Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: What was strangers? First of all, there was no forced entry,
Speaker 2: like if it were a street robbery or something you'd
Speaker 2: see the door broken down. They didn't take anything except
Speaker 2: some cash that she had in a drawer, and so
Speaker 2: she called a locksmith to get her locks changed. And
Speaker 2: the locksmith said, when he looked at how the whole
Speaker 2: thing had happened, he said, this was definitely a professional job.
Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the host of the historical
Speaker 1: true crime podcast Tenfold War Wicked and the co host
Speaker 1: of the podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right. I've traveled
Speaker 1: around the world interviewing people for the show, and they
Speaker 1: are all excellent writers. They've had so many great true
Speaker 1: crimes stories, and now we want to tell you those
Speaker 1: stories with details that have never been published. Tenfold War
Speaker 1: Wicked presents Wicked Words is about the choices that writers make,
Speaker 1: good and bad. It's a deep dive into the stories
Speaker 1: behind the stories. One of the most dangerous jobs you
Speaker 1: can have in some parts of the world is being
Speaker 1: a journalist author Catherine Corcoran penned the book In the
Speaker 1: Mouth of the Wolf, about a groundbreaking reporter who risked
Speaker 1: her life to expose corruption in Mexico and then she
Speaker 1: was murdered. This story is important to you, and it's
Speaker 1: a personal story to you. You and I spoke on
Speaker 1: the same panel at the Texas Book Festival, and it
Speaker 1: was really great hearing the story from your point of view.
Speaker 1: I usually ask people at the very end, how does
Speaker 1: the story impact you? But how the story impacted you
Speaker 1: is actually why you began reporting the story to begin with.
Speaker 1: So just kind of tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: the process of what happened where you were rived at
Speaker 1: the book, which is In the Mouth of the Wolf.
Speaker 2: I was working as the Associated Press Bureau chief for
Speaker 2: Mexico and Central America, and in Mexico there began to
Speaker 2: be a spike in journalist killings, kind of all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, out of nowhere. It impacted me several ways.
Speaker 2: First of all, we were covering these killings as a story,
Speaker 2: and second of all, because of the killings, even though
Speaker 2: the targets of these killings tended to be very local
Speaker 2: journalists with smaller media outlets, We couldn't assume as international
Speaker 2: journalists that it wouldn't hit us. So we had to
Speaker 2: change dramatically how we covered Mexico and our security protocols
Speaker 2: and just things we didn't have to do before because
Speaker 2: it was a fairly quiet country beforehand. So we had
Speaker 2: to send our journalists out in teams. No one could
Speaker 2: go alone. We had to evaluate the terrain and the
Speaker 2: area before we sent anybody. We had had GPS tracking.
Speaker 2: All that was new, and so it was really much
Speaker 2: a story I was living on several levels. But also
Speaker 2: what concerned me so much is that nothing was being done.
Speaker 2: It just kept getting worse, and in fact, this year
Speaker 2: has been a record for the number of journalists killed
Speaker 2: in Mexico, and there was so little transparency around these cases.
Speaker 2: We didn't know why they were happening. The government was
Speaker 2: telling us that if a journalist was murdered, it was
Speaker 2: because they were corrupt, it was because they were narco
Speaker 2: journalists working for the cartels. Certainly that phenomenon did exist
Speaker 2: and still does, but the numbers were so high it
Speaker 2: was like, that doesn't make sense. It couldn't be all
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the categories of journalists then, and now
Speaker 1: in Mexico from your book, my understanding is there were
Speaker 1: the journalists who were the honest, wanting to expose corruption
Speaker 1: and the cartels and the government. There is the mouthpiece
Speaker 1: the journalists who were the mouthpiece for the government, and
Speaker 1: then there seemed to be people in the middle who
Speaker 1: were just playing scared. Is that right?
Speaker 2: Yes, there were several levels of journalists or types of journalists.
Speaker 2: The press in Mexico traditionally had been controlled by the
Speaker 2: government because the country was ruled by a one party
Speaker 2: authoritarian system. That system broke up in the year two
Speaker 2: thousand when they had their first democratically elected president, and
Speaker 2: the press followed suit. The press became more open, more critical,
Speaker 2: more independent. But because the history had been of control,
Speaker 2: a lot of media continued in that and they received
Speaker 2: huge amounts of money from the government to maintain that line.
Speaker 2: So there was that level when the narcos came in
Speaker 2: and the powers that they are now and that they
Speaker 2: started to be at the time, they started to control
Speaker 2: the press much in the manner that the old party
Speaker 2: system had done it, and so they started paying journalists
Speaker 2: and telling journalists what to write and not to write.
Speaker 2: And some journalists because they were used to that system.
Speaker 2: They just started working for new bosses, not realizing that
Speaker 2: the consequence was going to be much more deadly if
Speaker 2: they fell out a line. And I mean under the
Speaker 2: authoritarian party, there were hardly any journalists killed for decades.
