Dear listener, just a warning that this episode is going to be dealing with graphic references about violence against women. It was May of twenty seventeen and Araselio Sorio had arranged to meet up with her daughter, twenty two year old Leslie Bedlin.
Visit via Sante Saviomoso Verno.
They like to go out every Thursday, mother and daughter to the theater or to do some kind of cultural activity, so they had planned to meet at a subway station on the campus of the UNAM, the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Araseli worked at an elementary school on the campus and LESVII lived nearby.
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But a few days before they were scheduled to meet, Arasili got a message from her daughter asking her to meet her at her house instead. It was strange, Leslie gave no reason and for the change of plan, and then before they could meet in person, Arasili got a weird phone call Ya Mislake. It was Leslie's best friend on the line, saying she was worried about her because she had heard that Leslie hadn't come home the previous night.
Kas Ki told the friend to calm down, to call around and to see if her daughter was just with maybe some other friends.
The friend told Lesbie's mom there was something else she was worried about.
Yeah, yeah, it is no solo s.
A body of a woman had just been found on the university's campus. So Arasili called Jorgeluis Gonzalez, who was her daughter's boyfriend that she lived with. J told Aseli over the phone that he had been with Leslie the night before and that they had been drinking so much so that he didn't remember what else had happened. On the phone, Jorge also told Araseli that he was worried that the body found on campus the night before might
be Lesbi. The next day, Arasili and Jorge got a call from a police officer asking them to come down to the station right away. At the police station, someone introduced themselves to Aralisona offering to help pay for the funeral, and jo Asili was confer used, why was this person talking to her about the cost of a funeral? Did they know something she did not, Sabi Sabilla. At this point, the police finally handed Rasseli some photos they were of the woman found dead on campus.
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And the first thing Araseli noticed was the sneakers red converse high tops with Roses printed on them Flores Grabada so Roses. Immediately she knew this was her daughter. From Futuro Media and r X, It's Latino Usa, I'm Maria Rosa today Lesbie's store, and how her death made headlines across Mexico. In Mexico and throughout Latin America, there's a word that has become tragically commonplace. It's feminicilio, or femicide, which refers specifically to the murder of women because of
their gender. Mexico has the second highest rate of femicide among all thirty two Latin American and Caribbean countries, after Brazil. Just last year, close to thirty five hundred women were murdered in Mexico. Eight hundred and forty eight of those were officially labeled as victims of femicide. Despite the dire numbers,
Mexican authorities pay little attention. In March of twenty twenty four, that got government issued a public apology for their negligence in the case of Sylvia Elena Ribera Morales, who was killed along with seven other women over twenty years ago. To this day, no one has been held accountable for their murders, and impunity in Mexico usually goes hand in hand with a lack of interest by the media, but there was an exception the case of Lesbi, and we're
going to start today's show with her. We first brought you her story in twenty nineteen, and as femicide numbers continue to grow in Mexico six hundred cases through September of this year, we wanted to bring you this story again. Reporter Andaluja Noel Solov is going to pick up the story from here.
Lesbie's death was an especially big deal on social media. The way I found out about the case was on Twitter, and people online who were sharing news of her death were shocked. She had apparently been strangled with a telephone cord from a payphone, and her body was left in a public space on UNAM's campus. The fact that a woman was found dead at UNAM, one of Mexico's top universities, and in a middle class area known to be pretty safe, sent chills down my spine. I also studied at UNAM.
Pretty quickly, the news was reporting on her.
Death telephone of pubs.
In their newscast, Local television and other outlets were saying Lesbie had dropped out of high school and that was a dog walker, that she had problems with drugs and alcohol. Just hours after Arcelli had identified her daughter, the Mexico City Attorney General's office sent out a series of tweets. They tweeted that the dead woman had been identified, but they also did much more than give just the facts of her death. The Attorney General also tweeted personal information
about Leslie's life. They said she had stopped attend high school in twenty fourteen, that she did not finish her coursework, that she lived with her boyfriend and had been drinking and using drugs with friends on campus. Taraselli Leslie's mom, who he heard from earlier in the story. It seemed like the Mexican government was taking a strangely aggressive stance towards her Daughterarchy.
Was Taesibos con conuso trus.
