value to you otherthan this money you've got out of her
parents. I mean, I justI don't understand. You're you're either going
to All you're doing is you're you'recreating, well, you want to create
fear, right this case, theyain't create fair, right, they create
an enemy. Yeah. Yeah,it's like and she was a complete force
(42:42):
to reckon with. Bless her.I just think she's amazing, totally amazing.
Yes, unbelievable story, unbelievable story, and we had to tell it.
I know it's not our normal remitand I know that we usually focus
on cases we can do something about. But I think this is doing something.
I think this is in the wordabout this woman, and I want
everyone to know her and for herto be I want her to be admired.
(43:07):
I want her to you know,bless her. Yeah, like there
so brave. I mean there's showson Netflix like Narcos, like they had
Narcos Mexico, right, yeah,which focuses on the cartels themselves. They
need to do a show about peoplelike this, you know. Yeah,
it's like and also like about thefamilies. I mean, yeah, don't
(43:30):
waste glorification on evil individuals, right, Glorify people like Miriam who deserve it.
Yeah. Yeah, And I'm sureI'm sure there are other Miriams out
there, maybe not to the extentthat she went to, but I'm sure
there are other people that are tryingto fight this and are trying to make
(43:52):
the world a better place, thatare doing really really good things. I
mean, did you ever see theTV series Mob Wives? I don't think
so. It was on like MTVor something. So there was this show
that was called Mob Wives, andit was basically it was like the Real
Housewives of but it was only womenthat were in mob relationships or mob families,
(44:15):
and it was really interesting how theirhusbands would carry out these dodgy dealings,
but when the police would come andarrest them for it, or they
would put them in prison. Itwould be so unfair that their partner had
been put in prison. And it'slike, but hang on a minute,
(44:36):
your husband is involved in money launderingand murder and extortion, but when he
gets caught for doing those illegal activities, we need to feel sorry for him
because he's now in prison. Andit was a brilliant show, but it
did show you the vulnerabilities in thefamilies of those people, and it showed
you how they were always frightened thatsomeone would turn up and it would be
(45:01):
you know, someone would take youknow, want to take on the family
because to get to the dad andthings like that, and it is not
it's not a life. It's nolife to live. The money may be
great and everything, and you've gotlovely possessions in your house, but when
you can't even you know, goout without being worried that somebody's going to
kidnap you and hold you to ransomto your husband's No, it's not a
(45:24):
good life, is it. It'snot a good way to live. No.
So that is this week's case foryou. Or I hope you,
I hope you found that interesting.Yeah, I mean, I just think
about this, like where right now? It's you know, a midst of
like spring break for schools, universities, colleges, I think high schools and
(45:45):
stuff. And what was it?I just learn news like the US government
was issued official warning like those peoplefor people traveling in Mexico to not leave
resorts, like don't go into cities, stay in the resorts. Why would
you go? Why would you gothere? Well? They probably go because,
(46:05):
I mean it's probably a lot cheaperthan yeah, beautiful, and it's
a lot cheaper to go there thansafer places, you know. And I
mean Mexican people are beautiful people.They are wonderful, lovely Mexican people.
And the food is great, theviews are amazing, the weather is brilliant.
(46:27):
You can see why people love it. There are a few baddies there,
but then there are everywhere. Yeah, I still have zero interesting ever
going to Mexico. I can't understandwhy. No, I can't understand why.
A lot of my friend my friendgot married in Mexico and it's very
beautiful, but I just can't seepast the whole you know, the case
(46:47):
that we did. Dean Ray,I just can't. I can't get it
out of my head on holiday inMexico and ends up dead. I just
can't do that. I can't know. If you're going somewhere like the police
are walking around with like machine gunsand stuff, that's probably not the safest
place to be. They do thatin London though, and London is not
(47:09):
that bad. They don't carry machineguns around, just not machine guns,
but they do carry guns. Theydo carry big guns in like airports and
in the and in the major trainstations and stuff. The British Transport Police
carrying guns and they are pretty meanlooking guns. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(47:32):
they do, and they don't whereI live. It's a bit sleepy
yea. Yeah, when you goif you go to like a huge station
like Saint Pancras, one of thebiggest stations in London obviously that's got connections
to France. They of the Eurostarthat goes there, they have they have
armed police walking up and down theplatform. Yeah, they usually look very
(47:52):
handsome. For all you ladies outthere interested in many uniform, ladies in
uniform can confirm not bad, badat all. So yeah, not bad
at all, and they keep yousafe, which is lovely. Oh that's
funny. Thank you very much forthat. You're very welcome. Well with
(48:14):
that, we like to do alittle thing at the end of each episode
to like light in the mood.And this week I have something for you
and this is dumb criminal. Heycriminal, use a dummy criminal. I
haven't talked to Captain in a while. For those that you were wondering,
(48:36):
Captain Morgan will be back eventually whenwe have time. Captain has gone missing.
It's missing in action Captain Morgan.There's just Morgan at the moment,
so you can talk to yourself.You have special guests, why don't you
just have a guest on that.Yeah, you could do like that,
not Captain but Morgan, and thenjust do like add someone else in instead.
(48:59):
Do you remember before we used todo we used to do Cherry not
Captain. Yeah, when You're veryfirst started, I stood in for him
for a couple of times and itwas like Cherry not Captain and Morgan.
So that's what you could do.You could do like not Captain and Morgan
for a couple of weeks until untilhe's back. You could do, Yeah,
get some guests on who if youalways wanted to interview or talk to
in the True Crime World. That'sa good, good question. I have
(49:20):
to think about that. Yeah,do it. I think it'd be fun.
Yeah, let's do that sounds good. Why not? You're smart?
Well, cherry, this person wasnot smart? Okay, so okay,
I think everyone knows that if ifyou're going to be drinking, the last
thing you should be doing is driving, right, don't get behind the wheel
(49:44):
if you're if you're out drinking.And if you need a ride home,
get an uber or get a designateddriver, well, definitely not a police
car, an ambulance or or afire truck. Definitely not well. A
twenty six year old woman from Indianadecided after a night of drinking that she
was going to call doesn't a driverto come pick her up. Okay,
(50:06):
that's pretty smarty. Smart, Yeah, that's smart. What was not smart
about this was the person that shecalled to pick her up was her twelve
year old son. Oh no,why would you put your kid in danger
like that? I have no idea. I mean, I know you guys
start driving early over there, butlike twelve, it's a bit too early.
