Juarez serial killings

Hundreds of young women have disappeared from the Mexican border city since — many of them teenagers who came to Juarez to work in the town's foreign-owned factories, known as "maquilladoras.

The official toll is women killed since , but local women's groups believe the actual number is more than Many of the victims — the Chihuahua state government says 76 — have the hallmarks of serial killings: they were raped, some had their hands tied or their hair cut or their breasts mutilated. Bodies have been found with their heads crushed or even driven over by a car. The killers appear to prey on a certain type of young woman: slim with big brown eyes and long brown hair.

Most of the victims are assaulted on their way home from work. Downtown first went to Juarez to report on the murders in Since then, the killing has continued, with more than 70 new victims, according to activists critical of the authorities' handling of the crimes.

And, the groups say, the killings are getting more brutal. He explained: "When they told me the storyline of the character I was fascinated because I think that's, for me, the biggest problem we have in Mexico right now, the issue of femicide.

He said: "Yeah, we have these amazing action sequences and blah, blah, blah, but the real thing is that the consequences of this war are there, and I was very grateful with the opportunity to talk about this thing that I think is still pretty relevant right now.

Protests were held against the local police by both American and Mexican legislators. Despite the case being investigated by several professional people, such as retired FBI profiler Robert Ressler and a team of active-duty G-Men, there was no success in identifying the killer and the case officially remains unsolved.

On December 9, the Associated Press reported that at least seventeen murders were likely the work of one individual, while 76 others were the work of at least one copycat.

The victims were usually young, dark-haired women who worked in maquilladoras as factory workers or students. They were beaten, raped, and killed by a variety of ways, such as strangulation, stabbing, bludgeoning, shooting, and even burning. Occasionally, the killer would mutilate or dismember their bodies, hence his nickname. For unspecified reasons, the killer took an interest in slashing his victims' breasts and biting them.

A Mexican national suspected in the serial killings of at least 10 women in the border town of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, was arrested Tuesday in Denver, Mexican and American authorities said Thursday. Edgar Alvarez-Cruz was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Denver for being in the country illegally after Mexican authorities asked the U.

Marshals Service to help locate him in the city. Mexican authorities believe Alvarez-Cruz is part of a gang of men who raped and murdered at least 10 women in Ciudad Juarez from to , U.