Murder Mystery Storytime: Marisela Escobedo Ortiz!

Hey there, DETECTIVES! DETECTIVE WRITER here to tell you all about another unsolved crime in Mexico, the murder of Marisela Escobedo Ortiz.

(Ortiz holding a photo of her daughter Rubi who was murdered).

Ortiz was born on June 12th, 1958 and she was the mother of a 16 year old girl named Rubí Frayre. In 2008, Frayre went missing, and soon afterward in 2009, she was found dead with her remains burnt and dismembered inside a trash bin in Ciudad Juárez. Her parents claimed that their daughter was murdered by her boyfriend, Sergio Rafael Barraza Bocanegra. After being located and arrested by police and taken to Juarez, Bocanegra confessed to the crime and burial of Frayre’s remains; however, due to a lack of evidence, he was acquitted. 

Ortiz was understandably outraged and began multiple protests, demanding her daughter’s killer be retried and jailed. Eventually, a circuit court had finally overturned the appeal, and Bocanegra was soon sentenced for murder while still remaining a fugitive from justice. Basically meaning he had previously tried to flee from law enforcement to avoid persecution or giving testimony so not exactly receiving jail time. 

On December 16th, 2010, Ortiz was at a vigil for her daughter when she was suddenly shot in the head by a masked man. She was pronounced dead on the way to the hospital. A brother-in-law’s corpse was also found on the street two days after Ortiz’s murder. While it was suspected Bocanegra was the assassin or at least had a hand in it; although, in 2012, he was killed in a fight with the Mexican military. To this day, the unknown individual has never been identified and a family’s grief continues to grow to this day. Perhaps one day the case can finally be solved and both mother and daughter can finally rest in peace.

I hope you have enjoyed this storytime as much as I did, DETECTIVES! Please let me know in the comments if you want to have more storytime! Have a great day, night, afternoon, or evening, DETECTIVES! Stay tuned for next week’s post; until then, keep on sleuthing, DETECTIVES!