WEBVTT - Wicked Words - Katherine Corcoran: In the Mouth of the Wolf 0:00:00.760 --> 0:00:05.320 This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:15.040 What was strangers? First of all, there was no forced entry, 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:17.880 like if it were a street robbery or something you'd 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:21.919 see the door broken down. They didn't take anything except 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:24.800 some cash that she had in a drawer, and so 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:27.800 she called a locksmith to get her locks changed. And 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:30.600 the locksmith said, when he looked at how the whole 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:33.440 thing had happened, he said, this was definitely a professional job. 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:42.959 I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:45.920 in Austin, Texas. I'm also the host of the historical 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:49.320 true crime podcast Tenfold War Wicked and the co host 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:53.280 of the podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right. I've traveled 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:56.320 around the world interviewing people for the show, and they 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:59.720 are all excellent writers. They've had so many great true 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:02.440 crimes stories, and now we want to tell you those 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:06.039 stories with details that have never been published. Tenfold War 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:10.080 Wicked presents Wicked Words is about the choices that writers make, 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:13.760 good and bad. It's a deep dive into the stories 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:18.600 behind the stories. One of the most dangerous jobs you 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:21.080 can have in some parts of the world is being 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:25.399 a journalist author Catherine Corcoran penned the book In the 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:29.200 Mouth of the Wolf, about a groundbreaking reporter who risked 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:32.800 her life to expose corruption in Mexico and then she 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:38.280 was murdered. This story is important to you, and it's 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:40.840 a personal story to you. You and I spoke on 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:44.240 the same panel at the Texas Book Festival, and it 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:47.320 was really great hearing the story from your point of view. 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:50.800 I usually ask people at the very end, how does 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:53.640 the story impact you? But how the story impacted you 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:56.800 is actually why you began reporting the story to begin with. 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:59.240 So just kind of tell us a little bit about 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:01.800 the process of what happened where you were rived at 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:03.800 the book, which is In the Mouth of the Wolf. 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:07.680 I was working as the Associated Press Bureau chief for 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:12.720 Mexico and Central America, and in Mexico there began to 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:16.280 be a spike in journalist killings, kind of all of 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:19.959 a sudden, out of nowhere. It impacted me several ways. 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.160 First of all, we were covering these killings as a story, 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:26.440 and second of all, because of the killings, even though 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:29.440 the targets of these killings tended to be very local 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:34.880 journalists with smaller media outlets, We couldn't assume as international 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:37.240 journalists that it wouldn't hit us. So we had to 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:41.920 change dramatically how we covered Mexico and our security protocols 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:44.520 and just things we didn't have to do before because 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:48.079 it was a fairly quiet country beforehand. So we had 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:50.639 to send our journalists out in teams. No one could 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:53.680 go alone. We had to evaluate the terrain and the 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:57.800 area before we sent anybody. We had had GPS tracking. 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:01.320 All that was new, and so it was really much 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:04.680 a story I was living on several levels. But also 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:07.840 what concerned me so much is that nothing was being done. 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:11.799 It just kept getting worse, and in fact, this year 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:14.560 has been a record for the number of journalists killed 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:19.920 in Mexico, and there was so little transparency around these cases. 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:23.160 We didn't know why they were happening. The government was 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:26.440 telling us that if a journalist was murdered, it was 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:29.120 because they were corrupt, it was because they were narco 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:34.240 journalists working for the cartels. Certainly that phenomenon did exist 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:37.000 and still does, but the numbers were so high it 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:39.240 was like, that doesn't make sense. It couldn't be all 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:39.720 of them. 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:44.680 Let's talk about the categories of journalists then, and now 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:48.440 in Mexico from your book, my understanding is there were 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:52.240 the journalists who were the honest, wanting to expose corruption 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:55.560 and the cartels and the government. There is the mouthpiece 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:58.200 the journalists who were the mouthpiece for the government, and 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:00.200 then there seemed to be people in the middle who 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:02.280 were just playing scared. Is that right? 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:07.440 Yes, there were several levels of journalists or types of journalists. 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:11.280 The press in Mexico traditionally had been controlled by the 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:14.320 government because the country was ruled by a one party 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:17.960 authoritarian system. That system broke up in the year two 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:22.240 thousand when they had their first democratically elected president, and 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:25.919 the press followed suit. The press became more open, more critical, 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:30.000 more independent. But because the history had been of control, 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:32.920 a lot of media continued in that and they received 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:36.520 huge amounts of money from the government to maintain that line. 