2 Arrested in Killings of 8 in Border City

Two bus drivers have been arrested in the killings of eight women whose bodies were found last week in a field in this tough city on the U.S.-Mexican border, where a wave of murders in the last decade was feared to be the work of serial killers.

Arturo Gonzalez Rascon, the attorney general for Mexico’s northern state of Chihuahua, said late Sunday that Victor Uribe and Gustavo Gonzalez, both 28, had confessed to kidnapping, raping and killing the women.

One of the two suspects arrested Sunday allegedly confessed to killing three more women in Ciudad Juarez, although no other bodies have been found.

The men belonged to a gang, some of whose members are serving time for at least 20 of the other rape-murders, said Fernando Medina, spokesman for the state prosecutor’s office.

Scores of women have been raped and murdered, or have disappeared, over the last eight years in and around Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso.

Dozens of men have been arrested over the years in connection with the murders, but the killings have continued.

The attorney general said that the two suspects snorted cocaine, smoked marijuana and drank liquor before they went on the prowl for victims. When they spotted a vulnerable woman, they forced her into their van, where the victim was raped and killed, he said.

Police got a break in the case when a witness said he had seen one of the men dump a body into the cotton field.