A Jocotepec police officer is among four individuals arrested in connection with the brutal murder of a local woman, the apparent victim of a family feud.
Melisa de los Santos Garcia, 20, was found dead in her Jocotepec home on the evening of Wednesday, June 17. Her throat had been slashed and face severely beaten.
The accused are officer Pedro Hernandez Medina, 40; his spouse Yesenia Castro Sendejas, 32; Eriko Eduardo Trejo Ortiz, 38, an employee of the municipal government’s parks and gardens department; and manicurist Carolina Camarena Ibañez, 19.
Castro was identified as the sister of the victim’s husband, an active officer of Jalisco’s Fuerza Unica (FUJ) police force. According to the authorities in charge of investigating the crime, bad blood emerged between the two couples after Hernandez was turned down for a FUJ position like that held by his brother-in-law.
According to official sources, it appears that the pair talked Trejo and Camarena into joining a plot to take revenge and steal a substantial amount of cash the victim had stashed away in her home. The manicurist got in the door by making an appointment for a house call nail job. A short time later the two men gained entry to the premises where they slaughtered de los Santos before making off with her money.
The four suspects have been brought up on charges of armed robbery and femicide, considered under the law a more serious offense than homicide.