On January 9, more gruesome details about the crime were revealed by Tucson’s KOLD-TV, Channel 13 News:
Not only was the victim decapitated, but he was missing his hands and feet as well. Somebody either wanted to send a message or make it very difficult to identify this person. Authorities and the public are concerned about both.
Meanwhile, across the border in northern Mexico, police in the city of Torreon on January 7 and 8 recovered the severed heads of five men in various places around the city. According to an Associated Press report, the heads were stuffed in bags along with threatening notes indicating the men were likely the latest casualties in the turf war between the Zeta and Sinaloa drug cartels. The slain men’s bodies have not yet been located.
Decapitation has become a standard practice in the ultra-violent cartel wars, which have claimed tens of thousands of lives in Mexico.
The recently discovered headless body near Tucson is not the first such victim to turn up in Arizona. On October 10, 2010, the decapitated body of 38-year-old Martin Alejandro Cota Monroy was discovered on the living room floor of his apartment in Chandler, Arizona. His head was lying nearby in the apartment. In March, 2011, police investigators confirmed Monroy’s murder had been ordered by the PEI-Estatales/El Chapo drug cartel and carried out by a three-man hit crew. According to the investigators, the hit team traveled to Arizona from California. One of the accused murderers, Crisantos Moroyoqui, has been apprehended, but the other two are believed by police to have slipped back into Mexico.
Related articles:
Violence Spills Across U.S.-Mexico Border
Mexico: Drug Violence to Last at Least 4 More Years
Drug Cartel Kidnaps 11 Mexican Police Officers
