MEXICO CITY — Federal investigators in Mexico confirmed Monday that the death of a young woman, initially declared accidental alcohol poisoning, was actually murder, and the result of head injuries.
The latest development adds further intrigue to the case of 27-year-old Ariadna López, in which a top state investigator may have colluded in covering up the murder of the woman.
Videos by VICE
López reportedly went to a bar with friends in late October, then along with a few of them, to the apartment of a man only identified as Rautel N., due to Mexican privacy laws. The next day, López’s body was found on a highway connecting Mexico City with the neighboring state of Morelos on Oct. 31st. Morelos authorities declared that she died from alcohol poisoning and may have been left there “by a group of people.”
At her funeral, Rautel., told reporters that she left her apartment alone later that night and was unaware of what happened to her after. But surveillance video of the apartment building released by the government showed a man, believed to be Rautel, carrying her limp body and placing it into his car.
Mexico City authorities quickly conducted a second autopsy on López’s body and determined that she died from multiple blows with an unspecified object, contradicting the findings of the Morelos authorities. Authorities then arrested Rautel and his girlfriend, identified as Vanessa N., who was also at the apartment that night.
The case quickly took another twisted turn when Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said Morelos Attorney General Uriel Carmona may have had a connection to Rautel.
“In this case it is evident that the Attorney General of the State of Morelos wanted to hide the femicide of Ariadna [López] presumably for his links with the probable woman killer [feminicida],” she said.
Carmona denied having any sort of relationship with Rautel, or even knowing of him until this case, and alleged that “it’s an issue that has to do with politics.”
In recent years, Carmona has been involved in corruption investigations of the Morelos state governor, Cuauhtemoc Blanco, an ally of Sheinbaum and the ruling MORENA party.
The forensic science teams of both the Morelos and Mexico City authorities stood by their competing autopsy results, claiming the other was wrong. The federal attorney general’s office [FGR] was then tasked with conducting a new investigation and autopsy to give a definitive ruling. Federal authorities sided with the results of the Mexico City investigation on Monday, alleging that her death was the result of head injury, not alcohol poisoning.
Prominent Mexican newspaper El Universal reported that the FGR will open an investigation into the Morelos officials who potentially intervened in the case initially, including Carmona.
Mexico regularly ranks as one of the most dangerous countries in the world for women in Mexico. 3,450 women were murdered in Mexico between January and November of 2022. While López’s case received a fair bit of national media attention, many other daily cases of femicide do not.
