Police found the charred body of a five-year-old boy who disappeared from his Puerto Vallarta neighborhood after being sent by his grandmother to buy tortillas.
A 46-year-old man has been charged with murdering the boy.
According to police, Alexis Daniel Rosales Garcia went to the tortilleria, located two blocks from his home in Colonia Vista Hermosa, at around 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 25. He never returned. Family and neighbors looked for him for several hours before calling the police. Officers initiated a thorough search of the neighborhood but were unable to locate the boy.
Friends distributed Rosales’ photograph widely on social media and although a few reports of sightings came in, all proved to be false.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, police officers went to investigate a fire burning in an empty lot to the rear of a house a few blocks from where the Rosales family lived.Police encountered a fire made from tires with flames towering four meters into the air. A charred body lying on the fire was later identified by Rosales’ parents as that of their five-year-old son, police said.
According to several reports, police arrested a man who lived in the house bordering the lot. Guadalajara daily Mural identified him as Francisco Gerardo Cardenas Straffon, 46, a chiropractor who lived with his wife and three children.
Mural said Cardenas admitted approaching Rosales as he stood in line for tortillas and invited him back to his house.
The boy went willingly, said the newspaper, as he knew Cardenas and was friendly with his children.
A senior Jalisco police official told Mural that once in his house, Cardenas hit the boy on the head with a bottle and then strangled him with a belt. He was unable to provide police with a motive for the attack.
Police said they believe Cardenas had been drinking heavily.