The government eventually erased the tweets, issued a public apology, and the head of Social Communication stepped down, but not before the tweets went viral and sparked outrage across Mexico. There was a lot of information about Lesbie's death in the headlines, but I wanted to know more about the real Lesbie, so I spoke to people close to her.
UNAM was actually her home for a long time. She was a summer counselor there, went to high school on the main campus and played in the Studiantina, a student music group that plays traditional instruments. This is Leslie playing the mandolin. That's where Lizev, her best friend, met her.
This is Lebrida resme mutalentosa islida instrumentos.
Lisev met Lesbie as a teenager. She says she was really talented. She was a beautiful singer and was able to play songs on the mandolin within half an hour of first picking it up. They both attended high school at UNAM and in their free time, traveled all over Mexico to play music at other US university. Lesbi and Lisette started spending a lot of time with each other. She says Leslie felt like a sister to her. Right before her death, Leslie was studying for the UNAM entrance exam.
It says Lisett said Leslie was an avid reader and wanted to travel, but she never got the chance to, so she traveled through her books. Her favorite book was The Little Prince. Many women online saw the media reports of Leslie's death characterizing her as a dropout and an alcoholic as an attempt to discredit her and distance her from the university. The day after Leslie's body had been found, hundreds of women started to tweet. They used the hashtagan
or if they kill me. It was short for if they kill me, what will they say to blame me for my own death? Here's some translated from Spanish. If they kill me, it would be because I walk alone at night, because I wear shorts, skirts, because I use public transportation, because I enjoyed my sexuality. If they kill me, they'll say it was because I was flirtatious and I said no when he wanted me to say yes. If they kill me, it'll be because I use low cut shirts,
makeup and heels and drink wine or beer. Hashtags have become a key tool in Latin America for women's fight for their rights. In twenty fifteen, the hashtag nina menos or not one woman less started trending after the murder of Giapayas, a fourteen year old girl in Argentina.
As Manifestakira was pregnant at the time.
Menos and also Niuna maas not one more our battle cries saying we won't tolerate the death of even one more woman. Just one day after Lesbie's death, the media started to report that the police were investigating it as a possible suicide because she was found with a payphone court around her neck and didn't seem to have other injuries that indicated a struggle. On top of the negative tweets from the Attorney General's office, this did not sit well with the public. A crowd of thousands of people,
mostly female students wearing purple, gathered on UNAM's campus. The march snaked through campus and as they passed by every faculty building, more and more students joined in. They paused at the payphone booths where Lesbie was found dead. The protesters lit candles, held a moment of silence, and left flowers her in front of the rector's office. I met a chemistry student, Samantha. She told me that she thought the way the media covered Leslie's death showed how women
in general in Mexico are treated. She told me that she once shared information about a women's rights event on her Facebook wall. Of course I know is a male classmate responded on her post, this is what happens when the Wi Fi reaches the kitchen. The scene was chaotic in front of the rector's office until out of the crowd emerged Leslie's mother, Racelli. Everyone went silent and she began to speak antihovinis. She said, Mexico is an unsafe country,
a country that oppresses its youth. It's a country where people are killed and violence is normalized. Hundreds of women surround her and start chanting, you are not alone. Urcelli refuses to believe her daughter would have entered her life, and so after the protest, she goes looking for a video that might show what really happened that night on No Nam's campus.
Coming up on Latino USA at Aicilli starts a long process of seeking justice for her daughter, Lesbie stay with us, yes, hey, we're back, and when we left off. The police in Mexico City, after a cursory investigation, believed that Leslie's death was a suicide, but Leslie's mother, A Rassili, wouldn't accept that conclusion, so she decided to go looking for proof of what really happened the night of her daughter's death,
proof that might exist on a surveillance video. Reporter and lujah Noel solov is going to pick up the story now.
Leslie's mom, Roceli, was sure her daughter would not have ended her own life, and so she started looking for a different answer than what the police gave her. Finally, Araceli decided to seek help in reinvestigating Leslie's death and to prove that her daughter had not committed suicide. She went to a human rights watchdog center on New NAMS campus to ask for help.
Minamre Sajuriere ro man So Yeah Bogada, the La Familia, the Lesbi rivera Sordio.
