Collateral Damage: Videotaped killing of grieving Mexican mother stirs a nation

Here, in more detail, is the tragic story of the assassination of the mother of a drug war victim in Chihuahua. This is "collateral damage" at its saddest. Let us remember Marisela Escobedo

Videotaped killing of grieving Mexican mother stirs a nation - KansasCity.com: "A mother campaigning to bring the confessed killer of her 16-year-old daughter to justice was herself gunned down Thursday night in view of a closed circuit television camera, leaving images that shocked Mexicans over the impunity of the killers.

The murder of Marisela Escobedo unfolded Thursday night on the sidewalk in front of the governor's palace in the capital of Chihuahua state. ....


After Escobedo's daughter disappeared in August 2008, her live-in boyfriend fled the state. Nearly a year later, the mother located the boyfriend, Sergio Rafael Barraza, in nearby Zacatecas state, leading investigators to him. Barraza later confessed and identified the site where he'd buried the girl after killing her.

In April of this year, a three-judge panel acquitted Barraza of the murder despite his confession, freeing him. After complaints from then-Gov. Jose Reyes Baeza, an appeals court overturned the verdict and instated a 50-year jail term.

Prosecutors made little effort to find the fugitive, leaving Escobedo herself to track down him down once again. She did so, and led a law enforcement unit in July to Zacatecas, a state to the southeast. But Barraza escaped again." Dec. 17, 2010, McClatchy Newspapers