The bodies of nine people who vanished in southern Mexico last month have been found brutally hacked apart and dumped on a highway alongside a bag filled with their severed hands.
The horrifying remains were discovered inside the trunk of a deserted car in San Jose Miahuatlan, on the border of the Mexican states of Puebla and Oaxaca – 175 miles from Mexico City.
Five of the nine mutilated bodies were found underneath a blood-soaked tarp, while the remaining four were found contorted inside the trunk in what is believed to be yet another savage cartel killing.
Authorities also discovered at the revolting scene that each person had their hands chopped off and stuffed in a bag that was also forced into the trunk already filled with bodies.
Initial reports from Mexican outlets suggested the victims were students, originally from Tlaxcala, who had traveled to the beaches in Oaxaca for vacation.
But a report published by Mexican outlet NVI Noticias claimed the students were in fact members of the ‘Los Zacapoaxtlas’ criminal organisation.
Though much of Mexico is ravaged with cartel violence, the province of Oaxaca is widely known as a popular tourist destination thanks to its world-renowned cuisine and resplendent beaches.
On March 2, three days after the students were reported missing, a dark grey Volkswagen Vento with Tlaxcala license plates containing the bodies was discovered along the high-trafficked Cuacnopalan-Oaxaca highway, according to Periodico Central.
The horrifying remains of the students’ bodies were discovered inside the trunk of an deserted car in San Jose Miahuatlan, on the border of the Mexican states of Puebla and Oaxaca
Pictured: Authorities search the deserted car in San Jose Miahuatlan containing mutilated bodies
Areport published by Mexican outlet NVI Noticias claimed the victims were members of the ‘Los Zacapoaxtlas’ criminal organisation
Mexican media outlets have identified eight of the nine victims so far, naming them as: Angie Lizeth, 29, Brenda Mariel, 19, Jacqueline Ailet, 23, Noemi Yamileth, 28, Lesly Noya Trejo, 21, Raul Emmanuel, 28, Ruben Antonio, and Rolando Armando.
The ninth victim has not yet been identified.
As of Tuesday, no suspects have been named, but the nature of the killing suggests cartel involvement.
The Attorney General’s Office in Puebla is collaborating with its other local law enforcement agencies in Tlaxcala and Oaxaca in a widespread effort to catch the grisly killers.
So far, authorities have tracked down surveillance footage from February 24 showing the vehicle driving along the Atlixcayotl highway near the town of Atlixco about 90 miles west of where the students’ remains were found, Periodico Central reported.
The Puebla State Attorney General’s Office is unable to divulge any additional information, citing confidentiality concerns.
‘So far I cannot offer information. There are lines of investigation, but I cannot reveal them due to confidentiality,’ Idamis Pastor Betancourt, head of Puebla’s State Attorney General’s Office, said at a press conference Monday.
‘All relevant investigations are being carried out.
‘When we have a response and the investigation is complete, we will be in a position to provide more information,’ he added.
Over 30,000 murders were committed in Mexico in 2023, according to the most recent figures.
Many of the slayings were tied to drug trade, with cartel hits leading to particularly gruesome scenes.
Five of the nine missing students’ remains were found underneath a blood-soaked tarp, while the remaining four were found inside the trunk. Pictured: Onlookers capture the scene unfolding along the side of the high-trafficked Cuacnopalan-Oaxaca highway
Of the nine students, five were men and four were women, all were believed to be aged 19 to 30 years old, El Financiero reported. Pictured: Jacqueline Ailet Meza Cazares
Authorities have tracked down surveillance footage from February 24 showing the vehicle driving along the Atlixcayotl highway near the town of Atlixco about 90 miles west of where the students’ remains were found
The Puebla State Attorney General’s Office is unable to divulge any additional information, citing confidentiality concerns
The crime-riddled country saw the most violent year in its recent history. Pictured: Lesly Noya Trejo
Cartel violence is rife in Mexico. Victims are often mutilated and have their hands chopped off
In 2018, three Mexican film students went to Guadalajara to tape a college project. There, they met a 24 year-old rapper – a YouTube sensation – who was working with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).
