In the end, she became one of the women of Juarez for whom she sought justice.
Susana Chavez, a 36-year-old poet and activist who adopted the slogan “Not One More Death,” was found strangled, mutilated and dumped on a street in this border city infamous for a series of murders of women – even before drug violence made it one of the most violent places in the world.
She befriended three teenagers, who authorities say invited her home to drink with them, then killed her in an argument and cut off her hand to make it look like an execution.
The three suspects, who are in custody, told authorities they are members of the local drug gang Azteca and became enraged when Chavez told them she was a police officer and was going to report them, according to a statement from the state Attorney General’s Office.
Her body was found last week but not identified until Tuesday, authorities said Wednesday.
“What’s strange is that we’re fighting to eliminate feminicide in Juarez and, look, she died that way, in the hands of criminals,” said her friend, Linda Meza.
Chavez was a well-known artist in the city across from El Paso, Texas, a prominent member of the group May Our Daughters Return Home, comprised of family members and friends of the slain Juarez women and girls. Her only book, “Song to a City in the Desert,” grew from a cry from the heart against violence, she wrote, and included the poem “Blood,” written from the perspective of a victim.
Her murder was condemned Wednesday by international and Mexican human rights groups, as well as the president of Mexico’s lower house of Congress, Jorge Carlos Ramirez Marin, who called on his fellow legislators to honor her memory.
“Susana was a noble woman committed to the cause and to her city, which she loved with all of her being,” said Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson of the Human Rights Commission in Chihuahua state, where Ciudad Juarez is located.
The killing was the result of an “unfortunate encounter” and had nothing to do with Chavez’s activism, said Chihuahua state Attorney General Carlos Manuel Salas.
According to the statement from his office: Chavez’s mother said she left home the night of Jan. 5 to go to a bar to play dominoes with friends. The suspects told authorities they met her in a convenience store and invited her to drink with them. After several hours of drinking, they argued, then took her to the shower, covered her face in adhesive tape and started to drown her until she suffocated.
The suspects – one of them a neighbor – told investigators that because the boys had been drinking and taking drugs, they found it “easy” to kill her over an argument, said Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for the state Attorney General’s Office. They dumped her body in the street, forgetting that they left her hand back at the house, the statement said.
The fact that Chavez’s killers were so young rocked a community already jaded by more than 3,000 murders last year, which now dwarf the more than 100 women and teenage girls who were sexually assaulted, killed and dumped in the desert over a decade, starting in 1993 – crimes that resembled a pattern.
“It’s neglect on the part of the authorities of families,” said Dr. Leticia Chavarria, a member of the Citizens Medical Committee and activist for security issues in Juarez. “There’s no rehabilitation for young delinquents. There are no networks to keep them in school. It’s a very sad view of our community.”
Chavez is the second Juarez anti-crime activist killed in less than a month. Gunmen shot Marisela Escobedo Ortiz as she protested in front of a governor’s office in the state capital in December to demand justice for her dead daughter, whose ex-boyfriend is the prime suspect in both killings.
The Chihuahua Congress on Tuesday voted unanimously to impeach three judges after they freed the main suspect, saying his confession was not convincing proof. Two of the judges said Wednesday they’ll defend themselves against any accusations of impropriety.
Problems with evidence and building strong cases plagued the women of Juarez killings as well. Although some men confessed and at least two were convicted, the vast majority of the killings are still unsolved. A federal commission spent three years studying the cases plagued for years by allegations of state police corruption and incompetence before quietly dropping the inquiry in 2006, saying there was no evidence of federal crimes.