Speaker 2: Most of them were under control. So there were the
Speaker 2: government journalists, the narco journalists, the journalists who just decided
Speaker 2: we're going to stay out of this, We're not going
Speaker 2: to publish anything controversial, just for safety. And then there
Speaker 2: were the journalists what I would call the new wave,
Speaker 2: the new generation, who really believed in the press as
Speaker 2: an important part of developing this new democracy, that the
Speaker 2: press was important for informing the public, letting the public
Speaker 2: know what's going on, helping the public make decisions. And
Speaker 2: they were in this new vein, and they were the
Speaker 2: ones who became harassed. Outside of the narco journalists who
Speaker 2: maybe got crossways with their bosses, they became harassed and followed.
Speaker 2: In the case of Raheina Martinez, who is the protest
Speaker 2: agonist of the book, when she was murdered in twenty twelve,
Speaker 2: it was the first time we could say, clearly, this
Speaker 2: is not a narco journalist, this is a very good
Speaker 2: tenacious journalist who produced very good journalism. She was known
Speaker 2: nationally for her work, and that was the first time,
Speaker 2: even though the government wouldn't say it was related to
Speaker 2: her work, we could say this is a hit on
Speaker 2: a journalist. And so I think that's why that case,
Speaker 2: of all these other cases, stuck with me. But also
Speaker 2: because I had spoken to her on the phone. I
Speaker 2: had tried to hire her, and she was too busy,
Speaker 2: she couldn't take the story. But the fact that I
Speaker 2: even had that brief interaction with her, when I found
Speaker 2: out she had been murdered, I remember saying her because
Speaker 2: it didn't fit with the story that we were getting.
Speaker 1: How do journalists in Mexico who are of the class
Speaker 1: of Rahena, who don't want to be bought, they're brave
Speaker 1: enough to report on some controversial things, how do they
Speaker 1: stay safe on a day to day basis if they
Speaker 1: literally have no government, no real powerful entity protecting them.
Speaker 2: At first, they didn't. They were just kind of out
Speaker 2: there on their own, you know, just going after the
Speaker 2: story and not really thinking about the consequences. But as
Speaker 2: these killings start to increase, they started more informal networks
Speaker 2: of support, which is one thing that Raheina did is
Speaker 2: she developed her own circle around her of journalists she
Speaker 2: could trust for that reason, for her own security. She
Speaker 2: had a very small circle of friends and led a
Speaker 2: very hermetic life because she knew that there were many
Speaker 2: ways that her critics could get at her, like going
Speaker 2: after her family, for one thing, and so she actually
Speaker 2: made up a story about her own history and family
Speaker 2: and about where they were and where they were from
Speaker 2: so nobody could go looking for them.
Speaker 1: Wow, let's start with Rahina. Tell me about who she
Speaker 1: was as a person and sort of her path towards
Speaker 1: where she ended up in two thousand and twelve.
Speaker 2: According to her friends, she had a very strong personality.
Speaker 2: She was very opinionated and could be kind of dismissive
Speaker 2: at times, but also as a reporter, they said she
Speaker 2: was always very polite. She was very formal and very polite,
Speaker 2: but in her casual circle she was very critical and
Speaker 2: to the point where they found it entertaining because she
Speaker 2: was this tiny woman of indigenous roots, not the profile
Speaker 2: of a person who was normally in the press in
Speaker 2: those days, and super opinionated with this big personality. They
Speaker 2: called her brava, which is like harsh but they kind
Speaker 2: of even found it endearing in a way. Those who
Speaker 2: admired her in her close circle, they found it very
Speaker 2: endearing the way she was always out front and always
Speaker 2: saying exactly what she thought, because that's not how the
Speaker 2: press worked at the time, but also that's in polite
Speaker 2: Mexican society also not what's done. It's a very indirect
Speaker 2: kind of communication. But she was very direct, very opinionated,
Speaker 2: and very dedicated to telling the truth, and that made
Speaker 2: her stand out from the very beginning of her career,
Speaker 2: and because of that, she suffered a lot of harassment
Speaker 2: over the years of her career and was very disliked
Speaker 2: by the powers that be for all the trouble that
Speaker 2: her stories would cause.
Speaker 1: Where was she located in Mexico.
Speaker 2: She was in the city of Halapa, which is the
Speaker 2: capital of the state of Vera Cruz, which is on
Speaker 2: the Gulf coast of Mexico. It's kind of a long,
Speaker 2: thin state along the Gulf of Mexico, and it was
Speaker 2: considered safer than Mexico City in this time, in twenty twelve,
Speaker 2: well up to I would say two thousand and ten,
Speaker 2: that's when the journalist killing started in huge numbers in
Speaker 2: that state in Vera Cruz, maybe a few years before that.
Speaker 2: Starting in two thousand and seven, everything started to become
Speaker 2: more dangerous. Before that, it was a fairly quiet state.
Speaker 2: It's always been a state controlled by mafia's with a
Speaker 2: lot of corruption. And there's a huge port in Vera
Speaker 2: Cruz also named Vera Cruz, where it's the largest incoming
Speaker 2: port in Mexico, so a lot of contraband comes through there.
