Four months after Debanhi Escobar’s death, the Attorney General’s Office will confiscate the case’s investigation folder at the request of the 18-year-old girl’s parents. The Undersecretary of State for Public Security, Ricardo Mejía, has reported this Thursday that the Nuevo León Public Prosecutor’s Office will formulate in the next few hours a criminal complaint against those who obstructed the judiciary at the beginning of the investigation and after the conclusion of this procedure The Federal Ministry of Public Relations will launch an investigation into the girl who disappeared on April 9 and whose lifeless body was found on the outskirts of Monterrey two weeks later.
After three autopsies and dozens of versions found, the federal prosecutor finally takes the case in hand. “The Interior Minister, Adán Augusto López Hernández, has already contacted the Attorney General [Alejandro Gertz Manero] to formalize the application for attraction based on the application of Debanhi Escobar,” the Secretary of State for Security at the National Palace reported this Thursday.
The attraction of the investigative folder comes on the edge of the 15-day deadline Debanhi’s father, Mario Escobar, has given authorities to find evidence of possible people involved in the young woman’s death. The victim’s father this week accused the public prosecutor’s office of a lack of interest in investigating the alleged murder of his daughter. “The prosecutor has agreed so far, 100 days after we showed it to them, that we will now investigate it as a femicide,” Escobar said Wednesday.
The disappearance of Debanhi after attending a party in the early hours of April 9 and the subsequent finding of his body in the Nueva Castilla Motel’s cistern, which had already been searched by state authorities up to four times, revealed the chain of irregularities in of the investigation, mistakes that cost two local prosecutors their jobs and spurred federal government involvement as community outrage escalated.
Only a month ago, the authorities presented the results of the third autopsy of the young woman’s body. According to this latest report, Debanhi Escobar died of asphyxiation. The final report refutes the first cause of death: deep head trauma and leaves more questions unanswered about the young woman’s final moments. In the face of the maze of unanswered questions, dead ends and the growing wave of outrage, the federal government has gradually taken more control of the investigation.
Since last May, the Department of Public Security has been offering scientific and intelligence assistance to “get to the truth.” By that time, Secretary of State Mejía had already evaded the possible obstruction of justice by those in charge of the Nueva Castilla motel and the lack of key videos that would help clarify what happened that night. “The videos they had in their possession were not delivered on time. It was pointed out that there was no storage until they made it available afterwards. This wasted valuable days that would have allowed the investigation to progress,” the federal official warned. Almost 90 days later, the Nuevo León State Department will file a complaint of obstruction of justice, although it has not yet announced against whom or against whom.
Debanhi’s death has become a symbol of disappearances and the murder of women in Mexico. His death has outraged thousands of Mexican women. And while the young woman’s parents are still waiting for the clarification of their daughter’s death, the number of femicides in the country continues to rise.
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