(50:29):
No, I mean that is twelve. I mean can he even see
over like the steering wheel at twelve. No, no, you'd have to
sit on a pillow. I passedmy drive in ches at seventeen and had
to sit on a pillow to drivemy car because I couldn't reach the pedals.
So so a man actually called nineone one after his sister in law,
(50:50):
who was Lindsey Pearson, picked upher kids after having drinks at a
place called Ricks Ricks Sporty Rix Sports. Okay, so it was her her
three kids. Because she had beendrinking, she had her twelve year old
boy drive her and her two juvenilechildren. H okay. Now, when
(51:13):
police arrived at her apartment, shewas confronted, and when asked, Pearson
claimed that she did not know thattwelve year olds could not drive vehicles on
public roads. Come on, she'sjust trying that on. Yeah, so
no one is that dumb. She'sjust trying that on. Mm hmm.
(51:34):
So, in addition to charges ofresisting law enforcement, disorderly conduct, criminal
recklessness, she was also charged withchild neglect. So I yeah, I
good, I'm glad. Yeah.I mean, regardless of not everyone can
be a designator driver. People don'tmake your kids drive you home unless you
(51:55):
your license. I mean to befair, I have seen some twelve years.
I was at like five,'tten, so he may have looked
enough to drive, But I mean, really, are you going to put
yourself and other kids in danger byletting your kid who hasn't got a license
drive you home. No, I'mnot letting. I'm not letting a kid
whose only experience of driving is MarioKart drive me anywhere. Right, Yeah,
(52:19):
that's true. That's true. It'sbad enough when your kid is seventeen
and has got their license. It'sbad enough getting the car with them,
then let alone when they're twelve.I haven't. I mean, that's crazy.
Who would ever think like this isokay, this is okay. It's
not okay. Your perception is alittle bit off. Goh god, so
(52:43):
wow, don't be dumb. Don'tbe dumb. Although be dumb because we
love to add this to the endof the show just to shop everyone else
stupid. You are. Keep thedumbness coming people. And she was caught
before she let it happen, sono one was hurt in there. Thank
you this dumb criminal story, whichis always good. So thank you so
much for joining us this week.We hope you've enjoyed this week's show and
(53:07):
had a little bit of an upliftfrom Miriam's story. Go out research her.
I will put the details on oursocials of Miriam's story and the story
that's written about her, so youcan read it. And we will be
back in two weeks time with Morgan'scase, So for now between then,
be nice and bye.
Hello everyone, and welcome back tocrime Pedia, the podcast that's usually every
week, but for the next coupleof weeks it's going to be every other
week due to some work commitments thatwe've got. So if you're new to
the show, welcome, and ifyou're not new to the show, thank
you very much for sticking with us. This week it's my case, so
it's me Cherry, your host,and with me, as always is my
(00:57):
true crime bff, the lovely MorganLoad Cherry. How are you. I
am great, Thank you? Howare you? I'm doing very well?
Thank you good. We've had agood, busy couple of weeks. It's
been a bit mad, but we'reback again for another episode and in two
weeks time be your episode so wecan have a case from over there.
(01:19):
But this week we've got a bitof a surprise for you. This week
my case is not from England,so if you usually listen, I usually
do like the British or I dothe European cases. But this week my
case is from Mexico. Oh you'reI apologize now. I apologize now for
(01:41):
any mispronunciations that will happen during today'sshow. I'm sure you're going to do
the best you can. Okay.Now, the other thing is this is
not an unsolved case. So usuallywe work I usually do the very old
unsold cases, and you usually domore recent unsolved cases from across the water.
(02:05):
This week, when I was researching, this woman's name popped up and
I googled her name and honestly readfor hours about this woman. She is,
I think one of the most admirablewomen I think ever I've ever ever
read about. She is fantastic,and I wanted to make sure that if
(02:30):
nothing else on this podcast, ifpeople remember nothing else about it, as
long as they remember this woman's name, then I will be really, really
happy. Last weekend, on Marchtenth, the UK celebrated Mother's Day.
(02:54):
They say that there's nothing like amother's love. When you have a child,
you've out loved them and protect themfor the rest of your life.
One woman took that vow so seriouslythat she came up against some of the
most dangerous people in Mexico. Oftenonly armed with a gun, a fake
ID, and a disguise. Shegave hope to hundreds of parents of missing
(03:15):
children. This is crime Pedia,and this is the remarkable story of Miriam
Rodriguez okay, Morgan So. OnJanuary twenty fourth, twenty fourteen, Miriam
Rodriguez said in an English accent,received a call from at four am from
her eldest daughter, Azalea. Now, Azalea told her mum that Miriam's youngest
(03:38):
daughter, twenty year old Karen,had been kidnapped by the Lositas drug cartel
and was being held for seventy seventhousand pounds in row thousand dollars, I
should say in ransom. Okay.Now, I had never heard of the
Lositas before, but I looked themup and they are a Mexican criminal syndicate
and they are a terrorist organized aone of was known as one of Mexico's
(04:02):
most dangerous drug drug cartels. AndI think at one point they were the
biggest drug and criminal organization in Mexico. I don't think that's the case now,
but at one point they were.So they were made up of former
Special Force soldiers. They are knownfor and this is just or it just
gives you goose pin poles. Theyare known for engaging in brutally violent tactics,
(04:29):
okay, such as beheadings, tortures, murder, not just not just
limited to men. Now, whilethey are primarily drug traffickers, they also
run sex and gun rackets, andI don't know what it is, rightly
or wrongly, I don't know whatit is. You can kind of not
excuse, but you can kind oflook over gun racketing, you can kind
(04:54):
of look over protection rackets, youcan kind of look over the crime stuff.
As soon as it gets to sex, torture, that kind of stuff.
Things, you know, things getquite serious and it gets to be
quite it's it's horrible. Now.What was their name again, Los Sitas?
(05:15):
So it is low Sitas is ze t a s pronounced apparently,
Yeah, okay, I'm taking this. I'm taking this from other websites.
I'm taking this from other people.That's how you pronounce it, lositas.
There history los zatas, Okay,they are That's how I would have said
it, losades. Yeah, yeah, apparently it is pronounced with an s.
