MOTHERS DOING THE WORK: 12 Arrested in Slayings of 11 Young Women in Mexico
“I gave them everything on a silver platter, and these dogs didn’t do anything,” she said of the original investigators. She said she had to battle to get key evidence introduced, and deal with detectives who didn’t take her leads seriously. “I’m in this for all of us,” she said of the victims’ mothers. “I feel that she (Jessica) is with me, helping me.”
Finally this year, the state agreed to create a small team of investigators devoted to focusing on the murders. The difference from past cases is that victims are now much more empowered than in the 1990s, prosecutors are more willing to listen to them. Moreover, following the reported disappearances of more than 24,000 people over the last six years in Mexico, a strong tradition has emerged of relatives taking it on themselves to carry out basic investigation tasks that police can’t or won’t do.
“This was done with the creation of the investigative agency, our presence and the efforts of the mothers, who were the ones who provided leads from the beginning,” said Norma Ledesma, leader of the advocacy group Justice for Our Daughters. “They (the mothers) carried out their own investigation.”
“Mothers today know their rights,” Ledesma said.