Charred human remains have been found in an abandoned property in the state of Jalisco in western Mexico.
Investigators searched the property of the municipality of Lagos de Moreno on Wednesday and found four burned human skulls. They also spotted bloodstains on the floor and sneakers.
Authorities are now investigating whether the location is the same as where five kidnapped students were held.
“As a result of the work carried out, ministerial agents and the investigative police located a house in the neighborhood of Orilla del Agua, in the aforementioned municipality (Lagos de Moreno), where evidence was found, including stains of blood and shoes, which suggests that the five youths were in the said (property),” the Lagos de Moreno prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
Video footage released by cartel members on Tuesday shows childhood friends Roberto Olmeda, 20; Diego Lara, 20; Uriel Galvan, 19; Dante Cedillo, 22; and Jaime Martínez, 21, kneel next to each other in order.
The victims all have their faces bruised with duct tape over their mouths and their hands tied behind their backs.
A brick wall behind the five young men has the logo of a Jalisco New Generation Cartel Enforcement Unit painted on it.
Investigators search an abandoned property in Jalisco, Mexico, where human remains were found on Wednesday. Authorities are now investigating whether four charred skulls belong to four of five university students who disappeared on Friday and may have been filmed by cartel members at home before one of them was forced to beat, stabbing and beheading his own childhood friend.
Mexican authorities found the charred vehicle of Roberto Olmeda (left) on Tuesday with a corpse inside. He and Dante Cedillo (right) are among five university students who went missing last Friday in Lagos de Moreno, a municipality in the western state of Jalisco.
In the video, three of the victims are lying face down next to each other. Another lies in the background as his friend is forced to beat, stab and decapitate him.
Blanca Trujillo, the state’s special prosecutor for missing persons, said the families “consider there is a high probability that the young people who appear in the photo are their relatives.”
The grisly discovery comes after police found a burning vehicle with a body inside on Tuesday. Investigators have confirmed that the car belongs to Olmeda. Galván’s vehicle was located on Sunday.
The Jalisco state medical examiner’s office had yet to identify the remains as of Thursday.
The five friends gathered on Friday to attend a fair in Lagos de Moreno and were on their way home when they mysteriously disappeared. They were last seen at a roadside vantage point in the San Miguel neighborhood.
Uriel Galván’s vehicle was found by authorities in Lagos de Moreno, Mexico on Sunday. He is one of five university students who remain missing after mysteriously disappearing last Friday and were seen on video held captive by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
Diego Lara (left) is the latest student to be heard from after texting his family that he was returning home last Friday at 11:00 p.m. He, Jaime Martínez (right) and three other childhood friends are still missing
Lara was said to be the last to be in contact with his family when he texted at 11 p.m. to say he would be home soon.
Jalisco state attorney general Luis Méndez said earlier this week that investigators had analyzed street surveillance and sought witnesses.
Governor Enrique Alfaro linked the drug cartels to the disappearance and demanded that federal prosecutors take over the case.
“What we see here is an act clearly linked to organized crime,” Alfaro wrote in his social media accounts.
He called the killings — and an attack in July, in which a drug cartel set off a coordinated series of roadside bombs in western Mexico, killing four police officers and two civilians — acts that threaten the stability of the state.
“These are irrational, violent and direct attacks on the stability of the state of Jalisco, and they demand a response from the (federal) government,” Alfaro wrote.
The Jalisco State Attorney General’s office has seized an abandoned property that may be the same location where five missing students were filmed by members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. During the search of the house on Wednesday, investigators found human remains, including four charred skulls
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador gave no indication of his government’s next intervention. Asked about the video on Wednesday during his daily press briefing, the president jokingly claimed he hadn’t heard the question.
On Thursday, the leftist leader said he had no need to apologize for not hearing the question as he was being wrongly accused by the media.
“All a lie and infamy, we are not the same, I have principles and ideals,” said López Obrador. “I’m a man of feelings, I can’t laugh at pain. »
If authorities confirm that the students in the video were killed at the abandoned property, it would bring back memories of the most horrific cases of drug cartel brutality, in which kidnapping victims were forced to inter- kill.
In 2010, a Mexican cartel abducted men from passenger buses and forced them into fights to the death with masses.
This tragedy came to light in 2011, when authorities discovered 48 clandestine graves containing the bodies of 193 people in the northern border state of Tamaulipas. Most had their skulls crushed with masses and many were Central American migrants.
It was later revealed that the victims were removed from buses that passed by the former Zetas drug cartel and forced to fight with hammers or be killed if they refused to work for the cartel.
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