The body of a businesswoman who was kidnapped and killed because her husband “didn’t want to pay” a ransom was found in Veracruz this week.
The decapitated corpse of Susana Carrera was found Wednesday night inside a bag left in a vacant lot in the port city of Coatzacoalcos.
A sign was left with the body that read: “This happened to me because my husband played the tough guy and didn’t want to pay my ransom.”
Carrera, co-owner with her husband of an aluminum company, was abducted last week in the Playa Sol neighborhood of Coatzacoalcos after which her captors reportedly asked for a ransom of 4 million pesos (US $207,000).
The kidnapping occurred outside a house that Carrera’s daughter was visiting.
The newspaper Excélsior reported that Carrera arrived at the home to pick up her daughter, rang the doorbell and had been waiting outside for 15 seconds when a man got out of a car and abducted her. The incident was captured by a security camera.
The woman’s family was unable to raise the funds to pay the ransom, news magazine Proceso said.
After her body was found, Carrera’s husband Luis Manríquez confirmed the death in a message on social media.
“Thank you very much to everyone for your prayers and wishes for my wife Susana Carrera to return home. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to and she passed away,” he wrote.
A march to condemn the killing was scheduled to take place in Coatzacoalcos today.
There were 49 kidnappings and 160 homicides in the municipality last year, according to the Coatzacoalcos Citizens’ Observatory.
Residents have accused Mayor Víctor Manuel Carranza of doing little to combat crime in the city, located on the northern coast of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
Federal authorities will deploy 600 marines to five municipalities in the south of Veracruz next week, including Coatzacoalcos, after Governor Cuitláhuac García Jiménez asked President López Obrador for support to combat insecurity.
The discovery of Carrera’s body came just days after the corpse of a 30-year-old woman was found in Tlacotalpan, a municipality 100 kilometers south of the port city of Veracruz.
Janet Rodríguez Márquez was kidnapped on January 22 in her native Amatitlán and two days later her captors requested a large ransom.
Family members paid 500,000 pesos (US $26,000) on January 27, leaving the money at an undisclosed location, but Rodríguez wasn’t released.
Source: Al Calor Politico (sp), Sin Embargo (sp), Excélsior (sp), BBC (sp), Proceso (sp), El Heraldo de México (sp)