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:40.000 So there was that level when the narcos came in 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:42.880 and the powers that they are now and that they 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:45.560 started to be at the time, they started to control 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:47.760 the press much in the manner that the old party 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:51.360 system had done it, and so they started paying journalists 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:54.279 and telling journalists what to write and not to write. 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:57.279 And some journalists because they were used to that system. 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:01.600 They just started working for new bosses, not realizing that 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:04.760 the consequence was going to be much more deadly if 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:07.520 they fell out a line. And I mean under the 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:11.880 authoritarian party, there were hardly any journalists killed for decades. 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:15.000 Most of them were under control. So there were the 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:19.520 government journalists, the narco journalists, the journalists who just decided 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:21.680 we're going to stay out of this, We're not going 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:26.120 to publish anything controversial, just for safety. And then there 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:28.440 were the journalists what I would call the new wave, 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:32.640 the new generation, who really believed in the press as 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:36.200 an important part of developing this new democracy, that the 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:39.520 press was important for informing the public, letting the public 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:43.160 know what's going on, helping the public make decisions. And 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:46.479 they were in this new vein, and they were the 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:51.040 ones who became harassed. Outside of the narco journalists who 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:56.360 maybe got crossways with their bosses, they became harassed and followed. 0:05:56.960 --> 0:05:59.960 In the case of Raheina Martinez, who is the protest 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:04.480 agonist of the book, when she was murdered in twenty twelve, 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:07.440 it was the first time we could say, clearly, this 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:10.400 is not a narco journalist, this is a very good 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:14.280 tenacious journalist who produced very good journalism. She was known 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:17.640 nationally for her work, and that was the first time, 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:20.400 even though the government wouldn't say it was related to 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:23.680 her work, we could say this is a hit on 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:28.279 a journalist. And so I think that's why that case, 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:32.000 of all these other cases, stuck with me. But also 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:34.400 because I had spoken to her on the phone. I 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:36.640 had tried to hire her, and she was too busy, 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:38.960 she couldn't take the story. But the fact that I 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:41.919 even had that brief interaction with her, when I found 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:45.880 out she had been murdered, I remember saying her because 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:48.479 it didn't fit with the story that we were getting. 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:52.919 How do journalists in Mexico who are of the class 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:55.680 of Rahena, who don't want to be bought, they're brave 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:58.760 enough to report on some controversial things, how do they 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:01.960 stay safe on a day to day basis if they 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:06.520 literally have no government, no real powerful entity protecting them. 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:09.400 At first, they didn't. They were just kind of out 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:11.840 there on their own, you know, just going after the 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:15.040 story and not really thinking about the consequences. But as 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:19.800 these killings start to increase, they started more informal networks 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:23.240 of support, which is one thing that Raheina did is 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:26.920 she developed her own circle around her of journalists she 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:30.400 could trust for that reason, for her own security. She 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:33.680 had a very small circle of friends and led a 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:37.080 very hermetic life because she knew that there were many 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:39.760 ways that her critics could get at her, like going 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:42.520 after her family, for one thing, and so she actually 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:46.440 made up a story about her own history and family 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:48.760 and about where they were and where they were from 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.160 so nobody could go looking for them. 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:54.880 Wow, let's start with Rahina. Tell me about who she 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:58.360 was as a person and sort of her path towards 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:00.720 where she ended up in two thousand and twelve. 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:03.440 According to her friends, she had a very strong personality. 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:07.200 She was very opinionated and could be kind of dismissive 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:10.320 at times, but also as a reporter, they said she 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:14.720 was always very polite. She was very formal and very polite, 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:18.200 but in her casual circle she was very critical and 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:20.840 to the point where they found it entertaining because she 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:24.960 was this tiny woman of indigenous roots, not the profile 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:27.120 of a person who was normally in the press in 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:30.920 those days, and super opinionated with this big personality. They 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:35.080 called her brava, which is like harsh but they kind 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:38.240 of even found it endearing in a way. Those who 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:41.200 admired her in her close circle, they found it very 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:44.040 endearing the way she was always out front and always 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:47.040 saying exactly what she thought, because that's not how the 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:50.120 press worked at the time, but also that's in polite 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:54.800 Mexican society also not what's done. It's a very indirect 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:59.760 kind of communication. But she was very direct, very opinionated, 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:04.360 and very dedicated to telling the truth, and that made 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:06.880 her stand out from the very beginning of her career, 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:10.360 and because of that, she suffered a lot of harassment 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:13.679 over the years of her career and was very disliked 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:16.880 by the powers that be for all the trouble that 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:18.319 her stories would cause. 