(05:40):
Yeah, whichever way. Yeah.They actually have a very very interesting
history. I mean that we're notgoing to get into, but the fact
that when you say that their formalformer federalists, they were actually formed by
the by the Mexican government to fightagainst the Mexican drug cartels and so,
(06:02):
and they end up turning into adrug cartel. They turned it into their
own drug cartel. Yeah. Yeah, the information on this case, there
is so much of it, AndI read so much about this drug cartel
because in England, although we havethem, they're not the same as the
Mexican Like it's very famous, isn'tit in films and things like that.
(06:25):
It is very different and here isvery different to there. And so when
I was reading through this, it'sfascinating how this cartel is formed and how
they turn against each other, andhow the government have no power over this
kind of stuff. It's crazy.You would think that the government would be
the top of the tree, youknow, they would be in control of
(06:47):
everything, and it's so not likethat. It's crazy. Honestly. The
amount of notes that I had tocut out of this to make this into
a forty five minute episode is ridiculous. There's so much. So there is
going to be a lot in thisepisode that I am not going to tell
you that you will probably read onlineand go, wow, she never mentioned
this, But that's why. Becausewe have to stick to a time limit,
(07:10):
because you guys, don't want tosit here for three hours and listen
to me bang on about drugs andstuff. Yea, So what everyone missed
out of this, what everyone needsto know is that they're horrible, horrible
people, very very evil men.I don't understand how these men have families
and have relationships because what they dois just evil. It's awful, cold
(07:34):
you. It's the stuff of nightmares. It's the stuff of nightmares. I
don't know how you could do thatjob and then go home to your wife
and kids. And as a wife, right as a female, how could
you even put yourself into that situation? Because not only is your loved one,
your spouse and danger every single day, you're in danger too, because
(07:56):
what they do is they go afterfamilies. It's not just men, it's
kids and wives. And I alwaysthought that there's like a criminal code,
you know, that is that youdon't touch wives and you don't touch kids.
But meanwhile, in this story,you'll understand that it's not just men.
There's not just men in this cartel. There are women doing absolutely awful
(08:20):
things, so bad. Honestly,I think this story should be made into
a film. This is when Istart telling you about this there is one
film that you will straightway think ofand it is very, very similar to
that film. But this is reallife and I think this should be made
into a film. So we knowthat that this cartel is awful. We
(08:45):
know that although they do operate protectionrackets, they also perform assassinations. They
have extortion rackets going, they dokidnappings, they do a lot of other
illegal activities. Now, Miriam paidthe answer the seventy seven thousand dollars immediately,
hoping that she would get her daughterback, but there was no news
(09:07):
from the kidnappers. Okay, herand her husband, Her and her husband
weren't together, but they obviously theycome together when this has happened. They
borrowed money from the bank to paythe ransom, and oh my god,
get this. The bank there actuallyoffers loans for kidnap payments. It's that
(09:28):
it's that prolific they actually owe theyactually offer specific loans for kidnap payments.
But you know, I want tobe shocked. I'm want to be shocked
as these banks were in the pocketof these cartels either, right, Well,
it's a question you've got to beasking yourself, isn't it right?
Because it's it's very corrupt. Sois Mariam's family are they Are they well
(09:50):
to do or what do we know? What they're like economic background is the
store? They own their own store, so they own a cowboy a cowboy
store. So I think they're comfortable. But they're not, like they're not
crazily like minted. They're not.It's not like they live in a massive,
great, big castle and you knowthey've got loads and loads of money.
(10:11):
Well yeah, because my question islike they're going and doing his kidnappings,
Like how do they decide like whothey're going after? Is it just
random? And if if if,if it's from a poor family, then
then they're sorry for you. Butwe're going to ask them. You know.
Well a few years a few yearsearlier, the Lost Satas had murdered
(10:33):
almost two hundred people. These peoplewere found in mass graves in the area,
and the majority of those people werekidnapped victims from like bus hijackings,
and literally thousands of people had leftthe area because they were so frightened that
they were going to get hijacked ontheir way home from work, on their
way to kids, on the wayto school. This these people were just
(10:54):
they were just terrorizing, terrorizing thearea. I mean, Karen's brother son
Louis, had already moved away becausehe was frightened of becoming a target.
But Karen was twenty. She wantedto finish her education. Her mum had
to shop at the cowboys store.It was called Rodeo Boots, which is
cute. And it was understood thatKaren was just driving when two vehicles surrounded
(11:20):
her truck. Now men with gunspulled her out of the car, bundled
her into the back of their truck, and then took her back to her
family home and tied her up.And this was going to be the point
that they were then going to waitfor other people to come home and then
they were going to rob them.And whether or they were going to leave
her, I don't know. Buta family friend dropped by to work on
(11:41):
a car at their home, andso they started the kidnappers. So the
kidnappers then took Karen and the familyfriend and left with both victims. Okay,
so obviously Miriam and her husband wereabsolutely frantic. They had borrowed money
from the bank. They paid theransom immediately. They were instructed to take
(12:01):
the money to a local health clinicand leave it there and then wait in
a nearby cemetery. Now they didthat, was waiting in the cemetery for
further instructions. However, nothing came, like nothing happened. So, I
mean, imagine imagine being them.Your daughter's gone missing. You know,
she's been kidnapped because you've had aransom for her. You've paid the money,
(12:22):
and now you hear nothing. You'rejust waiting. It must have been
absolutely agonizing for them to be set. I mean, they've got other children,
They've got an older daughter, they'vegot a son. Thankfully, both
of them were safe. So Miriamwas then contact again by the kidnappers and
they demanded more money from her.Now she begged them to meet her.
(12:43):
She wanted to meet them, soshe went to meet them at a local
restaurant called El Junior. Now,the man that came to meet Miriam said
that he didn't have Karen and hadnothing to do with it, but he
would help find her. So shepaid the kidnappers a further two thousand dollars
and then heard nothing from them.Again, heard nothing from this man.
