Barely a week after the bodies of two teenaged boys were found dismembered in Mexico City’s historic center, authorities on Wednesday apprehended two youths wheeling a suitcase containing the body of a 14-year-old boy.
Authorities said the 14-year-old appeared to have been hanged.
It is the latest of four brutal murders of youths in the nation’s capital. Two days ago, police discovered the remains of a 17-year-old boy in a building in the Morelos neighborhood. Police said the body showed evidence of torture.
Teens Alan Yair and Héctor Efraín were found dismembered just blocks away from the zócalo in the city center after a box containing their remains fell off a hand truck being wheeled through the city streets in the early hours of October 31.
The body of the 14-year-old, identified as Alessandro “N,” was discovered Wednesday around dawn. According to authorities, the youth had last been seen Monday in the 20 de Noviembre neighborhood in the Venustiano Carranza borough. Both he and the other two victims lived in the city’s Guerrero neighborhood.
Police officers had noticed two unidentified teenaged boys dragging a suitcase and questioned them. But the boys acted nervously and the suitcase fell from their hands. At that point, the officers saw the body inside.
The boys, who denied knowing anything about the victim’s death and told police that they had been paid to leave the suitcase at a landfill, have been taken into custody. After questioning them and checking security cameras in the area, authorities returned with a search warrant and discovered an abandoned apartment where they believe the body had been located before the boys took it. Crime-scene experts were not able to find any traces of blood in the apartment, however.
Official information about the crime was initially scarce, although some journalists have claimed that the boy was a victim of a kidnapping gone awry.
The notoriously dangerous Guerrero neighborhood, located in the Cuauhtémoc borough, is a base for the criminal gang La Unión Tepito. Authorities have linked La Unión Tepito to the deaths of Efrain and Yair, although they have not linked this latest death to the criminal organization.
Sources: El Universal (sp), La Silla Rota (sp)