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:20.320 Where was she located in Mexico. 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:23.320 She was in the city of Halapa, which is the 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:26.240 capital of the state of Vera Cruz, which is on 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:29.240 the Gulf coast of Mexico. It's kind of a long, 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.680 thin state along the Gulf of Mexico, and it was 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:36.720 considered safer than Mexico City in this time, in twenty twelve, 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:41.079 well up to I would say two thousand and ten, 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:44.880 that's when the journalist killing started in huge numbers in 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:48.439 that state in Vera Cruz, maybe a few years before that. 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:51.760 Starting in two thousand and seven, everything started to become 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:55.360 more dangerous. Before that, it was a fairly quiet state. 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:59.480 It's always been a state controlled by mafia's with a 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:03.080 lot of corruption. And there's a huge port in Vera 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:06.600 Cruz also named Vera Cruz, where it's the largest incoming 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:09.600 port in Mexico, so a lot of contraband comes through there. 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:12.600 It's a very remote state as well, and so they 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:16.000 had airplanes full of cocaine, but it was all kept 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:20.400 under the radar. It was all very quiet until about 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:24.240 two thousand and seven. But even before two thousand and seven, 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.960 she did suffer harassment for her stories, even before the 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:29.640 situation became so dangerous. 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:32.120 Give me a few examples of some of the stories 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:33.199 that we're talking about. 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:39.000 Her passion was social justice issues, and when she started 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:43.120 her career in the nineteen eighties, the communities that were 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:46.920 marginalized or had no power, no voice, were never covered 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:49.439 in the press because the press was still very official, 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:52.160 and so she would go out and ask questions and 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:54.439 travel to remote parts of the state to find out 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.160 what was really going on. Because these communities were often 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:01.520 exploited or they were kicked off their lane, and indigenous communities, 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:05.280 landless farmers, and so she would actually go to these 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:07.400 areas and talk to people and find out what was 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:10.640 really going on instead of following the official story. So 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:14.280 she would publish these stories that were pretty amazing for 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:17.199 her time, because no one wrote these things. No one 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:18.960 bothered to go out and find out what's going on, 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:21.760 and no one wrote these things, and almost inevitably the 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:25.520 culprit was the government. The government was somehow trying to 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:29.800 control or abuse various communities that they felt were not 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:35.439 with the program, and so like laborers, union workers, indigenous communities. 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:38.040 So she wrote all those issues. 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:40.560 That nobody else was writing, and her stories for the 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:43.480 time were pretty astonishing. She did a three part series 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:47.760 on the abuse of laborers and the beer plants and beer, 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:50.040 of course, Mexican beer is very famous. There was a 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:52.839 huge plant in Vera, Cruz and she wrote a three 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:56.160 part series about how these workers were being entirely abused 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:59.880 under their union contract, et cetera. She wrote about remote 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:03.160 I mean he's not getting vaccines. There was a measles 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.760 outbreak in a very poor community with no vaccines from 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:11.080 the state she wrote about indigenous women being forced sterilized. 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:14.680 She wrote all kinds of things, but eventually it led 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:17.880 her to the government, because the government had the control 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:21.360 and also had the resources. So she started investigating how 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:24.320 the government spent its money or didn't spend its money. 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:26.600 Vera Cruz, because of the Gulf, is a state where 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:30.760 there are a lot of natural disasters, hurricanes, storms, flooding. 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:34.280 She would find cases where victims would be homeless out 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:37.640 on the street and the relief supplies would be sitting 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:40.560 in a government warehouse. As I say, the guy was 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:42.640 astonished when I went back to look at her stories. 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:43.760 I mean they were endless. 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:48.160 But probably her biggest story was she wrote about the 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:53.080 rape of an elderly Indigenous woman by some soldiers in 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:57.520 a very remote community, and the woman died from her injuries, 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:01.640 and she started reporting and it was a story about 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:04.840 this woman had been attacked by soldiers who were camped 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:08.280 out nearby doing some operation. And it started out with 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:10.920 the government saying, you know, we'll get justice. This is 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:14.760 an outrage, and then the President of Mexico came in 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:18.160 and got involved. Because the army is a very important 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:21.720 institution and the credibility of the army in Mexico is paramount, 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:24.960 and so when the president came in, his concern was 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:28.600 saving the reputation of the army, and the story completely 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:33.000 changed to where the woman died of natural causes, just 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:36.480 kind of an outrageous, obvious cover up of what had happened. 