Juarez Killings Suspect Held in U.S.

A cement worker arrested in Denver on immigration charges will be turned over to Mexican authorities today in connection with the rape and killing of at least 10 women in Ciudad Juarez from 1993 to 2003, officials said Thursday.

Edgar Alvarez Cruz, 30, is suspected of belonging to a gang that stalked women in the border town next to El Paso, Texas, where at least 379 women and girls have been killed in the last 13 years, U.S. Embassy officials said.

Mexican authorities have faced international criticism for failing to conduct a thorough investigation of the killings despite finding a pattern among about 100 victims who were sexually assaulted, strangled and mutilated.

Officials would not provide details of the evidence against Alvarez Cruz.

“We don’t know the exact number of murders that he might be responsible for, but there are strong elements in several cases,” said Mexican Atty. Gen. Daniel Cabeza de Vaca.

Mexico asked for help through the U.S. Embassy, and on Tuesday, U.S. Marshals Service and federal immigration authorities in Denver arrested Alvarez Cruz, said U.S. Marshals warrant supervisor David Floyd.

Alvarez Cruz was flown to El Paso and was being held in a federal facility, authorities said.

U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza said he believed the arrest would help solve some of the slayings of the women, “and ultimately bring their killers to justice.”

Government officials here concluded in February that the slayings were not the work of a serial killer. They said the women were killed in various circumstances, including robbery, revenge and domestic violence.

A separate federal inquiry into 14 of the killings that fit a pattern was closed in June after three years and the cases were returned to Chihuahua state authorities. Families and rights groups have accused local investigators of being inept.

Authorities previously arrested other suspects, but the killings have continued.

Bus driver Victor Garcia Uribe, who was convicted in eight of the slayings, was freed last year after a judge overturned his guilty verdict. Garcia argued that he was innocent and claimed that he had been tortured into confessing. His codefendant died in custody.

Authorities also suspected that some of the killings were committed by a man who died in June while serving a 30-year sentence for the 1995 rape and strangulation of a 17-year-old girl.