The devastating murder of Mara Fernanda Castilla and reality of femicide in Mexico

The devastating murder of Mara Fernanda Castilla and reality of femicide in Mexico

In the early hours of the morning of September 7th, Mara Castilla laughed, drank, with friends, shot glasses and beers, mixed drinks and cigarette smoke, bar stools, bouncers and waitresses, in low cut tops and heels, a blur of music and conversation. The intimate secrets and whispers in ears, and shouting voices over the pulsing soundtrack, the kind of night that defies age, and invites one to live in the moment, enjoy the youth, or deal with age.  Mara was 19.  

She left alone, in the familiar, barely controlled chaos of those evenings, last call, last drink, last chance, last smoke, last night. There are moments outside clubs and bars, across Puebla, across Mexico, across the world, where the next few hours are decided.  Everyone must decide, where do I go now?  To go home with girlfriends, enjoy the night with your best friends, fall asleep on the couch, the next afterparty, the handsome stranger you met earlier, or the co worker/friend, who you suddenly want to know better.  

Mara's choice was simple, easy, and leaves no room, one would think, for the kind of victim blaming we are so sickened to see in these cases, time and again. Mara went home alone. Too many drinks, or not enough, or maybe none, she headed home alone, using Cabify, an Uber like app, to take her home.  Taxi's are often considered less safe in Mexico for a variety of reasons, lack of oversight, ties to organized crime, and just general mistrust. Cabify, like Uber is extremely popular in many cities in Mexico.  Her driver arrived around 5:00 AM,  he would later be identified as, one Ricardo "N", or Ricardo Alexis.  

Mara was missing for a week before her body was found on a highway, some 90 miles from Mexico City, thrown near a ravine like so many victims of violence, a white towel or sheet wrapped around her, her body showing obvious signs of trauma.  The towel was from a local motel, Motel Del Sur in Puebla.  Later investigations showed her driver Ricardo N entered Room 25, at 6:47 AM and left at 8:15 AM.  He obtained the towel from the hotel, and dropped off her body afterward, on a highway.  

Surveillance shows the car did arrive at Mara's home, but she did not get out.  Only Ricardo N, arrested, on September 13, two days before Mara's body was found, knows what happened.  Mara was beaten, sexually assaulted, and murdered, allegedly by strangulation. It is not entirely known if this took place in the motel room, in the car, or somewhere else, unknown.  Blood was found in the motel room, according to investigators.  He has been charged with kidnapping, and is expected to be charged with femicide, rape, and robbery.

There are a lot of variables in Mexico's legal system, mostly followed (by me), as it relates to organized crime.  In civil courts, at a state level, there is rampant inefficiency and corruption. Along with an often complex legal process, which leads to the release of criminals.  This case has become very visible in Puebla and throughout Mexico City, with protests, social media protests, and media coverage.  There is hope that the guilty will be punished.  There is hope he will never be released.  Prosectors are reported to be seeking a 60 year sentence. 

Mexico, has a long, dark legacy of femicide, brutal violence towards women, based on certain cultural norms that both encourage the violence, and defends, or minimizes those who commit it.  There is a deep sense of victim blaming and misogyny that infects these cases.  The most known example, made infamous by television, movies, reporting, is the femicides of Juarez.  A ghastly killing frenzy of mostly marginalized women, who were brutalized, raped, murdered, many times thrown in mass graves, in desolate areas outside Juarez.  

The full scope of the killings were never uncovered, though many of the dynamics were known. There were hundreds, if not thousands of these killings . They went unsolved, and unstopped, and undeterred for decades.  There were different generations of killers, there were different killers, there were different motivations.  There was complicity from elements of the Juarez Cartel, there was involvement by local politicos, and "Juniors", the affluent children of the Juarez elite.  

It is a murky, ghastly story, and one that hasn't stopped, or changed much, though it has slowed down since the 90's and 2000's.  It happens other places, Baja California, in the midst of much violence has seen dozens of femicides this year, some connected to organized crime, many not.  There victims are sometimes prostitutes, sometimes maquiliadora workers, sometimes girls like Mara Castilla, who are not guilty of anything, though there is a rush to cast all victims as bad.  They were "just" prostitutes, or perhaps they were alleged to be unfaithful, or sexually active, or gay.  There is always a justification for the killing. There is always a sentiment that they deserved it.

Screenshot of Cabify fare

Baja California and Tijuana specifically have seen an increase in these kinds of killings, dozens per year, only a "small" part of the overall homicides, which are well past 1,000 this year, but dozens, still.  They are found in suitcases, in blankets, dismembered and disarticulated, and disregarded by society.  What we can do is this:

Speak up.  Do not let people blame the victim in your presence.  Speak out against violence towards women, sexual and otherwise.  Do not disrespect the dead by justifying their death, in that they were sex workers.  Donate to causes, help bury the dead, through Go Fund Me, and other crowd sourcing venues.

Mara's body was found in a sheet, grimly bearing the motel where she was likely murdered, alone, and bruised, her body lay by the highway.  She is not alone, and every death matters, every killing is too many.  There are hundreds like this every year, and the killers, the victimizers go unpunished with immunity, sometimes under the sheer strain of killings, that stain the streets of cities like Tijuana.

Mara, from Xalapa, Veraruz, was attending college in Puebla.  She will never graduate, she will never marry, she will never dance, or laugh, or cry again.  It is in these actions that the devastation of death is realized, and than we multiply. Not by five, or ten, or twenty, but hundreds.  That is the reality, that is the devastation. Heartbroken and stained with the knowledge, photos of women I will never meet,  haunted, I write these words. 

Sources:

Animal Politico  http://www.animalpolitico.com/2017/09/mara-castilla-muerte-chofer-cabify/

Pueblaroja.mx http://pueblaroja.mx/tag/ricardo-alexis/

A timeline of Mara's death:  http://www.periodicocentral.mx/2017/pagina-negra/feminicidios/item/16824-las-ultimas-horas-de-vida-de-mara-castilla-asi-ocurrio-minuto-a-minuto-el-feminicidio-de-la-estudiante-de-la-upaep-cronologia