Houlihan's Wake and Other Fragments of Mexico by Bryan Murphy

However, outdated tech formats often remain in use in Mexico after they have been abandoned in other countries. The format of the video tapes found at the house may suggest how far the killings went back: authorities found 28 8mm video tapes, which were discontinued around 2007, and 25 VHS cassettes, which largely fell out of favor by 2016. The police officer gained access to police surveillance cameras showing his wife had entered, but not left, the street where the suspect lived the policeman went to the home, confronted the suspect, and found his wife’s hacked-up body inside.īut what investigators also found was women’s clothing, voter IDs and audio and video tapes suggesting he may have recorded his victims. He was to have accompanied the victim on a shopping trip the day she disappeared, so her husband suspected him when she failed to return. He was caught, not as a result of keen investigative work, but because his most recent alleged victim was the wife of a police commander whom he knew personally. He has been ordered to stand trial for the killing of his last victim, a 34-year-old woman whose body he allegedly dismembered with a butcher’s hacksaw and knives on 14 May. “This analysis indicates that, up to now, the bone fragments found may possibly be those of 17 people,” the statement said.Īuthorities have not released the full name of the 72-year-old suspect under Mexican laws protecting a suspect’s identity.

“The bone fragments are being subjected to ‘lateralization’ studies, which include carefully cleaning each one, identifying what part of the body they are and then placing them in their anatomical position, providing a method for determining the approximate number of victims,” the office said in a statement on Saturday.

That could make sense: the suspect, identified by prosecutors only as “Andrés”, was formerly a butcher and in fact sectioned and filleted his last victim.

The number of bone fragments found underneath concrete floors at the suspect’s home would imply the corpses may have been hacked into tiny pieces. ID cards and other possessions from people who disappeared years ago were found at the junk-filled home, suggesting the trail of killings may go back years.

Houlihan's Wake and Other Fragments of Mexico by Bryan Murphy