Speaker 2: It's a very remote state as well, and so they
Speaker 2: had airplanes full of cocaine, but it was all kept
Speaker 2: under the radar. It was all very quiet until about
Speaker 2: two thousand and seven. But even before two thousand and seven,
Speaker 2: she did suffer harassment for her stories, even before the
Speaker 2: situation became so dangerous.
Speaker 1: Give me a few examples of some of the stories
Speaker 1: that we're talking about.
Speaker 2: Her passion was social justice issues, and when she started
Speaker 2: her career in the nineteen eighties, the communities that were
Speaker 2: marginalized or had no power, no voice, were never covered
Speaker 2: in the press because the press was still very official,
Speaker 2: and so she would go out and ask questions and
Speaker 2: travel to remote parts of the state to find out
Speaker 2: what was really going on. Because these communities were often
Speaker 2: exploited or they were kicked off their lane, and indigenous communities,
Speaker 2: landless farmers, and so she would actually go to these
Speaker 2: areas and talk to people and find out what was
Speaker 2: really going on instead of following the official story. So
Speaker 2: she would publish these stories that were pretty amazing for
Speaker 2: her time, because no one wrote these things. No one
Speaker 2: bothered to go out and find out what's going on,
Speaker 2: and no one wrote these things, and almost inevitably the
Speaker 2: culprit was the government. The government was somehow trying to
Speaker 2: control or abuse various communities that they felt were not
Speaker 2: with the program, and so like laborers, union workers, indigenous communities.
Speaker 3: So she wrote all those issues.
Speaker 2: That nobody else was writing, and her stories for the
Speaker 2: time were pretty astonishing. She did a three part series
Speaker 2: on the abuse of laborers and the beer plants and beer,
Speaker 2: of course, Mexican beer is very famous. There was a
Speaker 2: huge plant in Vera, Cruz and she wrote a three
Speaker 2: part series about how these workers were being entirely abused
Speaker 2: under their union contract, et cetera. She wrote about remote
Speaker 2: I mean he's not getting vaccines. There was a measles
Speaker 2: outbreak in a very poor community with no vaccines from
Speaker 2: the state she wrote about indigenous women being forced sterilized.
Speaker 2: She wrote all kinds of things, but eventually it led
Speaker 2: her to the government, because the government had the control
Speaker 2: and also had the resources. So she started investigating how
Speaker 2: the government spent its money or didn't spend its money.
Speaker 2: Vera Cruz, because of the Gulf, is a state where
Speaker 2: there are a lot of natural disasters, hurricanes, storms, flooding.
Speaker 2: She would find cases where victims would be homeless out
Speaker 2: on the street and the relief supplies would be sitting
Speaker 2: in a government warehouse. As I say, the guy was
Speaker 2: astonished when I went back to look at her stories.
Speaker 3: I mean they were endless.
Speaker 2: But probably her biggest story was she wrote about the
Speaker 2: rape of an elderly Indigenous woman by some soldiers in
Speaker 2: a very remote community, and the woman died from her injuries,
Speaker 2: and she started reporting and it was a story about
Speaker 2: this woman had been attacked by soldiers who were camped
Speaker 2: out nearby doing some operation. And it started out with
Speaker 2: the government saying, you know, we'll get justice. This is
Speaker 2: an outrage, and then the President of Mexico came in
Speaker 2: and got involved. Because the army is a very important
Speaker 2: institution and the credibility of the army in Mexico is paramount,
Speaker 2: and so when the president came in, his concern was
Speaker 2: saving the reputation of the army, and the story completely
Speaker 2: changed to where the woman died of natural causes, just
Speaker 2: kind of an outrageous, obvious cover up of what had happened.
Speaker 2: And she wrote about that to the very end, and
Speaker 2: every piece that didn't make sense and every part of
Speaker 2: the cover up, and that's when she really earned her
Speaker 2: national reputation.
Speaker 1: You talked about her being harassed. What were some of
Speaker 1: the examples that you learned of how she was harassed
Speaker 1: before she was killed.
Speaker 2: The government cut her off from official information, She didn't
Speaker 2: receive presser Lisa's, she was barred from press conferences. She
Speaker 2: always felt that she was being followed or watched. It
Speaker 2: was almost a given at that time that your phone
Speaker 2: would be intervened somehow, and early on, before the situation
Speaker 2: became really dangerous, after every event or press conference she covered,
Speaker 2: she would ask someone to accompany her back to her house.
Speaker 2: It's a very walkable city where she was, and or
Speaker 2: sometimes she take a taxi, but she would always ask
Speaker 2: someone to accompany her because she didn't want to leave
Speaker 2: an event alone. She had her home broken into and
Speaker 2: her computer stolen. Right before she was murdered. She had
Speaker 2: a very strange kind of break in where everyone took
Speaker 2: it as a sign that is meant to be a warning.
Speaker 1: How strange.
