MEXICAN MAYOR MARIA GORROSTIETA MURDERED BY DRUGLORDS, BODY FOUND BURNED AND BEATEN IN A DITCH

Courageous Mexican mayor Maria Santos Gorrostieta

Courageous Mexican mayor Maria Santos Gorrostieta cheated death twice when she survived assassination attempts by druglords — but three times was too much. Gorrostieta, dubbed a “heroine of the 21st century” for her refusal to be cowed by the ruthless cartels that rule much of Mexico, was kidnapped in broad daylight this month after leaving her home in the town of Morelia.

She was driving her daughter to school when thugs in another vehicle blocked her white van. They pulled her out and began kicking and beating her in front of passers-by.
The 36-year-old mother begged the men to spare her girl and appeared to get into the thugs’ vehicle voluntarily, witnesses said.

As mayor of the town of Tiquicheo, Maria Santos Gorrostieta defied the area’s drug cartels, once baring her scars from two assassination attempts to rally support for her war on drugs. Her body was found mutilated in a ditch this month, days after she was abducted. Gorrostieta, mayor of the town of Tiquicheo from 2008 to 2011, had previously had a police escort and government security assigned to her.

But despite the two ambushes — which killed her husband and left her horribly scarred — her protection was pulled after she left office. “No one could do anything to help her,” newspaper El Universal said of her abduction two weeks ago. Her relatives waited for a call from the kidnappers, hoping they would trade her for ransom. No call came. The family alerted police, who launched a search.


Five days after her disappearance, farm workers found Gorrostieta’s body — stabbed, burned and beaten — in a roadside ditch in the town of San Juan Tararameo. Her relatives identified the body of the mother of three the next day.

Parts of Mexico have become a no-man’s-land, where legal authorities fear to tread and death comes cheap. Over the weekend, 19 bodies were found in the northern border state of Chihuahua, including those of eight people who had been tortured and killed on Friday.

Many of the dead have been victims of the drug cartels, which have increasingly included elected and appointed officials. Since Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched a war on the cartels six years ago, about two dozen mayors have been murdered.

Gorrostieta was one of at least seven women who were willing to serve as mayors or police chiefs.