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 Entertainment | Books | June 2007 
Univision Journalist Puzzles Over Deaths of 400 Mexican Women
 Ana Veciana-Suarez - MiamiHerald.com
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| | Univision's Teresa Rodriguez, who has co-written a book about 400 unsolved murders in Mexico, relaxes at her Coral Gables apartment. (Hector Gabino/El Nuevo Herald) |
For almost a decade, the faces and families of the murdered women have haunted Teresa Rodriguez. The Emmy-winning Univision journalist went on to cover hundreds of other stories after her first trip to the Mexican border town of Juarez, scene of heinous crimes, but her thoughts - and her interest - always returned to those hundreds who were tortured, raped, their bodies abandoned in the desert.
"I couldn't get them out of my head," Rodriguez says. "The story, the women, became part of my life. There was one moment that I realized I had become obsessed with it and also obsessed with the reality that I did not have all the answers."
It is easy to understand that obsession if you read Rodriguez's chillingly graphic new book, The Daughters of Juarez: A True Story of Serial Murder South of the Border (Atria, $23.95). About 400 girls and women have been viciously attacked and killed in this area of Mexico, and the authorities are no closer to solving the crimes than they were in 1993 when the murders began. Nonetheless, Rodriguez hopes her book will help foster change.
"I want this to serve as a catalyst. I want it to be a denuncia," an accusation, she says.
Rodriguez, who anchors the news magazine Aqui y Ahora, has switched sides to talk about her book. Instead of posing before the studio's klieg lights, she sits in the living room of her Coral Gables apartment, where floor-to-ceiling windows overlook hazy skies, white sailboats and blue bay. The setting is a far cry from the poor neighborhoods she and her crew toured when they first covered the story.
In 1998, when Aqui y Ahora was not yet a weekly program, a colleague suggested she report on the grisly homicides just across the border in El Paso. From the start of her research, she was horrified: The first victim had been discovered in a vacant lot on the outskirts of the city in January 1993, raped, beaten and strangled. Five months later, another murdered woman was discovered, and by the end of the year the body count stood at 16 women. All the victims were slender and petite, with long brown hair.
Over the years - and even as police questioned and arrested suspects - the killings continued. By 1998, when Rodriguez first traveled to Juarez, the tally had hit 200.
'I COULDN'T BELIEVE IT'
"At first I couldn't believe it," she recalls. "I was shocked. If this were happening here, an AMBER alert would have been issued, at the very least. The media would have been all over it."
Though the slaughter has roused some attention - two Hollywood movies have fictionalized the story - ignorance remains widespread north of the Mexican border. On book tour, or when Rodriguez is interviewed by national and international television correspondents, 'people are surprised at what I tell them. And if they've heard of the killings, they say, "I didn't realize they were so many or so vicious.' "
Co-author Diane Montane of Ormond Beach, a journalist and magazine editor, believes people don't pay attention "because these women are poor. There is no value put on their lives." That injustice is what attracted Rodriguez to the story.
THE VICTIMS
In their book, Rodriguez, Montane and their co-author Lisa Pulitzer describe families torn apart by grief and frustration. Most of the victims migrated to Juarez to work in its assembly plants. They eked out a living in a place of rampant corruption and incompetence, where women are considered disposable property.
In fact, the authors say, when desperate parents of missing daughters seek the help of law-enforcement authorities, they are met with indifference. The state prosecutor went so far as to blame the women's deaths on what they wore.
"These families feel ignored and impotent," Rodriguez says. "They're humble people, and they don't have a lot of formal education or economic resources. It's devastating to watch these families trying to get some answers."
Theories point to a serial killer or killers or to copycat murderers. Other suspects include the city's powerful drug cartel, which, some authorities speculate, may have teamed up with businessmen on both sides of the border to use these women as sex slaves.
LOOKING FOR ANSWERS
"I began to suspect everybody," Rodriguez says. "I would think of all these scenarios in my mind. I was even suspecting the parish priest. I would say, 'Wait a minute. All of them were Catholic. Many of them sang in the choir. They went to church.' Yes, you're reporting the story, but you find yourself also trying to find some kind of answers for these families, or you're hoping to maybe stumble upon something that may be a missing link somewhere."
A Hialeah High grad who arrived from Cuba when she was 9 months old, Rodriguez visited Juarez four times to update the story.
Though she studied economics at Barry University, she became enamored with the broadcast news business when she was hired at Channel 2 out of school.
English-language Miami viewers may best remember her as part of a Peabody Award-winning news team covering Hurricane Andrew in 1992 for WTVJ.
And some might also remember the death of her husband, Univision executive Tony Oquendo, five years ago this month. Oquendo died of a heart attack after returning home from a morning jog. Their sons, Victor and Julian, were then 15 and 10.
"When something like that happens to you," Rodriguez says, eyes watering, "it shakes your very foundation. You draw strength from who knows where."
Rodriguez is now in a serious relationship with a man who, like her, was widowed young. They share a love of family and a commitment to their careers.
The book - a first in a career dotted with 11 Emmy Awards - also has given Rodriguez a mission.
"My life is a work in progress," she says. "I take one day at a time. I'm very disciplined, but I've also learned that life sometimes throws you some curves, and you have to learn to be flexible."
aveciana@MiamiHerald.com |
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