Speaker 2: What was strangest. First of all, there was no forced entry,
Speaker 2: like if it were a street robbery or something, you'd
Speaker 2: see the door broken down. They didn't take anything except
Speaker 2: some cash that she had in a drawer, And then
Speaker 2: they went into her bathroom and steamed up the bathroom,
Speaker 2: and she had these decorative soaps, and they crushed all
Speaker 2: the soaps because they'd gotten wet. And so it was
Speaker 2: just very odd because coincidentally, she had been away on
Speaker 2: vacation but was called back early to do a story,
Speaker 2: and so she arrived at her home shortly after this happened.
Speaker 2: Because it looked as if someone had taken a shower
Speaker 2: in her bathroom by all of her soaps were destroyed,
Speaker 2: people took that as a sign of we can get
Speaker 2: into your most inner parts of your house and most
Speaker 2: private areas of your house. And so she called a
Speaker 2: locksmith to get her locks changed. And the locksmith said,
Speaker 2: when he looked at how the whole thing had happened.
Speaker 2: He said, this was definitely a professional job.
Speaker 1: When we're talking about suspects, let's just start with this
Speaker 1: break in and what we think is a warning. Is
Speaker 1: this certainly government or is this cartel, mafia or are
Speaker 1: these all conflated.
Speaker 2: They're pretty much conflated. They were at this time. She
Speaker 2: didn't cover cartels. It was very clear that you couldn't
Speaker 2: say they were the culprit like they did with so
Speaker 2: many of these other journalists. And also it wasn't a
Speaker 2: killing that was the style.
Speaker 3: Of the cartel.
Speaker 2: The cartel would wait for you to come out of
Speaker 2: your house and just shoot you up. Sometimes they'd go
Speaker 2: into the house and shoot you up.
Speaker 1: And put you on display, sometimes as a warning.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 2: They were very public kinds of killings, and they engendered
Speaker 2: a lot of fear among journalists and everybody. This one
Speaker 2: was someone entered her house in the middle of the
Speaker 2: night and beat her severely as if maybe torturing her,
Speaker 2: and then strangled her and she wasn't found for about
Speaker 2: twelve fourteen hours, And it was just such an unusual
Speaker 2: style of murder, and the government used that to say
Speaker 2: that it had to have been someone she knew, and
Speaker 2: someone she led into the house, even though everyone knew
Speaker 2: that she didn't let anyone, hardly anyone into her house.
Speaker 1: What preceded this was there a story that she was
Speaker 1: working on. What do we think was the trigger here
Speaker 1: with whoever killed her?
Speaker 2: Initially, there were so many possible triggers because of all
Speaker 2: she had written over the years, but she hadn't written
Speaker 2: anything particularly controversial leading up to her death, which is
Speaker 2: why it was such a mystery. But there was one story.
Speaker 2: She worked for a national investigative magazine called Prossso, and
Speaker 2: three weeks before she was killed, there was a small
Speaker 2: article on the inside of Processo magazine about two allegedly
Speaker 2: corrupt politicians in Vera Cruz in Halapa, where she was working,
Speaker 2: and how one had been, according to protected witnesses, was
Speaker 2: tied to a drug cartel and the other one who
Speaker 2: was tied to illegal enrichment, like he had all this
Speaker 2: wealth that didn't make sense with his public servant salary.
Speaker 2: And when that article was published, all of the magazines
Speaker 2: in Jalapa were stolen before they reached the newsstands, and
Speaker 2: that was an old school tactic by the ruling party,
Speaker 2: the authoritarian party, if they didn't like something that was
Speaker 2: going to be published. They would steal copies so people
Speaker 2: couldn't read it, and of course in the old days
Speaker 2: pre internet, that would be very effective.
Speaker 3: Well, they still use.
Speaker 2: That from time to time, more as a message because
Speaker 2: you could obviously read the article online. So she knew
Speaker 2: they were upset about that article, but she did not
Speaker 2: write it. It was a national correspondent who had come
Speaker 2: in from Mexico City who wrote it, and he and
Speaker 2: others immediately thought that was the article that got her killed.
Speaker 2: For me investigating, I dismissed it at first because it
Speaker 2: was a very small article. It wasn't on the cover.
Speaker 2: Usually they would steal the magazines if there was like
Speaker 2: a big splash on the cover about some evil doings,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't on the cover. And also there had
Speaker 2: been articles written over the years about these two politicians.
Speaker 2: They had been accused of all kinds of things in
Speaker 2: the press, and so I've thought, why would this small
Speaker 2: little article particularly bother them. One of them was the
Speaker 2: head of state security in Vera Cruz and he was
Speaker 2: accused of using the state security to protect drug lords.
Speaker 2: So there were all kinds of worse accusations. So that's
Speaker 2: why I didn't understand why that article would have caused
Speaker 2: her death.
Speaker 1: Tell me what happens that day? What do we know
Speaker 1: pro seeded that day that it happens.
Speaker 2: She had a pretty routine day. She worked for the
Speaker 2: news service for Processo also, so when you work for
Speaker 2: a new service, you just churn out kind of spot
Speaker 2: news articles. And she wrote three articles that day. One
Speaker 2: was about some police who had been arrested because they
Speaker 2: were discovered to be corrupt. Another one was about a
Speaker 2: political official who had been found dead in his house.
