For Borderland Beat by DD
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| Investigators at the scene inside abandoned crematorium |
Police in Acapulco responded last night about 10:30PM to complaints from neighbors of a "bad smell" coming from an abandoned crematorium. Upon investigation authorities found at least 61 bodies in various states of decomposition inside the crematorium.
Some of the bodies were fully clothed while others were nude and wrapped in sheets and some scattered in piles on the floor. Lime had been sprinkled on the bodies and around the interior to disguise or limit odor from the decomposing bodies. There were bodies of both men and women and at least one child found.
Elements of the army, Federal Police, and the state attorney generals office were called in to assist in the investigation. The investigation is in the early stages and there are few definitive answers as to why the bodies were there or who is responsible at this point.
The abandoned crematorium is about 200 miles from Iguala where 43 students from a teachers college were kidnapped on Sept. 27 of last year. Even though the investigators said they are trying to determine how long the bodies had been there one of them stated he did not believe they were bodies of the missing students because of the advanced state of decomposition.
Information gathered from the neighbors indicated the crematorium had been abandoned for at least a year. Another report said the phone at the site had been disconnected since 2008.
Acapulco has been beset by drug gang violence but it was not immediately clear whether the bodies were murder victims dumped by a gang, or whether the crematorium's operators left corpses there when the facility closed down. Authorities are still trying to find out who the owner/operator of the crematorium was when it was abandoned. It would seem that the crematorium was doing a booming business if it had 61 bodies accumulated when it closed.
Local authorities stated they believed it was a case of "negligence" and did not involve organized crime..
Miguel Angel Godinez, attorney general for the state of Guerrero, told Radio Formula that ""We can't say for now that there is an indication that organized crime participated in this, but we can't rule it out," Godinez told Radio Formula.
There are thousands "missing" in Mexico, yet authorities up to this point have said nothing about suspecting these bodies might be part of the missing which is the first thing that would have come to my mind if I were investigating.
A press conference is scheduled for this afternoon that will hopefully give the people some answers. However the investigation seems to be starting out reflecting the attitude of President Pena Nieto when all the violence in Guerrero started to draw attention from the media. He stated "it is a local problem".
The Attorney General in Guerrero, Miguel Angel Godinez, said this morning that,
"We are talking about a clear violation of state sanitation laws,"