Now, I understand that this manwas wearing like some kind of radio or
(13:05):
some kind of phone, and shecould hear communications on this radio, and
that she believed the man was calledSammer. It's Sama, So I'm not
Mexican, but I'm guessing that's howyou pronounce it. So that's what she
kept hearing. So she then thought, Okay, I'm going to remember that
that's what this guy is called.They then called her her again and asked
(13:28):
for a further five hundred dollars.Now this low. This is quite a
low amount. So I'm thinking,to me personally, I'm thinking, is
this a massive cartail? Is thisor is this like a smaller operation that
are just getting money from her?Because five hundred dollars is not very much
compared to seventy seven thousand, youknow. So they never called again after
(13:50):
that, and there was no newson where Karen was. Now. The
guy that was abducted with Karen wasactually set free as he was apparently no
used to the cartel. They weregetting no money out of anyone for him,
and so they let him go,which I thought I would have expected
them to have just killed him,but they actually let him go, And
(14:11):
my little suspicious little mind is sortof going off there thinking, really,
no use. Wouldn't they just wouldn'tthey just execute him and check him with
everybody else? But apparently not.Because the thing, Miriam, because here's
a good point, right, becauseif if they kidnapped people, and then
also no one's paying the money,and because they know I would not,
(14:33):
then they can release them. They'renot going to get anything, so exactly,
so that's why it's like, Okay, that's a little strange. Your
suspicious little mind is overturning like mine. The first thing I thought, I
was like, well, why didn'tthey just shoot him then? Because surely
they don't care about him, soyou know, surely another one is not
(14:54):
going to make any difference. Imean, thankfully they didn't. And the
guy's okay. But Miriam interrogates thisguy and she explains to him that she
met with this man and that theradio kept saying Samma, and he confirmed
that yes, the man that shemet was involved in the kidnapping of him
and of Karen. So Miriam thenwent on Facebook, of all things,
(15:16):
right, found this profile of thisguy, found a picture of him and
he was standing next to a womanwearing an ice cream like parlor uniform.
So she found out where the parlorwas that this woman worked, wow,
and it was only two hours awayin the same town that her son Lewis
lived in. So she went outthere and basically stalked out this ice cream
(15:39):
parlor, watched the cummings and goings, Watch who turned up, watch when
they turn up, and found thissammer and he turned up to pick up
the woman in the uniform regularly.So she then knew that's where this woman
who's got something to do with himworks, so she followed him home back
to his home address. Right,I mean this is this is a fifty
seven year old woman and she iscarrying out her own investigations. So she
(16:03):
now knew where this guy lived.So she dressed herself in an old work
uniform and disguised herself. So shechanged her hair, she disguised as her
and began knocking on doors in thatman's neighborhood, pretending to do a survey.
Now, obviously he's seen her,so he knows what she looked like,
so she obviously waited until he hadgone and then knocked on the doors.
She gathered intelligence on this guy andon the area as much as she
(16:27):
could, took the evidence to localauthorities, but unfortunately, like we said,
the local authorities one are under somuch pressure because so many people have
gone missing, They've got so muchon that they can't dedicate time. Financially,
they don't have the resources to investigatestuff like this. The other fact
(16:48):
that are they under the thumb ofsome of this cartel you don't know?
And are they not investigating because alot of time they were and are Yeah,
exactly, So she took it,and you know, there was nothing
from the authorities. Now by thetime they had an arrest warrant for him,
she says that it seemed like theauthorities didn't care, which I can
(17:10):
understand if you do. If youare in the pocket of these kind of
things and you're told from higher upto keep your mouth shut or to forget
an investigation, you have to justdo that kind of thing. So if
I'm not saying that is, butif that is the case, you can
see why nothing happened. By thetime the arrest warrant was made, this
Samma had completely disappeared, so wedon't know where he went. But in
(17:33):
a twist of fate, Lewis Karen'sbrother was locking up his shop one day
and a man walked by who herecognized as this Sammer. So he called
the authorities. Sama was arrested andwas interrogated by police. So he then
revealed details of Karen's subduction and thepeople that were involved in Karen's abduction.
(17:55):
Okay, so Samon named a guycalled here we go Zapata Gonzales. The
Gonzales I can do the Zabata notbut that's what he was called. He
was eighteen, okay, he wasauthorities allowed Miriam to talk to him.
Now, she was so nice tohim that he felt really guilty, and
(18:19):
he eventually told Miriam where Karen wasbeing kept. So Karen obviously is like
really excited, she knows where herdaughter is, and so he described this
ranch and gave her the location.However, when she got there, the
ranch was empty and it was completelyfull of bullet holes. So there'd been
(18:41):
some kind of altercation there where thingswere not good. Something's gone down,
and the place is deserted. Unfortunately, when she was looking around, she
was searching the area because she wasdesperate, desperate to find out where her
daughter was. She's kind of gotit in her head that she's going to
get there and she's going to bethere, and unfortunately, she finds Karen's
scarf. Okay, so when soshe knows her daughter's been there, she
(19:03):
knows that, she calls the police. They go out there to see her,
and they search the location. Now, when they search the location,
they found dozens of bodies scattered allaround this property, buried in graves here,
there, and everywhere. So Miriampleaded with authorities to keep searching that
(19:29):
area. Now, on a secondsearch, they find part of a femur
bone, which they eventually test amonth later. It comes back that it
is indeed Karen's fema. So Miriamnow knows that Karen's dead and she's not
going to get her daughter back.But now what fuels her is that she
(19:52):
wants her daughter back to bury.She wants a place to go to see
her daughter and to lay her daughterat rest. All she's got is one
bone. Now, we know howmany bones there are in the human body,
and there's a lot missing. Soshe pleads with authorities. I mean,
when she gets there, there's likea noose in a tree. It's
like when she describes it, itsounds terrible. It's an old, dilapidated
(20:12):
ranch. There's a noose hanging fromthe tree. There's areas that you looks
nefarious that things have gone down there, and then they find all these bodies,
and then they find a bone thatbelongs to her daughter. The ranch
kind of leads Miriam to more ofthe cartel because whilst the searching was going
(20:33):
on, her and her daughter ateat a restaurant close to this ranch because
you got to eat. So whenshe went in there, she recognized one
of the waitresses, a lady calledElvia eu Liisa. Okay, she knew
Elvia, and she'd known her foryears, but she noticed when she was
talking to Elvia that she started tobe a bit weird. She started to
(20:56):
be a bit vague with her anda bit off. Mariam said to her
daughter, that's really strange. She'snever acted like that, like to me
before. I wonder if she knowssomething like this is a bit weird.
I mean, she's just down theroad from where this has all happened.
Do you think she might know something? So her daughter's like says, well,
you maybe, okay, so shehas to now she has to.
