AFTER A YEAR, FAMILY OF 3 SLAIN SIBLINGS SEEKS JUSTICE

By Juan Montoya
The last time Raquel Alvarado saw her three children was when they left their home on the U.S. side near Progreso to see their dad across the Rio Grande a year ago today.
Nine days later, the bodies of Alex, 22, Erica, 26, and Jose Angel, 21, and the girl's boyfriend Jose Castañeda, 32, were found dumped inside a ditch in a desolate roadway in state of decomposition each with a bullet through their head.
After making inquiries, she told the authorities on both sides of the border that witnesses had told her that a paramilitary group identified as E Grupo Hercules, Matamoros Mayor Leticia Salazar's personal bodyguards, had seized them as t hey ate in an outside taco stand alongside an highway overpass.
Her pleas for information has fallen on deaf ears on the Mexican side, she said.
"No one has told what happened or why my children were taken into custody in the first place," she said Tuesday as she lit four white candles alongside the river at Hope Park. "The mayor of Matamoros won't return my calls or answer any of our questions."
And even though her search fopr answers has been supported by U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela Jr. who has called for Mexican authorities to investigate the murders and placed his call for justice in the Congressional Record, there has been little movement in solving the killings and bringing those responsible to justice.
In fact, it has since been learned that Salazar herself was a few blocks away when the three U.S. citizens and the girls' Mexican boyfriend were beaten and taken into custody by El Grupo Hercules.
Today, after a year waiting for answers, Alvarado has taken over the care of her four orphaned grandchildren, sons and daughters of her slain daughter Erica.
This morning she lit three candles of hope and demanded that Mexican authorities release information of their investigation into the killings and shed light non the role El Grupo Hecules under the leadership of Salazar and her former director of Social Development Luis Biasi.
In fact, the two vehicles taken from her children were found in the impound lot belonging to Biasi. He was even taken into custody less than a month after the siblings' disappearance and charged with fiscal evasion.
The mayor, however, sought to distance herself from the paramilitary group she had announced with much fanfare only months earlier. In a live interview with Televisa's Adela Micha, she denied any involvement with the group or its formation, this in spite of the fact that she had worn the paramilitary outfit her self complete with their trademark beret.
No one from the municipal government or the Mexican state or federal investigative authorities has called her or given her any updates on the case. Yet, she said that Salazar has been on the U.S. side forging political allainces with the City of Brownsville and Harlingen administrations. She even attended the so-called BiNED conference which seeks to forge a binational alliance to increase commerce.
"It makes me angry to see her being embraced by politicians on the U.S. side of the border when she is linked directly to the killers of my children," she said. "I will not rest until I see justice done in this case."
The paramilitary group is said to have been disbanded with its members placed in similar positions with the city's public security force.
Last February, during the Charro Days parade, Salazar rode in a luxury car belonging to her city treasurer and came face to face with Alvarado who unfurled a banner calling her an "asesina," or assassin.
The city treasurer himself has come under public scrutiny and criticism for hosting lavish parties and withholding payments to Matamoros city commission members who criticize his lavish lifestyle. In videos posted on social media, Luis Miguel Fuentes' two expensive sports cars, including the one the mayor was riding in teh Cahrro Days parade were displayed. In one, he is shown drunk at about 8 a.m. climbing aboard a Jaguar.
"When Salazar came into office she said she was going to paint the sky over Matamoros blue in reference to the colors of PAN, her political party," said a city resident. "Instead, she has turned it red."