Human remains spotted near Mexican motel where young woman found slain
Monterrey, Mexico, Aug 23 (EFE).- A man hunting birds came upon human remains just 150 m (492 ft) from the motel where 18-year-old Debanhi Escobar was found murdered four months ago, Mexican authorities said Tuesday.
The hunter discovered the remains in the undergrowth of a vacant lot along the Monterrey-Nuevo Laredo highway.
Preferring to remain anonymous, he provided police with directions rather than waiting for officers to arrive and leading them to the spot.
Sources told the media that the body was in such an advanced state of decomposition that it was impossible to determine the sex, though the fingernails on one of the hands were painted.
Police have been conducting round-the-clock surveillance at the Nueva Castilla, where Escobar was found dead on April 21, 12 days after father Mario Escobar reported her missing.
The search unfolded amid intense public interest after a photo of Debanhi taken by a taxi driver after she got out of his cab on the highway at 4:26 am on April 9 went viral.
It was only during the fourth search of the motel by agents from the Nuevo Leon state Attorney General’s Office that the young woman’s body was discovered inside a cistern.
Last week, the federal AG Office took over the case from Nuevo Leon authorities after months without any progress in the investigation and President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has vowed to get to the bottom of what happened to Debanhi.
Officials disclosed Tuesday that a search warrant was executed on Aug. 19 at the home of a motel employee suspected of lying to investigators.
Police confiscated four USB drives, eight cell-phones and a laptop computer from the residence in the Monterrey suburb of Apodaca.
Debanhi Escobar died of asphyxia by suffocation due to “obstruction of respiratory orifices,” Felipe Edmundo Takahashi, director of the Institute of Forensic Sciences of the Superior Court of Justice of Mexico City, said last month after a third autopsy.
He said that Escobar died three to five days before her body was found and he excluded the possibility that her death was accidental.
There was no evidence of sexual assault, Takahashi said. EFE
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