(21:22):
Miriam found out that Elvia had beendating one of the kidnappers, who was
already in prison. Okay, shefound out that the calls to Miriam's address
had been made by kidnappers from Elvia'shome. Oh so Elvia was well and
truly involved in all of this.And well, you say that, we
(21:42):
say that, but when you lookat that situation, if she's dating somebody
who's very, very dangerous, she'snot going to stand there and say no,
you can't use my phone because Idon't agree with what you're doing.
Right, It's not going to happen, is it. So whether whether or
not she knew that it was atthe time time she knew it was Karen's
daughter, it was Karen Miriam's daughter, we don't know. But she did
(22:06):
know after she knew afterwards. Yeah, she was a participant, whether or
not willingly, you know, Soshe knew she had information, yes,
And obviously obviously she knew that itwas Miriam's daughter. If you know,
if she's coming in and shacting,so she knew she's like and so she
knew she's being nice to this woman. But she knows, like, yeah,
(22:30):
I mean woman to woman, youneed to say something, don't you.
How can you be serving someone whatever, you know, serving someone on
a semi regular basis, smiling,being friendly, knowing that I know where
your daughter is, you know,yeah, and you know this woman's frantically
(22:51):
looking for a daughter, and youknow, I mean, that's a piece
of work right there. So forthe best part of a year, had
begged and threatened the officials that werein charge of process in DNA of the
human remains at the ranch. SheI mean, the vast majority of other
victims are just seemingly disappeared, andthere are hundreds and hundreds of parents that
(23:15):
are looking for their child and lookingfor their family members, and unlike them
who their families are just missing.She now knows where her daughter had been
killed and buried, So she knowswhat happened to her daughter. She knows
where. And it had been afew months later, in July time,
when forensic specialists discovered three more ribsin the earth at the ranch. Okay,
(23:41):
when they tested those, I meanthere's I mean forensic evidence testing,
although on TV shows is very quicklyand they get the results back within like
an hour, we know it takesmonths and sometimes years for forensic investigation stuff
to come back. Even though we'rereally far ahead with our you know,
forensics. Now it still isn't aquick process. And she campaigned to the
(24:02):
government to assign a forensic analysist tothe case, or an analyst, not
analysis, an analyst to the case. I'm turning into you. So she
had campaigned with the government to dothis, and they did. But the
process of we've talked about this,the process of interviewing, finding, promoting,
(24:23):
or getting somebody in this position tookmonths. And so she's fighting with
all these different officials and all thesegovernment bodies to try and get this case
like looked at by proper special experts. And on January the seventh, twenty
fifteen, the State Laboratory reported apositive match with Miriam's and Lewis's DNA profiles
(24:48):
to those three ribs. So wenow have a femur bone and three ribs
of Karen's. So this poor womanis finding her daughter bit by bit.
And that sounds ridiculous to say,and horrific it does, because normally you
would think, you know, ifyou kill someone and you just you bury
them, you're gonna find everything.Right there, knowing that they're finding bits
(25:12):
and pieces here and there is theabsolute worse, right, because we know
what that means, right, thatmeans that she's in she's in different parts.
Yeah, she's in sax. Soit's like, like, what did
they do to this girl? Youknow, it's horrific, just the thought,
(25:34):
and that's got to play on yourmind as a parent, or as
a family member or a friend ofthat person. Everybody wants their family and
friends to have a peaceful fallard sleepand die in your sleep death. Everybody
wants that. When you look atthe facts of this case, it's just
it couldn't be worse. It couldn'tbe a poor woman. It must have
been going round around in her head. You know, her daughter had an
(25:57):
absolutely horrific ending. It must beawful more than murder in that case.
This is a desecration of a party. Yeah, why why? Why?
And the other thing is that she'sonly finding bits of her so her daughter.
She can't rest, She cannot restuntil she has her daughter home in
(26:21):
her entirety. And I understand that, I understand that I would be the
same. I would be wondering whereis she. I want her all back,
I want her back where I cango and visit her. So in
twenty fifteen, she was literally atthe end of her tether. She sent
a letter to another Mexican agency calledthe State Commission for Human Rights. Now,
(26:42):
this was a group that was setup to protect and promote the rights
of humans and victims. Now,I can't don't know if I can say
this, Tamolopus, tamolopus. Thisis where it happened. So it's tama
Ulipas, t am au l ip a s tam Olipas is how I'm
(27:03):
going to pronounce it. So ifyou're Mexican and you're hearing this, you're
probably cringing and you know, wantingme to shut up right now. But
that's the place. I'm not sayingit again. Yeah, there they go.
That's where it is. So thisis where the ranch was, and
this is the area that they livedin. Now, in reality, this
(27:26):
agency basically just recorded these violations.They didn't actually do anything about it.
They just produced documents of all ofthese different violations. They didn't they didn't
do anything to stop or help promote, you know, human rights. They
literally just documented what was going on, so that they were of no use
whatsoever. So people like Miriam wrotecomplaints to the Commission to create records so
(27:49):
that there was this actual record withthis human rights group to give to the
government. So the more complaints theygot, the more records they got,
the more the government could then see. Asked what a grand scale all this
is? All this is in?Miriam told them that she was completely frustrated
with the government's lack of response,and that she had been on and on
(28:10):
at them and literally had nothing back. They were they were doing nothing.
She recounted every time she asked investigatorsif they had any news, any any
more news on the remains at theranch, any more remains that had been
found on the ranch, because Imean they didn't find the ribs on the
first search. They found the ribson subsequent searches down the line, so
they weren't searching properly because had theyhave been, they would have found the
(28:33):
ribs the first time round. Soher argument is like, Okay, it's
taken you like five digs to findone femur bone and my daughter's ribs,
so what else are you going tofind? You need to keep going,
and they're kind of saying, look, no, we've exhausted our efforts there.
We don't need to carry on,and she's obviously frustrated, No,
(28:55):
because you found four bones of mydaughter's obviously, and many many other bodies.
Yeah, there is a lot moreout there that you still need to
find. And they're buried on thispiece of land. I mean there was,
there was lots of bodies buried onthis piece of land. I doubt
(29:15):
they're going to go and take herother parts and put them somewhere else,
because they're not. They're not worriedabout it. They're just burying right there.