Speaker 2: But they were like police bladder.
Speaker 3: Kinds of stories.
Speaker 2: She wasn't investigating anything, and they would be the kind
Speaker 2: of stories that other media would be covering as well.
Speaker 3: So she wrote three stories.
Speaker 2: She went to buy some material to have some clothes made.
Speaker 2: Kind of a very routine day. She went shopping, and
Speaker 2: then she went home and closed her door. Because on
Speaker 2: the weekends, it was a Friday, she really disappeared on
Speaker 2: the weekend. She stayed inside or did all her chores,
Speaker 2: did her writing, did a lot of things, but was
Speaker 2: not social at all on the weekends. When she went
Speaker 2: inside and closed her door on Friday night, people normally
Speaker 2: didn't see her again until Monday morning, and so that's
Speaker 2: when the crime occurred, was very early Saturday morning. And
Speaker 2: that's why it took people so long to discover it,
Speaker 2: because normally she wasn't around out and about anyway.
Speaker 1: How was she initially discovered and then what are her injuries?
Speaker 2: She was discovered late the next day on Saturday afternoon,
Speaker 2: about six o'clock because her neighbor saw that her gate
Speaker 2: had been left ajar, but also her front door had
Speaker 2: been left ajar, which was highly unusual. She was very
Speaker 2: security conscious and everyone knew that. Her neighbors knew that,
Speaker 2: and her neighbor, not wanting to pry, kind of said, well,
Speaker 2: she'll show up eventually. And after some time had passed
Speaker 2: and another neighbor had passed by and called her name,
Speaker 2: and she didn't answer. She wasn't answering her phone. Finally
Speaker 2: the neighbor called the police and that's when they discovered her.
Speaker 2: What about her injuries, Well, she looked very badly beaten.
Speaker 2: There was some blood. It looked as if they had
Speaker 2: taken a cleaning rag and strangled her. But it looked
Speaker 2: like she was tortured quite a bit. She had a
Speaker 2: broken jaw and the forensics people said it was from
Speaker 2: brass knuckles.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: She had bruises up and down her arms and legs.
Speaker 2: She was in a pair of blue jeans, and the
Speaker 2: knees were dirty and bloody, as if she had been
Speaker 2: on her knees when some of this was happening, and
Speaker 2: it appeared that they had surprised her in her bathroom.
Speaker 2: The rest of the house there wasn't blood or there
Speaker 2: wasn't any kind of physical disturbance in the rest of
Speaker 2: the house, just in the bathroom, and so it looked
Speaker 2: as if they had surprised her.
Speaker 3: Whoever it was.
Speaker 1: What do police investigators believe happened that early Saturday morning
Speaker 1: to her?
Speaker 2: It depends on who you ask. The government created a
Speaker 2: story literally a couple hours after her body had been discovered.
Speaker 2: Even before they started the investigation, they were just collecting evidence.
Speaker 2: From the very beginning, they said it had nothing to
Speaker 2: do with her work. They said the motive was robbery,
Speaker 2: and then over time they created a story about her
Speaker 2: living this double life behind closed doors where she was
Speaker 2: dating a street criminal and had let him into the
Speaker 2: house because they had a romantic relationship, and that's how
Speaker 2: she ended up dead because he went there to rob
Speaker 2: her and she let him in. They created a whole
Speaker 2: story about what happened on Friday night, that this guy
Speaker 2: had come in with one of his friends, telling his friend,
Speaker 2: we're going to rob her. She let them in. They
Speaker 2: were partying, drinking beer, dancing. They got into an argument,
Speaker 2: and then he wanted to steal some money, so he
Speaker 2: was torturing her to find out where the money was,
Speaker 2: and then after they got it, he'd strangled her and
Speaker 2: they left. That was the official story based on the
Speaker 2: confession of the other guy who was there, But the
Speaker 2: guy who supposedly did it disappeared right after the crime.
Speaker 2: He's never been found, and the guy who made the
Speaker 2: confession later said that he didn't know this woman. He'd
Speaker 2: never been in her house. And the interesting thing is
Speaker 2: they never found any physical evidence that either one of
Speaker 2: these men were inside her house.
Speaker 1: So the police have immediately come up with a suspect
Speaker 1: within the first few hours. They have a story that's
Speaker 1: been concocted.
Speaker 2: They had the story concocted almost immediately, so they had
Speaker 2: to go look for this boyfriend in quotes. And what
Speaker 2: was interesting is when they started the investigation and interviewing
Speaker 2: people who knew her, everyone was asked if she had
Speaker 2: a boyfriend, and everyone was asked what her personal life
Speaker 2: was like and if she drank a lot. They didn't
Speaker 2: ask anything about her work. They asked about her personal life.
Speaker 2: So they had to go looking for the boyfriend.
Speaker 1: She didn't have a boyfriend.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming no, she did not, not in this time,
Speaker 2: and again that was part of her protection, is she
Speaker 2: was very guarded about who she knew or hung out with.