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:39.520 And she wrote about that to the very end, and 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:42.040 every piece that didn't make sense and every part of 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:44.920 the cover up, and that's when she really earned her 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:46.120 national reputation. 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:50.720 You talked about her being harassed. What were some of 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:53.679 the examples that you learned of how she was harassed 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:55.080 before she was killed. 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:59.160 The government cut her off from official information, She didn't 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:03.360 receive presser Lisa's, she was barred from press conferences. She 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:07.760 always felt that she was being followed or watched. It 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:10.319 was almost a given at that time that your phone 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:13.440 would be intervened somehow, and early on, before the situation 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:18.079 became really dangerous, after every event or press conference she covered, 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:21.920 she would ask someone to accompany her back to her house. 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:25.240 It's a very walkable city where she was, and or 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:27.800 sometimes she take a taxi, but she would always ask 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:31.040 someone to accompany her because she didn't want to leave 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:35.160 an event alone. She had her home broken into and 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:39.240 her computer stolen. Right before she was murdered. She had 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:43.360 a very strange kind of break in where everyone took 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:46.400 it as a sign that is meant to be a warning. 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:47.560 How strange. 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:50.640 What was strangest. First of all, there was no forced entry, 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:53.480 like if it were a street robbery or something, you'd 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:57.520 see the door broken down. They didn't take anything except 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:00.640 some cash that she had in a drawer, And then 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:04.480 they went into her bathroom and steamed up the bathroom, 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:07.320 and she had these decorative soaps, and they crushed all 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:10.800 the soaps because they'd gotten wet. And so it was 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:14.760 just very odd because coincidentally, she had been away on 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:17.920 vacation but was called back early to do a story, 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:22.080 and so she arrived at her home shortly after this happened. 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:25.000 Because it looked as if someone had taken a shower 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:28.160 in her bathroom by all of her soaps were destroyed, 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:31.800 people took that as a sign of we can get 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:34.960 into your most inner parts of your house and most 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:38.400 private areas of your house. And so she called a 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:41.840 locksmith to get her locks changed. And the locksmith said, 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:44.160 when he looked at how the whole thing had happened. 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:46.360 He said, this was definitely a professional job. 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:49.560 When we're talking about suspects, let's just start with this 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:52.160 break in and what we think is a warning. Is 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:57.240 this certainly government or is this cartel, mafia or are 0:15:57.280 --> 0:15:58.200 these all conflated. 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:02.120 They're pretty much conflated. They were at this time. She 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:06.480 didn't cover cartels. It was very clear that you couldn't 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:09.320 say they were the culprit like they did with so 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:12.640 many of these other journalists. And also it wasn't a 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:14.560 killing that was the style. 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:15.000 Of the cartel. 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:17.000 The cartel would wait for you to come out of 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:19.640 your house and just shoot you up. Sometimes they'd go 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:21.520 into the house and shoot you up. 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.000 And put you on display, sometimes as a warning. 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:24.720 Exactly. 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:28.440 They were very public kinds of killings, and they engendered 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:32.040 a lot of fear among journalists and everybody. This one 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:34.520 was someone entered her house in the middle of the 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:37.840 night and beat her severely as if maybe torturing her, 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:41.440 and then strangled her and she wasn't found for about 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:46.239 twelve fourteen hours, And it was just such an unusual 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:51.520 style of murder, and the government used that to say 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:53.560 that it had to have been someone she knew, and 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:56.800 someone she led into the house, even though everyone knew 0:16:56.840 --> 0:16:59.800 that she didn't let anyone, hardly anyone into her house. 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:03.000 What preceded this was there a story that she was 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:05.120 working on. What do we think was the trigger here 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:06.240 with whoever killed her? 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.520 Initially, there were so many possible triggers because of all 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:11.960 she had written over the years, but she hadn't written 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:16.000 anything particularly controversial leading up to her death, which is 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:20.000 why it was such a mystery. But there was one story. 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:24.679 She worked for a national investigative magazine called Prossso, and 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:27.679 three weeks before she was killed, there was a small 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:33.360 article on the inside of Processo magazine about two allegedly 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:38.400 corrupt politicians in Vera Cruz in Halapa, where she was working, 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:42.639 and how one had been, according to protected witnesses, was 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:45.520 tied to a drug cartel and the other one who 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:48.520 was tied to illegal enrichment, like he had all this 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:52.160 wealth that didn't make sense with his public servant salary. 