So Miriam wants understanding, he wantsthe rest of her, her daughter
back. Now. She went togreat lengths to find her daughter's killers,
right, She basically turned into thewoman from Taken Okay, get rid of
(29:37):
what's his face? The dad?She basically was him. No FBI training,
no police background, no investigative skillsto mention this woman. She got
fake id's. She pretended to bea health worker, She pretended to be
an election official. She pretended tobe friends of the gang members, which
helped her get close to the gangmember's family. Right that family, she
(30:00):
spoke to, their neighbors, theircousins, their employers. All these people
gave her because she was like afifty year old, cute little woman,
they gave her all this information onthis on this cartel and the people that
were involved in her daughter's abduction andmurder. She's really dangerous, basically it
is. And she gives no shits. She just wants her daughter back,
(30:22):
right. Yeah. She gets allthese snippets of information which help her build
this story about the men that she'shunting. She cut her hair, she
dyed her hair, She turned upat their locations, She watched them,
she stalked them. She built databaseson them, where they worked, where
they went, who they were marriedto. Even while she was campaigning to
(30:44):
government officials, she was still carryingout investigations on the names of the kidnappers
she was given by Sannah. Right, she worked her way one by one
through the list of names. Sonext up was a guy called Enrique Flores.
Got that one all right, now. Miriam befriended his grandmother, right,
So she made friends with his grandmotherto see what information she could find
(31:06):
out about the grandson. The grandmotherobviously welcomed her with open arms because she
weeded her way in and pretended tobe a friend. She told that the
grandson started to go to church,which church he went to, that he
was a born again Christian. Hewas like turning his life around. So
she goes to church. Miriam's nowgot a place to find him. So
she turns up the church and watcheshim over so many weeks, right,
(31:29):
she finds him chatting amongst all thechurch people, and they're all saying these
lovely things about him. They've gotno idea what he's involved in, absolutely
no idea. So she eventually shehands over this whole folder of information on
this guy to the police who comeand arrest him in church in front of
everybody. And so that's another guyin prison. So like Miriam is,
(31:52):
she is just a force to bereckoned with. So because of the way
she was feeling and the lack ofsupport, she decided to set up this
support for parents of kidnapped children.And I don't only mean children because obviously
it's her child, but she's inher twenties. And in English it's called
the Vanished Collective. I'm not evengoing to attempt it in Mexican, so
there were over six hundred members worSpanish, there were over six hundred members
(32:16):
in this group. She received deaththreats on a daily basis from gangs,
from family members of the gang membersshe'd arrested, but she still didn't care.
She just didn't. So the nextguy on the list, which is
probably one of the most famous onesyou'll read about, and I love this
bit, she tracked down this guywho was a florist and in a lot
(32:39):
of the stuff you'll read, he'sjust known as the florist. She spent
a year tracking this guy down.She found out that he peddled flowers at
the Mexican border. Now she hadbeen I think by this point she had
been It was a few years sincesince Karen had been killed, and she'd
been looking. She'd gone down theline, and she was like quite a
(33:00):
way through the list of the people. She interrogated other criminals that this florist
guy worked with. She infiltrated relativeswho gave her unwillingly gave her tips on
where this guy was working and when, and she managed to find him.
Now, on the day that shefound him, she was dressed in just
(33:20):
a trench coat over the top ofher pajamas. Okay, she had a
baseball cap on. And she finallysees him. She got so excited of
finding this guy that he clocks her, realizes who she is and makes a
run for it, so oh wow. Miriam, not deterred in her fifties,
sprints off after this guy manages toget behind him, grabs hold of
(33:45):
him, and he trips and fallsinto some railings. She puts a gun
in his back and she keeps himthere for an hour an hour until the
police arrive. And every time hemoves she tells him, if you move,
I'm going to kill you. Andshe keeps him there against these railings
until the police get there. Sheis so bad ass, it is unbelievable.
(34:07):
This is a movie. This isone percent of movie. It is
one hundred percent of movie. Andthis is one hundred percent true. This
is completely true, this woman,And this is why I did it,
because it was Mother's Day last weekendand she I just think everyone needs to
know about this woman, because shetook on something an institution that is the
most scariest thing. And you'd beforgiven for being frightened enough to just let
(34:30):
it be and accept, you know, accept what's happened. But she would
not rest. She wouldn't leave italone. It took her three years to
track down almost all of the livinggang members who kidnapped and killed her.
Daughter, and so far at thispoint in the story, she had found
ten and she had got ten putaway. So in April twenty seventeen,
(34:52):
Miriam found another one of the gangmembers and handed into him into police.
Now, this took the total toeleven, but weeks later, one of
the daughter's killers escaped from prison,and on the tenth of May twenty seventeen,
which is Mother's Day in Mexico,Miriam was shot twelve times and killed
in her own front garden. MI know, I know, I was
(35:21):
gutted when I read that. Literallymy eyes just welled up, absolutely gutted
to hear that. Now, eventhough Miriam's son Lewis took over the support
group, people obviously now that theyhad heard that Miriam was killed and how
she was killed, they then startedto leave this support group because they were
in fear of their own lives.They didn't want to be chasing the cartel
anymore, because, I mean,she was doing it single handedly. These
(35:44):
people were giving her moral support,but nobody was with her doing it.
She's doing it on her own.And they then sort of basically the fears
that they had basically came back again, and the thought that they would never
see their family members again, andbecause Miriam gave them hope, she was
their lead in the fight. Buteven in death, this woman didn't stop
(36:07):
because a month after Miriam died,police arrested a woman in Vera Cruz,
five hundred miles from San Fernando.And before her death, Miriam believed that
this woman was a suspect in Karen'smurder and tipped off police. Now by
now police know Miriam, they knowthat the leads she gets are pretty damn
accurate, and this woman had fledfled San Fernando to Vera Cruz with her
(36:31):
son. It turned out after thepolice investigations that this woman had been Karen's
torturer and she had beaten Karen asshe had hanged from her wrists. So
Miriam Mariguez had tracked down another gangmember, taken the final total to twelve.
This remarkable woman took on our wholecartel on her own. And although
(36:55):
since her death, no one's continuedto fight against, this one's fighting for
the missing people of Mexico, andthis story will make history. She never
gave up. She never gave upfighting, She never gave up campaigning to
end all of these drug wars,the murders, the kidnappings, the trafficking.