Speaker 2: So they tried, from my point of view looking at
Speaker 2: the investigation, they tried many ways to find the boyfriend,
Speaker 2: or to create the boyfriend. I would say so first
Speaker 2: they tried to make it one of her close friends,
Speaker 2: one of the journalists, and he had an alibi that
Speaker 2: they couldn't do anything about, so they had to throw
Speaker 2: him out as a suspect. And then they went after
Speaker 2: some guys in the neighborhood who supposedly this one street
Speaker 2: drug addict to supposedly told someone he was dating a reporter.
Speaker 2: Then he had an alibi for that night. And it
Speaker 2: took them several months, but then they ended up with
Speaker 2: these two guys. I believe they arrested them six months
Speaker 2: after her killing. They homed in on these two guys.
Speaker 1: Are the police really under pressure to find who killed
Speaker 1: this journalists? Can't they just sort of let it become
Speaker 1: a cold case. Why do they have to keep trying
Speaker 1: to find someone.
Speaker 2: Because that, again is sort of an institutional tradition in Mexico.
Speaker 2: The justice system under the authoritarian government was not about justice.
Speaker 2: It was about keeping the party in power, and that
Speaker 2: meant getting rid of any uncomfortable cases. The justice system
Speaker 2: under the ruling party for many years, was about going
Speaker 2: after your enemies and making political problems go away. This
Speaker 2: case was an enormous political problem for them. It was
Speaker 2: getting international attention because it was so clear that she
Speaker 2: was the real deal and was likely murdered for her work.
Speaker 2: So they had to make the noise go away as
Speaker 2: quickly as possible by saying they had someone. The person confessed,
Speaker 2: the person was convicted, They put him in jail and
Speaker 2: throw away the key, so that any time anyone brings
Speaker 2: up the case, they say it's been resolved.
Speaker 3: We did our jobs. Justice was served.
Speaker 1: Wow, So six months past they find this man, Is
Speaker 1: that right?
Speaker 2: They find the accomplice, not the guy who actually did it,
Speaker 2: and they arrest him and say he confessed, and when
Speaker 2: he gets before the judge for the first time. He
Speaker 2: tells the judge that he's been tortured into confessing.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: And in Mexico, under the recent justice reform at the time,
Speaker 2: it became law that any testimony extracted by torture was
Speaker 2: inadmissible in court. That's why he said he was tortured.
Speaker 2: He was actually convicted, but the conviction was overturned because
Speaker 2: of the torture.
Speaker 1: Were they able to prove it?
Speaker 3: They did the.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you're familiar with the protocol, a
Speaker 2: un protocol.
Speaker 1: That they do, so like the polygraph test.
Speaker 2: Yes, the test came up negative, but they did it
Speaker 2: six months after he was captured, and so they said, oh,
Speaker 2: no evidence of torture. But a tribunal there because torture
Speaker 2: is very common as an investigation tool in Mexico, and
Speaker 2: so a tribunal did rule that he had been tortured.
Speaker 2: And throughout the conviction and the thing that's another very
Speaker 2: strange element of the cases. As soon as he was freed,
Speaker 2: he disappeared, probably thought he was going to be killed,
Speaker 2: and there was this very concerted effort to go out
Speaker 2: and find him and find a new judge that would
Speaker 2: reinstate the sentence, and they did it. They found him,
Speaker 2: they got the sentence reinstated, and he's now serving thirty
Speaker 2: eight year sentence for being an accomplice in the case.
Speaker 1: And they never found the guy who they say actually
Speaker 1: murdered Rahina.
Speaker 2: Yes, they never found him. That person actually did exist,
Speaker 2: but he disappeared about a week after her murder. Of course,
Speaker 2: the official story is he went on the lamb, but
Speaker 2: the unofficial story is he could have just appeared because
Speaker 2: he knew something.
Speaker 1: Writing this book, reporting on the story, were you concerned
Speaker 1: for your own safety? At what level did you really
Speaker 1: feel like you were risking something here?
Speaker 2: The biggest fear I had was being discovered, because I
Speaker 2: knew if I was discovered, that would compromise my safety.
Speaker 2: But if I had any indication that I was discovered,
Speaker 2: I could leave. So I wasn't so concerned about my
Speaker 2: personal safety in that regard, but in terms of the
Speaker 2: safety of the people who were talking to me, because
Speaker 2: they couldn't leave, and so if I was discovered and
Speaker 2: they were discovered, my biggest fear is that something would
Speaker 2: happen to them.
Speaker 1: And I'm assuming Rahina's family is apprehensive about coming forward
Speaker 1: because she's created a whole faux family, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: she didn't acknowledge who her family was to keep them safe.
Speaker 2: They haven't spoken at all and they have not wanted
Speaker 2: to speak about this at all. And actually, this was
Speaker 2: one detail that really got to me. Her parents didn't
Speaker 2: go to her funeral. Imagine that you could not go
Speaker 2: to your child's funeral because it would be too dangerous.
