Mexico Corpse Fails to Yield Clues

More than two months after Mexican federal investigators unearthed a skeleton they called key evidence in a notorious murder case, scientists in North Carolina are still probing its bone marrow for enough DNA to shed new light on the case that continues to rock Mexican politics.

During the weeks U.S. scientists have labored over the skeleton, the special prosecutor who ordered the DNA tests has been fired. So was his boss, former Atty. Gen. Antonio Lozano Gracia, who was dismissed Dec. 2 partly for mishandling the skeleton affair.

And this week, Lozano’s replacement, Atty. Gen. Jorge Madrazo Cuellar, conceded that investigators still have not identified the skeleton they found Oct. 9, when federal prosecutors--speaking to reporters from a hole they had dug at a ranch owned by Raul Salinas de Gortari--voiced strong optimism that the skeleton they had found there would help them solve the crime.

The crime that continues to rivet this nation is the September 1994 assassination in Mexico City of Francisco Ruiz Massieu, secretary-general of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

The main defendant is Salinas, elder brother of former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. Raul Salinas was arrested in February and charged with masterminding the murder of Ruiz Massieu.

But the skeleton’s identity is still anybody’s guess, although Madrazo and the U.S. scientists say they cannot rule out early suspicions that it is that of Manuel Munoz Rocha, a former legislator who disappeared soon after Ruiz Massieu’s slaying and is an indicted co-conspirator in the crime.

If the remains recovered from the ranch near Mexico City are those of the missing ruling-party lawmaker, they would tend to incriminate Raul Salinas, who alleges that the skeleton was planted by federal prosecutors.

Mexican experts, Madrazo said, have found “no positive results” to prove the corpse is Munoz Rocha. But the findings of the U.S. scientists are still pending.

Eventually, the new attorney general said, he plans to gather the experts together to try to reach a consensus.

Explaining the delay in DNA results that Lozano originally promised within a month, Dr. Juan Luis Zamora, a Dallas forensics expert hired by Lozano as a consultant in the case, said scientists have been unable to find a pure enough DNA sample in the badly decomposed bones.

“What we need is a non-degraded part, so we are processing, testing, reprocessing and retesting until we find one,” he said in a telephone interview with The Times. He added that he sent bone marrow samples to the Research Triangle laboratories in North Carolina, which he called the finest DNA testing facility in the United States.

Once the DNA is isolated, Zamora said, it will be compared with blood samples taken from Munoz Rocha’s children.

Meanwhile, in the aftermath of Lozano’s dismissal--in part for raising expectations so high with the discovery of the skeleton--other aspects of the case have been called into question. Madrazo indicated that his office is now examining the methods used by the former special prosecutor in the Ruiz Massieu case, Pablo Chapa Bezanilla. Several key witnesses, among them Raul Salinas’ bodyguard, have changed their testimony at least once--some of them twice.

Yet at a time when most Mexicans still believe Ruiz Massieu was killed in a broad conspiracy within the ruling party, Madrazo summed up the lack of progress in the case by saying, “We have to continue and deepen our work, and, at the moment we are ready, we will reveal the result.”

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Investigating a Murder

* Sept. 28, 1994: Francisco Ruiz Massieu, secretary-general of Mexico’s ruling party, is slain. Gunman Daniel Aguilar Trevino is arrested.

* Nov. 23, 1994: Deputy Atty. Gen. Mario Ruiz Massieu, the victim’s brother, resigns as chief investigator in the case, alleging a cover-up.

* Feb. 28, 1995: Raul Salinas de Gortari, elder brother of the ex-president, is charged with masterminding the slaying. Salinas denies the charge, is imprisoned.

* March 20, 1995: Aguilar and three co-conspirators are convicted of murder and sentenced to 50 years in prison. Four others are convicted on lesser charges.

* Oct. 9, 1996: Atty. Gen. Antonio Lozano Gracia says a skeleton was found on Raul Salinas’ ranch. He promises DNA testing to determine within a month if the remains are those of lawmaker Manuel Munoz Rocha, an alleged co-conspirator in the Ruiz Massieu slaying.

* Dec. 2, 1996: Lozano is fired. Jorge Madrazo Cuellar becomes attorney general, vowing to expand the investigation.