Like many others, Christian Omar Palma Gutierrez was drawn to the cartel, which would pay him 3,000 pesos a week as a ‘cook’ to dispose of bodies head-first in an acid bath kept in a local safehouse.
The students, aged between 20 and 25, met Gutierrez in Guadalajara.
They had no connection to cartel, but unwittingly filmed a house belonging to a rival that the CJNG was watching. The students were kidnapped. One was tortured to death.
Unable to release the others, they killed them too. Gutierrez was later arrested.
In September 2011, Mexican police found five decomposing heads left in a sack outside a primary school in Acapulco.
Dozens of schools went on strike over security concerns as violence ramped up in the region. Teachers were seen out protesting with banners reading ‘Acapulco requires peace and security’.
Earlier that day, in another part of the city, five headless bodies were found in and around a burned out car.
Separating the heads from the bodies has no practical use for the cartels in disguising the murders, but inflames the sense of terror in the population.
Eleven years later, on the other side of the country, five more decapitated heads were found in an ice cooler in Tamaulipas.
These tactics are not limited to some cartels or regions, then, but have found application across Mexico for years.
Cartels often ‘sign’ their atrocities with some unique spin.
The heads found in 2022 were found next to dismembered human remains with partially removed skin, and near a mutilated body.
With this, they left a note addressed to the Ministry of National Defence, requesting they be left to settle the score with ‘those morons from the Cartel del Noreste’.
‘This problem of ours isn’t against any of you guys,’ they said. ‘Please allow us to do our work at night in order to finish off these filthy individuals.’
Bodies found next to a burned out vehicle. The heads were later found next to a primary school
The CJNG cartel leaves a severed face with blunt message for cartels to find. The head was found inside a black plastic bag. The body was not found. The image circulated on Twitter.
Bus burned during attacks by armed groups operating in Guanajuato state on 31 January 2023
Cartels must be able to guarantee that their recruits are capable of mentally dealing with the the rising level of violence. ‘La escuela de terror’ – the Terror School, or the School of Terror – has normalised terror among recruits to desensitise them to chilling violence.
Since 2015 the CJNG, which is estimated to have 5,000 members, has used cannibalism as part of its initiation rituals at the school, used to root out moles and test loyalty among new recruits.
One graduate said that after a fellow student failed his weapon handling test, he was shot on the spot, mutilated and eaten by fellow apprentices.
Any perceived weakness is challenged head on. A survivor of the school said the most timid in his class was given the task of cutting the head off a rival and crushing it with a stone.
When another vomited up part of the body, the instructors picked it out of the dirt and forced him to eat it.
Successful trainees are desensitised to death by sharing barracks with dead bodies.
Videos of fresh recruits eating the hearts of mutilated rivals send a clear message to challengers.
In February last year, the cartel proudly showed off trainees pulling the hearts from the corpses of recently deceased rival cartel members and biting into them.
New rifles are on show as a cartel member poses to offer a limp corpse a taste of his own body.
Dumping mutilated bodies in places to be found later by police and rivals also sends a strong message to those who would challenge the cartels.
In November 2022, police found 53 bags of mixed human remains after a dog was seen running through the streets with a severed human hand in its mouth.
And in 2012, Mexican authorities found 49 mutilated bodies dumped on a highway near the US border.
43 men and six women were chopped into bits, making identification hard for the police. But this was not to disguise who had committed the crime.
The bodies were found with a message attached, with the Los Zetas cartel taking ownership.
Burying people in mass graves or dumping them, mutilated, in areas for the police to find mystifies the extent of the violence and makes headlines.
63,428 mass graves were found across Mexico by 2020, in which 92,658 people had been buried.
The dead include thousands of women and children both caught in crossfire and explicitly targeted by the cartels.
Every so often, public fear erupts with the discovery of bodies beaten and beheaded, mutilated beyond the abilities of forensic teams.