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:57.200 And when that article was published, all of the magazines 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:01.520 in Jalapa were stolen before they reached the newsstands, and 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:05.159 that was an old school tactic by the ruling party, 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:07.679 the authoritarian party, if they didn't like something that was 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:10.159 going to be published. They would steal copies so people 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:12.520 couldn't read it, and of course in the old days 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:14.480 pre internet, that would be very effective. 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:16.320 Well, they still use. 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:19.280 That from time to time, more as a message because 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:22.720 you could obviously read the article online. So she knew 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:25.800 they were upset about that article, but she did not 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:29.280 write it. It was a national correspondent who had come 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:33.119 in from Mexico City who wrote it, and he and 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:37.240 others immediately thought that was the article that got her killed. 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:41.680 For me investigating, I dismissed it at first because it 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:43.640 was a very small article. It wasn't on the cover. 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:45.919 Usually they would steal the magazines if there was like 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:49.600 a big splash on the cover about some evil doings, 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:53.280 and it wasn't on the cover. And also there had 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:57.000 been articles written over the years about these two politicians. 0:18:57.280 --> 0:18:59.520 They had been accused of all kinds of things in 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:03.480 the press, and so I've thought, why would this small 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:06.960 little article particularly bother them. One of them was the 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:09.320 head of state security in Vera Cruz and he was 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:12.840 accused of using the state security to protect drug lords. 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:16.520 So there were all kinds of worse accusations. So that's 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:19.960 why I didn't understand why that article would have caused 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:21.200 her death. 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.520 Tell me what happens that day? What do we know 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:27.200 pro seeded that day that it happens. 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:30.800 She had a pretty routine day. She worked for the 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:34.000 news service for Processo also, so when you work for 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:36.639 a new service, you just churn out kind of spot 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:39.840 news articles. And she wrote three articles that day. One 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:42.479 was about some police who had been arrested because they 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:45.840 were discovered to be corrupt. Another one was about a 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:49.159 political official who had been found dead in his house. 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:51.320 But they were like police bladder. 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:51.679 Kinds of stories. 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:55.080 She wasn't investigating anything, and they would be the kind 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:57.520 of stories that other media would be covering as well. 0:19:58.119 --> 0:19:59.560 So she wrote three stories. 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:03.960 She went to buy some material to have some clothes made. 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:07.760 Kind of a very routine day. She went shopping, and 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:09.800 then she went home and closed her door. Because on 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:12.560 the weekends, it was a Friday, she really disappeared on 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:16.200 the weekend. She stayed inside or did all her chores, 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:19.000 did her writing, did a lot of things, but was 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:21.000 not social at all on the weekends. When she went 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:23.760 inside and closed her door on Friday night, people normally 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:26.919 didn't see her again until Monday morning, and so that's 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:30.919 when the crime occurred, was very early Saturday morning. And 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:33.520 that's why it took people so long to discover it, 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:36.800 because normally she wasn't around out and about anyway. 0:20:50.560 --> 0:20:54.320 How was she initially discovered and then what are her injuries? 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:58.680 She was discovered late the next day on Saturday afternoon, 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:03.000 about six o'clock because her neighbor saw that her gate 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:05.680 had been left ajar, but also her front door had 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:09.000 been left ajar, which was highly unusual. She was very 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:12.119 security conscious and everyone knew that. Her neighbors knew that, 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:15.200 and her neighbor, not wanting to pry, kind of said, well, 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:19.520 she'll show up eventually. And after some time had passed 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:22.040 and another neighbor had passed by and called her name, 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:25.200 and she didn't answer. She wasn't answering her phone. Finally 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:28.880 the neighbor called the police and that's when they discovered her. 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:33.399 What about her injuries, Well, she looked very badly beaten. 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:36.320 There was some blood. It looked as if they had 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:39.760 taken a cleaning rag and strangled her. But it looked 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:42.399 like she was tortured quite a bit. She had a 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:46.440 broken jaw and the forensics people said it was from 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:47.520 brass knuckles. 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:48.200 Wow. 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:51.160 She had bruises up and down her arms and legs. 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:53.240 She was in a pair of blue jeans, and the 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:55.920 knees were dirty and bloody, as if she had been 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:58.840 on her knees when some of this was happening, and 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:03.720 it appeared that they had surprised her in her bathroom. 0:22:04.680 --> 0:22:07.080 The rest of the house there wasn't blood or there 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:10.320 wasn't any kind of physical disturbance in the rest of 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:12.960 the house, just in the bathroom, and so it looked 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:14.600 as if they had surprised her. 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:15.720 Whoever it was. 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:20.200