Speaker 2: That's why they didn't go. Her siblings said to her parents,
Speaker 2: you cannot go, it's too dangerous. They lived outside of
Speaker 2: the area, they weren't local, and that's why she made
Speaker 2: up a story, because she didn't want anyone to find.
Speaker 3: Out exactly where they were.
Speaker 2: And for that reason, they appointed one sibling to be
Speaker 2: sort of the representative of the family.
Speaker 1: Did her family her siblings, were they harassed or have
Speaker 1: they been generally left alone over the past ten years.
Speaker 2: I can't say for sure because they wouldn't talk to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but there were reports that yes, they had been harassed.
Speaker 1: You know, you had had a conversation with Raheina in
Speaker 1: the past, you had respected her as a journalist. You
Speaker 1: were journalists working in Mexico writing this book. It must
Speaker 1: have been terrifying to read the det tills of what
Speaker 1: happened to her. It just sounds so incredibly vicious.
Speaker 3: It was very vicious.
Speaker 2: There was a story of another journalist who was also
Speaker 2: working on the case, where his spouse told me that
Speaker 2: she had rarely ever seen him cry, but he cried
Speaker 2: when he read the details of the case.
Speaker 3: It was terrible.
Speaker 2: But also because of the circumstances I was in trying
Speaker 2: to get the information and how it was a very difficult,
Speaker 2: dangerous situation, I really kept my emotions out of it,
Speaker 2: I think mostly because of the work I had to do.
Speaker 2: I didn't intentionally do that, but I felt like I
Speaker 2: sort of shut down and went into reporter mode because
Speaker 2: if I was emotional about it, I could make mistakes.
Speaker 3: I had to be.
Speaker 2: Very careful and calculating about reporting this story.
Speaker 1: Did you set out to try to figure out who
Speaker 1: killed her? Was that the purpose of this book?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: I really wanted to find out who killed her.
Speaker 1: That seems impossible to me. That just seems so difficult
Speaker 1: in Mexico or really any place it is.
Speaker 2: It's sort of like the idealism of a journalist that
Speaker 2: you start out with this goal, but then you decide
Speaker 2: how far can I go with this? For example, I
Speaker 2: knew I had a story, whether I solved the case
Speaker 2: or not, because of how the whole case was handled
Speaker 2: and whether the government was actually behind her killing or not.
Speaker 2: They certainly were behind the cover up. I think that
Speaker 2: was much easier to demonstrate, and so why The question
Speaker 2: is why, and it just shows the injustice to the
Speaker 2: citizens that this is how they solve cases. This was
Speaker 2: sort of a crime in itself, and that part of
Speaker 2: the story was easy to document. I waited for three
Speaker 2: years just because I couldn't, you know, with my job,
Speaker 2: I really didn't have time. And I thought after three
Speaker 2: years the situation would calm down and people would loosen
Speaker 2: up and people would start talking because before they weren't
Speaker 2: allowed to talk. So if you go to someone for
Speaker 2: the first time who hasn't spoken before, your chances of
Speaker 2: getting something is pretty high. The problem was what I
Speaker 2: didn't realize un till I got there is to this
Speaker 2: day there are people who will not talk about this case.
Speaker 1: So how far were you able to get Well?
Speaker 2: I feel that I found significant information that had never
Speaker 2: been published before.
Speaker 1: Do you think that it helps point to the killer
Speaker 1: or is it just deeper research and deeper information about
Speaker 1: just the level of corruption that is happening in Mexico.
Speaker 3: I think it's both.
Speaker 2: I think there's a vein that can be investigated that
Speaker 2: was never investigated, and that would take prosecutors, and that
Speaker 2: would take the state to do because I can't subpoena evidence.
Speaker 2: So I think there's a new investigative vein that didn't
Speaker 2: exist before. And yes, I mean part of the book
Speaker 2: was to show how difficult it is to get at
Speaker 2: the truth because of the corruption.
Speaker 1: Do you see an improvement? Well, you have already said
Speaker 1: it's even less safe now for journalists in Mexico than
Speaker 1: it was then, is that right?
Speaker 3: That's right?
Speaker 2: And I do feel the reason for the killings. I
Speaker 2: think initially there was a fair amount of these tabloid
Speaker 2: crime reporters getting in cahoots with the cartels. So that's
Speaker 2: been ten years now, and those ten years, or say
Speaker 2: twelve years since this really started getting bad, fifteen more
Speaker 2: like in those fifteen years, the press has become in Mexico,
Speaker 2: has become much more independent, and there are reporters now
Speaker 2: who really want to get out there and dig and
Speaker 2: tell the truth because they're younger, reporters that came up
Speaker 2: in the journalism school's post democracy, and so they come
Speaker 2: out prepared and interested and ready to dig which didn't exist.
Speaker 2: But these are newly trained journalists, and so there are more.
Speaker 2: They do tend to be more local, and they're hitting
Speaker 2: local corruption. There's not a study. I would have to
Speaker 2: say this just sort of anecdotally that I think more
Speaker 2: of these cases when journalists are killed are really about
Speaker 2: them uncovering something uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Well, I read the book, and I read the review.
