Mexico: Couple claim to have killed 20 women
October 9, 2018
A couple arrested in Mexico while carrying human body parts in a baby carriage have admitted killing 20 people, twice the number originally suspected, the case's chief investigator said Monday.
The man told investigators that he and his wife — identified only as Juan Carlos N. and Patricia N. — lured their victims, mostly young mothers, with promises of discounted clothing for their babies.
Read more: Dying for justice in Mexico
The man also admitted raping some of his victims and selling some of their body parts, said Alejandro Gomez, chief prosecutor of Mexico state.
The couple also reportedly confessed to selling one of the dead women's 2-month-old baby to another couple. The baby has since been recovered and the other couple was also detained.
Prosecutors are now trying to establish whether the couple did murder 20 people, or if that is the boast of a "psychopath" and "serial killer," Gomez said.
Signs of mental illness
Gomez told Radio Formula the man appeared proud of the killings — there were signs he suffered a personality disorder and resented his mother and a previous girlfriend.
The man has "a mental disturbance consistent with psychosis and a personality disorder," while the woman has been "mentally disabled since birth, and also has acquired induced delirium," said Gomez. "But both can distinguish between right and wrong," he added.
While his companion apparently helped him to lure the women in, she may have played a submissive role.
The couple were living with their three children, including a baby. When police searched the couple's home they found human remains in concrete-filled buckets and wrapped in plastic bags inside a refrigerator, as well as articles of clothing apparently belonging to some of their victims.
"What seemed macabre to me is that this person mentioned 10 cases in which he gives details, the names of the victims; he gave us the clothing they had on at the time," Gomez said. "He seemed happy about what he had done."
According to police, the couple had been put under surveillance after phone records showed they had been in contact with three missing women.
Police said they went to the lot the couple had been heading to when they were arrested in the northern suburb of Ecatepec and found more body parts, but they were in such bad condition that forensic tests would be needed to identify them.
They said the couple had acknowledged disposing of other bodies in a similar way. Gomez said Monday that investigators had found more dismembered remains in two other homes.
law/cmk (AFP, AP)