That's where she met Sayuria Rera, a lawyer who agreed to take Arocelli's case on pro bono. The legal team told Roseli there was surveillance footage of the area where Lesbie had been found, and so they asked to be able to view the footage, but the Attorney General's office would not release it. Then, two months after Leslie's death, on July fifth, twenty seventeen, Araceli's lawyers finally get what they were asking for the surveillance videos. Sayuri, the lawyer, described these videos.
To me as we watch them, it is eldozema jo in Latlas those in media.
Sayuri explains that the video shows that it's may tewod around two thirty three o'clock in the afternoon.
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Lesbian and Jorge are walking her dog together on campus. The couple appears in numerous surveillance images that span from the afternoon till the early morning, when they meet up with two friends to drink on campus. At two am. The surveillance footage shows Jorge and Lesbie alone, then they start fighting, yelling. Jorge waits for Lesbie to catch up to him, and they start scuffling.
A yell parao e el lokas is a parta lampcha.
She hugs him, attempting to calm him down, and he pushes her. She almost falls down. He hits heround the head el La. They then continue walking to the payphone booth where she was found. You can see in the video that Jorge is standing at the payphone and Leslie is standing behind it, visibly annoyed, but then the surveillance camera turns away. Hira, there's a jump in time in the tape with no explanation. The video showed a very
different story than what Jorge had told everyone. Hora said that he had left Lesbie with friends and didn't know what had happened afterwards, but they were clearly caught on camera alone at two am, and he hadn't told the police that they had fought and that he had hit her. Arocelli says seeing this video made her reevaluate the events around Lesbie's death, like that strange message that she got the night before she was supposed to meet up with
her daughter, asking her to come over. She now thinks her daughter was trying to leave Jorge, and the details that the media had published about Lesbie, implying that she was an alcoholic and used drugs. The lawyers looked at the case files and realized Jorge had spoken with the police about Lesbie before he even told Araceli he was worried about her. He might have given that information to the police in order to discredit Lesbie before any investigation started.
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Arceli feels completely betrayed by Jorge. She says she had always believed that he was telling the truth. He would tell her he was worried and scared and wanted to know what was going on, so she stayed in close contact with him. What pains her the most is that she let him attend her daughter's funeral. The next day, after Urcelli saw the video, the nightly news announced the government had detained Jorge.
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La but he is in charge with homicide because there's no video of the exact moment she died. Jorge is charged with a strange sounding crime, homicide by a mission. Basically that means he's charged for not preventing Lesbie from ending her life. The Attorney General's office put out a press release explaining the homicide by a mission charge. The
News picks it up. They say that Lesbian and Jorge were talking, then Leslie took the telephone court from the payphone, put it around her neck, and hunk herself in front of her boyfriend, Jorge, who does nothing to stop her. Araceli and her lawyers immediately decided to fight this charge, and they started questioning Lesbie and Jorge's friends about the relationship.
Ascomo las testimonialisciaaba in la lacion.
This was the first time she discovered that Jorge had repeatedly been violent towards her daughter. With this new testimony, Araceli and her lawyers filed for the Mexico City Supreme Court to charge Jorge with femicide. The charge of femicide means the court must treat a women's murder like a hate crime. Here's Sayuri again, Araceli's lawyer.
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Explained to me that in Mexico City, homicide can carry a sentence of eight to twenty years, while a femicide has a much harsher penalty of thirty to sixty years. Since we talked, the minimum has been raised to forty years. The rise of the word femicide in Mexico has to do with how the government has systematically failed to properly investigate when a woman is murdered.
And the mysterious violent deaths of hundreds of women and girls since the early nineties.
Sudan Puirez is a border city right next to El Paso where thousands of women work in factories known as machuilaloras. In the late nineteen nineties, many of them started to disappear on their way home from work. Their bodies were later found in the desert. For years, the government failed to investigate these murders. Ropperly, when the mothers of these women have realized that they would not find justice for their daughters in Mexico, they took their case to the
International Court for Human Rights. In two thousand and nine, this international court declared the Mexican government guilty for failing to properly investigate these women's deaths and guarantee them their legal right to a life free of violence. After that, the crime of femicide became part of Mexico's legal code in twenty eleven, but the situation for women has only
gotten worse in the last decade. Over twenty four thousand women have been killed across the country, and according to a recent study, only five percent of murder cases in Mexico of either men or women and with a conviction.
