The Guadalajara Reporter

Missing boys' bodies found; police chief explains motive for crime

Two 15-year-old Guadalajara schoolboys were killed because they allegedly made fun of a jailed drug trafficker’s son, Jalisco Attorney General Carlos Najera revealed Tuesday.

Najera was speaking at a press conference  a few hours after investigators found the bodies of Luis Antonio Ortiz and Andres Barba buried on a ranch in the Primavera Forest.

The pair were last seen on the afternoon of Saturday, June 21 walking with two other youths in the Ciudadela shopping mall on Avenida Patria. The Fiscalia General had previously released images from a video surveillance camera showing the four youths leaving the mall at around 4 p.m.

Najera said they were taken in a taxi to a ranch in the Primavera Forest where they were killed.  They were dead even before the boys’ parents had filed a missing person’s report, he added.

The bodies had been buried 600 meters from the main property, referred to as La Cebada, located just off Prolongacion Mariano Otero, about three kilometers from the Periferico.

Najera did not go into the cause of death, although unofficial reports suggest they may have been bludgeoned with various objects.

According to the police chief, a plan to kill the youths was hatched after they had allegedly mocked the son of Jose Angel Carrasco Coronel, alias “El Changel,” who is in prison in Mexico City for drug related offenses after his arrest in January of this year.  

Carrasco Coronel is the nephew of Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel Villarreal, one of the leaders of the Sinaloa Drug Cartel who was killed during a military operation  in July 2010 in the swanky Colinas de San Javier neighborhood of Guadalajara.  “El Changel” was believed to have inherited part of the cartel’s operations.

All three attended the private Rudyard Kipling College on Guadalajara’s Avenida La Paz.

Najera said the scheme came to light after investigators detained one of the youths seen in the surveillance video. The 17-year-old, who has been named only as Isaac, confessed to having lured Ortiz and Barba into a trap, Najera said.  

The other youth in the video, identified as Andres, who was apparently well known to the victims and their parents, is also being sought, as well as Carrasco Coronel’s son, referred to in the police case file as Leonardo.

According to the file, Isaac initially told investigators that he believed he was participating in a kidnapping plot. He said he thought the idea was to lure Ortiz and Barba to the ranch to keep them hostage and demand a ransom from their families.

Reports say Isaac has not detailed the exact nature of the “mocking” or “bullying” that Leonardo was allegedly subjected to.

Najera said the plan was hatched through social media, when Ortiz was “invited to “participate in organized crime.” He did not elaborate further.

On Wednesday, quoting “sources close to the Fiscalia General,” Spanish-language daily Mural said “Andres” had created an online alias to tempt Ortiz into the meeting at La Ciudadela mall with offers of girls and easy money from drug dealing.

Jalisco Governor Aristoteles Sandoval tweeted Tuesday that he “shared the impotence that society feels” and promised that “the state will do justice.”

The case has caused consternation in Guadalajara, provoking fears that a gang of “robachicos” (child kidnappers) was active in local shopping malls.

Several malls, including La Ciudadela, reported having fewer visitors last weekend.  In particular, there seemed to be a big drop in the number of young people attending movie screenings without their parents.

The families of Ortiz and Barba buried their children Wednesday in emotional ceremonies held in Guadalajara.

School friends of Barba, who many believe was unwittingly drawn into the episode, accompanied him in his final journey.  

The Kipling School has refused to comment on the case.