Pubdate: Mon, 20 Sep 2010
Source: El Paso Times (TX)
Copyright: 2010 El Paso Times
Contact: http://www.elpasotimes.com/townhall/ci_14227323
Website: http://www.elpasotimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/829
Author: Maggie Ybarra

WOMAN STYMIED IN QUEST FOR TRUTH ABOUT HUSBAND'S KILLING IN JUAREZ

JUAREZ -- Six bullets and a case of mistaken identity are all the
details Jacqueline Benavides knows about her husband's death.

Her husband, Cuauhtemoc Montelongo, 34, was shot six times in Juarez
on May 21 while making repairs to his business, Salon de Fiestas
Jungla, on Simona Barba street.

Montelongo, who was born in Mexico, married American-born Benavides in
1996. Benavides thinks her husband may have been killed by mistake.

But Benavides cannot prove it and Mexican homicide detectives cannot
help her, she said.

Unsolved murders are a growing side effect of a savage drug war that
is responsible for the slayings of 6,400 people in Juarez since it
began in 2008.

Americans who have had relatives killed during kidnappings, shootouts
and extortions are realizing that their pursuit of justice in a
country engulfed in chaos is futile.

Benavides, 30, said she has not been to Mexico since Montelongo died
and has given up on finding his killers.

"Over there, especially now, you're never going to find out who really
killed him ... They say that if you start asking questions that you're
putting yourself at risk, but trust me, I have been wanting to because
I really do want to know who did it and why," she said.

Of those 6,400 people slain in Juarez, 39 were Americans and their
deaths are listed as homicides on a U.S. Department of State report.
The department report covers 2008-2009. The report does not include
the number of Americans who have been killed in 2010.

According to El Paso Times archives, at least six Americans have been
killed in Juarez this year, including U.S. Consulate worker Lesley
Enriquez Redelfs; her husband, El Paso County detention Officer Arthur
Redelfs; and Irvin High School teacher James Patrick Barnes.

It is not known how many of the homicides of U.S. victims have gone
unsolved.

For Benavides, it was discouraging to know her husband's name would be
added to that report -- that he would be just another statistic.

In the days leading up to his death, Montelongo had been conflicted
about going to Juarez after someone set fire to the building he rented
on Simona Barba. He ran a party hall business, Benavides said.
Montelongo said he had a bad feeling about it, Benavides said.

At the time, Montelongo and Benavides were living in Ruidoso with
their two children. Montelongo had a job at the racetrack but ran the
business in Juarez to provide his family with jobs. He had been
renting the building for a year and a half and had not received
extortion threats, Benavides said.

Family members told Montelongo that someone set fire to the place May
19, which was a Wednesday. On Thursday, Montelongo said he was going
to stay in Ruidoso and send his relatives money to repair the
building. But on Friday, he changed his mind and drove to Juarez,
Benavides said.

"On Friday, he decided he was going to go down there ... He had not
even been there for two hours before they went in there and killed
him," she said.

Benavides said Montelongo was at the business doing electrical repairs
and helping his family clean the place when two young men walked in
and shot him. They shot him six times with .40-caliber and 9 mm
weapons, according to a Mexican police report. He was taken to a
hospital where he died, the report said.

The building has since been abandoned. The windows are broken, two
large boards have been nailed over its front door and piles of dust
and debris have accumulated on the tile floor.

Business owners who work on the same street where Montelongo was shot
said the men had been hired to kill the owner of the building, not
Montelongo. They theorize that Montelongo died because he was
misidentified as that owner. The business owners did not want to be
identified for safety reasons.

The real owner of the building is from Mexico and is reportedly in the
U.S. and "knows they're looking for him," they said.

Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz said the killings that have become
commonplace in Juarez are fueled by the city's deteriorating economy.
People who have gone without jobs for months are being lured by the
money that the cartels can offer.

"We are seeing a lot of people doing killings and when we catch them
and prosecute them, we ask them and they tell us that they're making
$500 pesos a week to be killers," Reyes Ferriz said. "These are people
who are becoming killers for less than $45 a week. That's not somebody
who is doing it because they want to get rich, that's somebody who is
doing it because they want to put food on the table."

The killings in Juarez have been steadily increasing during the past
six months, he said. In March, the crime rate was down to about four
killings a day. Now, there are about 10 killings a day, Reyes Ferriz
said.

On Sept. 9, 25 people were killed within a matter of hours. Prior to
that, 322 people were slain in August -- the highest number killed in
a single month since the drug cartels began fighting in 2008.

"The worst part of it is that there has been a lot of killings of
families, daughters, kids of people mostly involved in the organized
crime business, but at any rate ... it has become such an issue that
the criminals themselves are putting signs in the city at night
saying, 'Hey, we're the guys who don't kill kids and families,'" Reyes
Ferriz said. "They're sort of promoting themselves as the good guys by
saying that the other guys are the bad guys."

Benavides said she may never know what side of the drug war the people
who killed her husband were fighting for but she will always wonder
who they were and why they shot him.

Montelongo's remains, now cremated, are kept at the family home in
Ruidoso. Their presence is a permanent reminder of how painful life
without him is, Benavides said.

"It's hard -- especially not having him around to help," she said.
"It's hard."
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MAP posted-by: Matt