Right up until the very end,she was still going. And I
just think that there should be somekind of legacy for Miriam. There should
(37:21):
be some kind of statue or somekind of a ward or something, just
so that people never forget who thiswoman is, because she's done stuff for
thousands of people. And I thought, with Mother's debn last weekend, this
was a really it's a sad story, but it's also a positive one in
that if one woman can do this, what could those five six hundred people
(37:46):
in that support group have done together? She was just one woman on her
own in her fifties. What couldthey have done, all six hundred of
them, if they had had thedetermination and the tenacity that she had,
What could they have done? Iknow? And they killed her on Mother's
Day. They killed her on Mother'sDay in her front garden. The excuse
(38:09):
my language, but I was sobecause they did. Of course they did,
and even though she had police protection. In air quotes, but Miriam,
I know you can't hear me,but I just want to say,
I think you are bloody fantastic,and I think that it just goes to
show the love between a mother anda daughter, or a family member to
(38:31):
a family member. It just goesto show you what that can do,
and that you know, you putyour mind to it, you can do
anything. She tracked these people down, she got them put in prison.
I know she lost her life inthe end, and her children obviously are
now missing their sister and their mum. Yeah, but by god, am
I in awe of her. Whata woman, What a woman? And
(38:52):
so I thought, we have totell this story. I want everyone to
know about her and how brilliant sheis. The one thing I and say
is she did not she did notdie for nothing. That makes sense,
right, No, Like she puteverything into this, into her search for
her daughter, search for justice.Yeah, no one else was doing it.
(39:15):
So she's I'm going to do itmyself. Unbelievable and she did.
Yeah, And I just can't believehow fantastic she is. I've told everyone
about her, everyone I've spoken tosince I've been researched in this case.
And there was so much more Morgan. There's so much more that she did.
Like if you actually go and readthrough the articles and the stories online,
(39:36):
and there's a book that there's actuallya book about her. I'll find
it and I'll put it on oursocials, because there is actually a book
that tells you so so much morethan what I've just told you. This
is literally just skimming the surface ofwhat happened. That woman did so much
stuff in such a short amount oftime, just through pure determination. I'll
find out what the name of thebook is and I will put it on
our socials. So you know,but because if I'm going to definitely buy
(39:59):
the book, I'm definitely going toread it because I just think she's fantastic,
absolutely fantastic. I mean, it'sso unfortunate that she had to be
put in that place to begin with, right, I mean, yeah,
no one deserves to have your liferipped completely, no at the ground for
what? Right, I mean,it's like for peanuts. Right, This
(40:23):
is seventy seven thousand dollars for acartel. Is nothing life, It's nothing,
It's nothing. And it's difficult toit's difficult to comprehend because I think
these men that are in the womanand the women that are in these cartels,
in these groups, they've got familymembers, you know, They've got
(40:45):
brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, children. They're not just lone soldiers
on their own. They've got families. Like, how would you feel if
somebody did that to your family member? Karen did nothing, She did nothing,
She was abducted out of her carand tortured for what You've got,
the money you got, the moneyout of her parents? Like, why
(41:06):
why did she need to die likethat? Why did you need to torture
her? That's like, they's justsick. There's no need for it.
It's because they enjoy doing it,that's why. Yeah, But I don't
believe that there isn't a point atsome point where that torturer or that person
doesn't think what are going to bethe consequences to this? What if that
(41:29):
was my daughter? They must thinkit. They're human. Although they're behaving
despicably, there must be a pointwhere they're laying in bed, any little
noise they're going to be jumping upbecause they think someone's coming to get them.
Because they're always looking over their shoulders, because they do bad stuff.
Yeah, they can't rest easy atnights, surely, I mean so they
(41:50):
must. They must have feelings becausethey've got family members. I just don't
I don't know how you could dothat to somebody so innocent. I just
don't. I just don't get it. I don't understand how you could do
that to somebody. I don't understandor what's terrible or what I mean,
you know, drug cartail to drugcartel when you're fighting each other. I
get it. But why go andkidnap and to her? Why? Like,
(42:16):
she's got nothing to do with you, She's done nothing to you,
She's got no value to you otherthan this money you've got out of her
parents. I mean, I justI don't understand. You're you're either going
to All you're doing is you're you'recreating, well, you want to create
fear, right this case, theyain't create fair, right, they create
an enemy. Yeah. Yeah,it's like and she was a complete force
(42:42):
to reckon with. Bless her.I just think she's amazing, totally amazing.
Yes, unbelievable story, unbelievable story, and we had to tell it.
I know it's not our normal remitand I know that we usually focus
on cases we can do something about. But I think this is doing something.
I think this is in the wordabout this woman, and I want
everyone to know her and for herto be I want her to be admired.
(43:07):
I want her to you know,bless her. Yeah, like there
so brave. I mean there's showson Netflix like Narcos, like they had
Narcos Mexico, right, yeah,which focuses on the cartels themselves. They
need to do a show about peoplelike this, you know. Yeah,
it's like and also like about thefamilies. I mean, yeah, don't
(43:30):
waste glorification on evil individuals, right, Glorify people like Miriam who deserve it.
Yeah. Yeah, And I'm sureI'm sure there are other Miriams out
there, maybe not to the extentthat she went to, but I'm sure
there are other people that are tryingto fight this and are trying to make
(43:52):
the world a better place, thatare doing really really good things. I
mean, did you ever see theTV series Mob Wives? I don't think
so. It was on like MTVor something. So there was this show
that was called Mob Wives, andit was basically it was like the Real
Housewives of but it was only womenthat were in mob relationships or mob families,
(44:15):
and it was really interesting how theirhusbands would carry out these dodgy dealings,
but when the police would come andarrest them for it, or they
would put them in prison. Itwould be so unfair that their partner had
been put in prison. And it'slike, but hang on a minute,
(44:36):
your husband is involved in money launderingand murder and extortion, but when he
gets caught for doing those illegal activities, we need to feel sorry for him
because he's now in prison. Andit was a brilliant show, but it
did show you the vulnerabilities in thefamilies of those people, and it showed
you how they were always frightened thatsomeone would turn up and it would be
(45:01):
you know, someone would take youknow, want to take on the family
because to get to the dad andthings like that, and it is not
it's not a life. It's nolife to live. The money may be
great and everything, and you've gotlovely possessions in your house, but when
you can't even you know, goout without being worried that somebody's going to
kidnap you and hold you to ransomto your husband's No, it's not a
(45:24):
good life, is it. It'snot a good way to live. No.
