The murder of this 21-year-old law student who was found dead in her home with 39 stab wounds has caused outrage in Mexico where the number of femicides, which are killings specifically targeting women, continues to rise.
The body of Diana Carolina Raygoza Montes was found in her home in the Morelos colony of the city of Tepic in the western Mexican state of Nayarit on Sunday after she had been left home alone when her family left the city on Friday.
Her killer has not been caught but it is part of a trend where 10 women are killed every day in Mexico. The rate of femicide in the country has doubled in the last 5 years with Mexico ranked only behind Brazil in the region in the absolute number of femicides in 2018.
Preliminary investigations from the General Prosecution of Nayarit show that her attacker had gone into the house without forcing entry and her body was found with 39 injuries from a blade.
The cause of death was hypovolemic shock, a condition which occurs after the body loses over 20 percent of its blood and the heart cannot pump a sufficient amount of blood to organs.
The blood loss was caused by the injuries to the University of Nayarit student’s abdomen, neck and head.
Prosecutor Petronillo Diaz said the letters SF had been smeared onto the wall in blood in the room where the victim was found.
Diaz said the meaning of the letters was unclear but said the cause “is definitely a femicide”.
Antonio Echevarria Garcia, the Governor of Nayarit, said that the murder of the student is an “outrageous case” and would not go unpunished.
Local media reported that the victim had said on her social media accounts in August 2019 that she had suffered sexual harassment by a stranger as she left university.
She said at the time: “You do not know how disgusted and uncomfortable I felt, you feel powerless, and you know what was worse? There were lots of people there looking at the scene instead of saying something.”
Diaz said the student had not reported the harassment to the authorities but added they would investigate the incident with the university and her family.
Ignacio Pena, the Dean of the University of Nayarit, condemned the crime and said that Raygoza Montes “was getting ready for a better life”.
The state’s education authorities described the victim as a “joyful young woman, with strong convictions and with a long future in front of her”.
Netizens were outraged at the crime, with the hashtag ‘JusticiaParaDiana’ (Justice for Diana) being widely used.
The feminist organisation Mujeres de la Sal (Salt Women), said “she was not in the street very late, or asking for it. Diana was a woman from Nayarit following the quarantine at home and was murdered”.
Local media report a group of women went to the main square in the city of Tepic to place candles as a tribute to the victim.
Between January and April 2020, the federal government reported that 308 cases of femicide were launched in Mexico.
The investigation is ongoing and no arrests have been made so far.
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Story By: Ana Lacasa, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Newsflash
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