In twenty fifteen, the Mexican Supreme Court heard its first case of femicide, and a rule that in all cases involving the violent death of a woman, the death must be investigated as a femicide, meaning the courts and prosecutors had to take into account the context surrounding a woman's death, including whether she was experiencing domestic violence and whether the body was left in a public space. Leaving a body in a public space is considered a threat to women,
warning them that the same could happen to them. According to Sayuri, the lawyer, the police made a bunch of sloppy errors in Leslie's case. For example, they didn't take proper crime scene photos or get clean fingerprints off the phone booth.
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Sayi says she formed her own forensic team of pro bono experts and over the course of ten weekends they tried to reconstruct what it happened to Lesbie, essentially reinvestigating her death. The pro bono medical expert looked at the photos of Lesbie's neck and concluded the wounds were more consistent with strangulation than with a hanging, and then October eighteenth, twenty seventeen, almost six months after Leslie's death, the Mexico City Supreme Court officially charged Jorge with femicide.
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But over the next year and a half, Jorge's lawyers fight the femicide charge, delaying the trial countless times. During his various appearances in court, Jorge has said very little. I've reached out to his lawyers multiple times over the course of a year for comment via phone and email, but have not received any response for this story. And that's where we are today. Porges sits in jail and
no verdict has been reached in Lesbie's case. To many observers, Leslie's death has come to symbolize a judicial system that is uninterested in prosecuting violence against women. But at the same time, the social media outcry and protest over Leslie's death have helped make people in Mexico City more aware of the problem of femicide and that it could happen to all women, regardless of class or background. Lesbie's death has also been part of a growing conversation about the
role of women in Mexican society. Most recently, While the US has been having its Me TOI movement, women in Mexico hadn't been speaking up until now. Over the last few weeks, journalists, artists, filmmakers, and musicians have been calling out their alleged abusers on social media in a way that hasn't been seen before. Just last week, something big happened in Lesbie's case. The current Attorney General of Mexico City held like meeting on UNAM's campus that hundreds of people.
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And she did something unprecedented in a case like this. She issued a public apology.
Yasu familia paroprase on authentic.
School Allah familia the Lesbi ber.
She apologized for the way the Attorney General's office said negative things about Lesbie and for the police declaring her death as suicide without any proof at.
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She said that the whole justice system, from police to prosecutors to government officials, pretty much everyone in Lesbie's case had failed.
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And that without family members like Aroselli and the thousands of women who supported her, her murder would not have been investigated properly as a femicide. Aroselli was on stage with other members of her family for the apology. She formally accepted it, but with caveats. She told the government Lesbi still deserves justice and we will be watching you.
Nosotros mantendremotro soos sin noestros sentiros permanent tentos.
Today, Aroselli's life is still on Paul's. She's had to take time off from her job, but in that time she's become a main support for other families whose daughters were also murdered or disappeared, and fighting for justice has become her way of life. At one of the courthouse appearances, Araceli addressed a dozen or so people that had gathered to support her and demand justice for Lesbi.
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Let's throw the rachel and poraskay is.
She told the crowd, we will do what we have to to defend our right to walk in the streets dress however we want, at whatever time of night. We have the right to live. She says. If simply living is our form of resistance, then let's resist by living.
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Thanks to reporter Andalusia nos Sola for that story. In twenty twenty one, what heruis gon Sally Saidnandez was convicted of femicide. He's currently serving fifty two year sentence. This episode was reported by Andalusia no Solov and edited by Sophia palisa Ka with production help from Maggie Freelin. It was bixed by Stephanie Lebau with engineering support from J. J. Rubin.
Fact checking for this episode by Nidia about Tista. The Latino USA team also includes Julie Caruso, Jessica Ellis, Victoria Strada, Rinaldo, Leanoz Junior, Andrea Lopez Crusado, Luis Luna, Loni, mar Maruz, Marta Martinez Nor Saudi and Nancy Drujiro. NILLEI Ramirez is our co executive producer I'm your Host and co executive producer Maria Josa join us again on our next episode. In the meantime, I'll see you on social media. Estella Proxima ai.
Latino Usa is made possible in part by Skyline Foundation, The John D and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide.