Following the horrific discovery of nearly 400 bodies piled up close to the US-Mexico border, two people have been taken into custody.
The grisly discovery was revealed by police inside a private cremation in northern Mexico’s Ciudad Juarez. Officials said that the bodies were discovered piled up in a warehouse compound and that the location was “neglected.”
As the warehouse is still being examined, it was first reported that 383 bodies and six fragmentary remains had been discovered.
As promised, none of the bodies had been incinerated. According to forensics officials, 218 of the successfully retrieved bodies are male, 149 are female, and 16 are still unidentified.
Communications coordinator of the Chihuahua state prosecutor’s office, Eloy Garcia, told AFP that the bodies had been “deposited irregularly in the crematorium, which were not cremated.”
“Just thrown like that, indiscriminately, one on top of the other, on the floor,” he claimed of the bodies.
Authorities believe that some of the victims may have been placed there for up to two years before being found, and it is known that all of the bodies had been embalmed but not cremated (via CBS News).
Investigations revealed that the crematorium was a ‘Plenitud’, which had cremated six or seven local funeral companies.
According to Javier Sánchez Herrera, Director of Forensic Services and Sciences, several of the remains also had hospital tags with their names and social security numbers on them. Garcia added that ‘additional materials’ were sent to the deceased’s family.
He added that the owner, José Luis Arellano Cuaron, and his employee, Facundo MR, were arrested on an arrest warrant and accused of exhuming, burying, and disrespecting human remains or bodies to the harm of society.
Prior to their July 4 hearing, they are presently in pretrial custody.
State Attorney General César Jáuregui Moreno said, “The Judge granted the preventive detention requested by the Public Prosecutor’s Office so that these individuals can continue their proceedings in prison. This ensures that they can not only address the economic damage they inflicted on many families, but also determine the terms of reparation for the damages for many of them, who are being revictimized by the pain they had already, in some ways, healed.”
Additionally, the State Attorney General met with the families of the deceased and urged them to get “comprehensive care and support in their decision regarding their loved ones.”
“We will seek the highest possible penalty for those responsible. We will conduct a thorough investigation, seeking to minimize the re-victimization of families already experiencing this.” he said
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