Speaker 1: I'm struck by. Very Rarely in the New York Times
Speaker 1: do they sort of call out a writer for her
Speaker 1: quality in this way. The person who reviewed your book says,
Speaker 1: she is a fine and honest writer, a dogged reporter,
Speaker 1: and her story paints a dystopian portrait of our southern
Speaker 1: neighbor where decades of rampant impunity have led to horrific
Speaker 1: abuses of power. More than one hundred thousand people have
Speaker 1: disappeared in Mexico since such records have been kept, most
Speaker 1: of them since the drug wars began in two thousand
Speaker 1: and six. That's something to be very proud of.
Speaker 2: I know you know that. Thank you, And also the
Speaker 2: writer is a very spectacular writer himself, Mark Bowden. So, yes,
Speaker 2: that was really something to read that.
Speaker 1: Are you ever willing to go down this road again?
Speaker 1: This would terrify me. I have two young kids. This
Speaker 1: would be so scary to do.
Speaker 2: I think you do have to consider those kinds of things.
Speaker 2: In a different period of my life, No, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: do this, So you do have to consider that, you know,
Speaker 2: I had my own security protocol. I think what really
Speaker 2: drove me in this case was curiosity and the whole
Speaker 2: environment that I was in. I had to take into account,
Speaker 2: but almost as a secondary because I was just so curious.
Speaker 2: I really wanted to find out what happened. And sometimes
Speaker 2: in Mexico and other places, you do have to come
Speaker 2: to a point where you say this is just too dangerous. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and a lot of journalists in Mexico make those decisions
Speaker 2: now and say, you know, we're not going to go
Speaker 2: down this road because it's just too dangerous. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just was in a situation where I had my
Speaker 2: system down. There were a couple indications that I was
Speaker 2: being watched, which I describe in the book, but for
Speaker 2: the most part, I felt very anonymous and as long
Speaker 2: as I felt anonymous, I just kept going.
Speaker 1: Even as a white journalist in Mexico, anonymous.
Speaker 2: Well, people could pretty much can see I was probably American,
Speaker 2: although when I first went to Mexico, people thought I
Speaker 2: was European, which is actually better than being American, so
Speaker 2: they would ask if I was French. Heare Italian. I
Speaker 2: can also pass for northern Mexican, but as soon as
Speaker 2: I started speaking, of course, I knew it wasn't my
Speaker 2: native language. But Halapa is a university town. With a
Speaker 2: university town, there are a lot of foreigners there. There
Speaker 2: are a lot of you know, professors there investigating various
Speaker 2: things for thesises, things like that, so I wasn't completely
Speaker 2: you know, I didn't stick out like a sore thumb.
Speaker 2: And it was also a big tourist attraction until that
Speaker 2: Arco Wars broke out. There are a lot of tourists there,
Speaker 2: so I just wasn't that unusual on the scene.
Speaker 1: What do you think is Rahina Martinez's legacy in Mexico
Speaker 1: as a journalist.
Speaker 2: Her murder had a huge impact on the whole profession
Speaker 2: across the country, and so people have not forgotten. It
Speaker 2: was very much a watershed a turning point because the
Speaker 2: fact that a journalist working for a national publication with
Speaker 2: her profile was killed was a signal to any national
Speaker 2: journalists anywhere that they could be a target. So I
Speaker 2: think it changed very much the sensibility for journalists in Mexico.
Speaker 2: But I think it also well, there's been a lot
Speaker 2: of mythology obviously that's grown up around the case since then,
Speaker 2: but I think it is kind of a beacon. It's
Speaker 2: something that people keep in mind, not only for the
Speaker 2: terrible thing that happened, but for the kind of journalist
Speaker 2: she was. She's very known and admired posthumously for the
Speaker 2: kind of work she did and what she stood for,
Speaker 2: and everybody knows that. And she has actually been recognized
Speaker 2: anyways posthumously, including winning a George Polk Award and a
Speaker 2: Maria Moore's Cavit Award. So she's definitely a beacon in
Speaker 2: that way. I think her example inspires a lot of
Speaker 2: younger journalists.
Speaker 1: What a terrible loss it is.
Speaker 3: It's very sad.
Speaker 2: The thing that's interesting every time I talk about this
Speaker 2: is she was so private. First of all, she didn't
Speaker 2: care anything about all words, and she probably would hate
Speaker 2: that she's had this much attention, but I think in
Speaker 2: telling the story, it's important to let people know what
Speaker 2: she did and what she stood for, because that was
Speaker 2: really important, and I think it's a really important story
Speaker 2: and I think it resonates with a lot of people.
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That
Speaker 1: Is Wicked, and American Sherlock. This has been an exactly
Speaker 1: right production. Our senior producer is Alexis M. Morosi. Our
Speaker 1: associate producer is Alex ch This episode was mixed by
Speaker 1: John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer. Artwork by Nick Toga.
Speaker 1: Executive produced by Georgia Hartstark, Karen Kilgariff and Danielle Kramer.
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