So that is this week's case foryou. Or I hope you,
I hope you found that interesting.Yeah, I mean, I just think
about this, like where right now? It's you know, a midst of
like spring break for schools, universities, colleges, I think high schools and
(45:45):
stuff. And what was it?I just learn news like the US government
was issued official warning like those peoplefor people traveling in Mexico to not leave
resorts, like don't go into cities, stay in the resorts. Why would
you go? Why would you gothere? Well? They probably go because,
(46:05):
I mean it's probably a lot cheaperthan yeah, beautiful, and it's
a lot cheaper to go there thansafer places, you know. And I
mean Mexican people are beautiful people.They are wonderful, lovely Mexican people.
And the food is great, theviews are amazing, the weather is brilliant.
(46:27):
You can see why people love it. There are a few baddies there,
but then there are everywhere. Yeah, I still have zero interesting ever
going to Mexico. I can't understandwhy. No, I can't understand why.
A lot of my friend my friendgot married in Mexico and it's very
beautiful, but I just can't seepast the whole you know, the case
(46:47):
that we did. Dean Ray,I just can't. I can't get it
out of my head on holiday inMexico and ends up dead. I just
can't do that. I can't know. If you're going somewhere like the police
are walking around with like machine gunsand stuff, that's probably not the safest
place to be. They do thatin London though, and London is not
(47:09):
that bad. They don't carry machineguns around, just not machine guns,
but they do carry guns. Theydo carry big guns in like airports and
in the and in the major trainstations and stuff. The British Transport Police
carrying guns and they are pretty meanlooking guns. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(47:32):
they do, and they don't whereI live. It's a bit sleepy
yea. Yeah, when you goif you go to like a huge station
like Saint Pancras, one of thebiggest stations in London obviously that's got connections
to France. They of the Eurostarthat goes there, they have they have
armed police walking up and down theplatform. Yeah, they usually look very
(47:52):
handsome. For all you ladies outthere interested in many uniform, ladies in
uniform can confirm not bad, badat all. So yeah, not bad
at all, and they keep yousafe, which is lovely. Oh that's
funny. Thank you very much forthat. You're very welcome. Well with
(48:14):
that, we like to do alittle thing at the end of each episode
to like light in the mood.And this week I have something for you
and this is dumb criminal. Heycriminal, use a dummy criminal. I
haven't talked to Captain in a while. For those that you were wondering,
(48:36):
Captain Morgan will be back eventually whenwe have time. Captain has gone missing.
It's missing in action Captain Morgan.There's just Morgan at the moment,
so you can talk to yourself.You have special guests, why don't you
just have a guest on that.Yeah, you could do like that,
not Captain but Morgan, and thenjust do like add someone else in instead.
(48:59):
Do you remember before we used todo we used to do Cherry not
Captain. Yeah, when You're veryfirst started, I stood in for him
for a couple of times and itwas like Cherry not Captain and Morgan.
So that's what you could do.You could do like not Captain and Morgan
for a couple of weeks until untilhe's back. You could do, Yeah,
get some guests on who if youalways wanted to interview or talk to
in the True Crime World. That'sa good, good question. I have
(49:20):
to think about that. Yeah,do it. I think it'd be fun.
Yeah, let's do that sounds good. Why not? You're smart?
Well, cherry, this person wasnot smart? Okay, so okay,
I think everyone knows that if ifyou're going to be drinking, the last
thing you should be doing is driving, right, don't get behind the wheel
(49:44):
if you're if you're out drinking.And if you need a ride home,
get an uber or get a designateddriver, well, definitely not a police
car, an ambulance or or afire truck. Definitely not well. A
twenty six year old woman from Indianadecided after a night of drinking that she
was going to call doesn't a driverto come pick her up. Okay,
(50:06):
that's pretty smarty. Smart, Yeah, that's smart. What was not smart
about this was the person that shecalled to pick her up was her twelve
year old son. Oh no,why would you put your kid in danger
like that? I have no idea. I mean, I know you guys
start driving early over there, butlike twelve, it's a bit too early.
(50:29):
No, I mean that is twelve. I mean can he even see
over like the steering wheel at twelve. No, no, you'd have to
sit on a pillow. I passedmy drive in ches at seventeen and had
to sit on a pillow to drivemy car because I couldn't reach the pedals.
So so a man actually called nineone one after his sister in law,
(50:50):
who was Lindsey Pearson, picked upher kids after having drinks at a
place called Ricks Ricks Sporty Rix Sports. Okay, so it was her her
three kids. Because she had beendrinking, she had her twelve year old
boy drive her and her two juvenilechildren. H okay. Now, when
(51:13):
police arrived at her apartment, shewas confronted, and when asked, Pearson
claimed that she did not know thattwelve year olds could not drive vehicles on
public roads. Come on, she'sjust trying that on. Yeah, so
no one is that dumb. She'sjust trying that on. Mm hmm.
(51:34):
So, in addition to charges ofresisting law enforcement, disorderly conduct, criminal
recklessness, she was also charged withchild neglect. So I yeah, I
good, I'm glad. Yeah.I mean, regardless of not everyone can
be a designator driver. People don'tmake your kids drive you home unless you
(51:55):
your license. I mean to befair, I have seen some twelve years.
I was at like five,'tten, so he may have looked
enough to drive, But I mean, really, are you going to put
yourself and other kids in danger byletting your kid who hasn't got a license
drive you home. No, I'mnot letting. I'm not letting a kid
whose only experience of driving is MarioKart drive me anywhere. Right, Yeah,
(52:19):
that's true. That's true. It'sbad enough when your kid is seventeen
and has got their license. It'sbad enough getting the car with them,
then let alone when they're twelve.I haven't. I mean, that's crazy.
Who would ever think like this isokay, this is okay. It's
not okay. Your perception is alittle bit off. Goh god, so
(52:43):
wow, don't be dumb. Don'tbe dumb. Although be dumb because we
love to add this to the endof the show just to shop everyone else
stupid. You are. Keep thedumbness coming people. And she was caught
before she let it happen, sono one was hurt in there. Thank
you this dumb criminal story, whichis always good. So thank you so
much for joining us this week.We hope you've enjoyed this week's show and
(53:07):
had a little bit of an upliftfrom Miriam's story. Go out research her.
I will put the details on oursocials of Miriam's story and the story
that's written about her, so youcan read it. And we will be
back in two weeks time with Morgan'scase, So for now between then,
be nice and bye.
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