Shortly after they drove away from the afternoon birthday party -- hosted by a consulate co-worker -- the young couple noticed they were being followed. They sped up, but the pursuing vehicle kept pace. They made a dash for the bridge, just a few short blocks away, but couldn't quite reach it. Armed assailants pulled up along side them and let loose with bursts of machine gun fire -- no doubt AK-47s or AR-15s, the weapons of choice for cartel hit men. Lesley and Arthur died at the scene after their car crashed into a curb.
Their daughter, safely secured in the backseat, survived unscathed. One of the saddest news videos I have ever seen is that of Lesley and Arthur's badly battered white SUV, surrounded by police and soldiers just minutes after their executions. A female officer walks to and fro cradling and rocking the child, while heavily armed agents examine the bodies of her parents, still sprawled inside the car.
About the same time a Mexican police officer named Jorge Alberto Salcido Ceniceros drove away from the same birthday party with his own children. Jorge was married to another U.S. consulate employee, a Mexican national, who was following him in her car. Blocks away he too was pursued and executed by a hit team. The children were uninjured.
Today one of the persons Mexico says was collaterally involved in the murders, identified as Joel Abraham Caudillo, was extradited to the United States. The Mexican attorney general's office says that Abraham Caudillo's assignment was to get rid of a vehicle used in the killings. He is not alleged to have participated in the three executions, which remain under active investigation here and in the United States. Abraham Caudillo was extradited to answer outstanding warrants in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, at Tyler, where he stands charged with drug trafficking, money laundering, obstruction of justice and organized crime activity. He was handed over to FBI agents in Mexico City.
Others involved in the executions have already been extradited to the United States, and most of the suspected participants - about 35 - are in custody, either in the U.S. or Mexico. No motive has ever been established for the attacks, and it is unknown if the victims were specifically targeted because they were U.S. citizens, or in the case of Salcido Ceniceros, because of his marriage to an American consulate employee.
But who was ultimately behind the March 10, 2010 terror in Juárez?
On July 26, 2011 Mexican police arrested the chief enforcer of the Juárez Cartel, José Antonio Acosta Hernández, 33, known as "El Diego," who has allegedly admitted that he was the master mind of the executions. Mexico had offered a reward of $15 million pesos ($1.25 million USD) for his arrest, and the United States $5 million. Hernández has purportedly confessed to ordering the murder of 1,500 people in areas controlled by the Juárez Cartel since becoming its enforcer. He has also admitted to a car bombing in the city in July 2010 -- a first in Mexico's drug war -- as well as a notorious attack in January 2010 which killed 15 young people at a birthday party.
El Diego is a former police officer in the state of Chihuahua who quit his law enforcement post and began working with organized crime several years ago. Authorities say he built a name for himself as a contract killer for the Juárez Cartel, and created an organization, known as La Linea, which specialized in extortion and kidnappings for ransom. Hernández remains in custody subject to legal proceedings, including a pending U.S. request for his extradition. He faces multiple federal charges, among them murder of U.S. nationals and other offenses. Warrants for Hernández' arrest were issued by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas at San Antonio in March 2011.
Update Apr. 7, 2012 -- Juárez killer of pregnant U.S. consulate employee collects 10 life terms in El Paso: http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2012/04/juarez-killer-of-pregnant-us-consulate.html#more.
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