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Santa Muerte sacrifices, mutilation killings tied to Juárez woman's arrest in El Paso
The case of "La Chely" spotlights a dark spirituality, extreme brutality and murder on the Texas-Mexico border.
www.elpasotimes.com
Santa Muerte sacrifices, mutilation killings tied to Juárez woman's arrest in El Paso
Human hearts placed on altars to controversial Mexican folk saint
Daniel BorundaEl Paso Times
2/20/2024
An FBI and U.S. Border Patrol task force recently arrested a Juárez woman in a raid at an El Paso motel in a border case featuring a dark brew of drug trafficking, mutilation killings and the occult, officials said.
Michelle Angelica Pineda, aka “La Chely," was wanted in Mexico for allegedly leading an ultra-violent gang crew that cut out the hearts from the dismembered bodies of its victims as offerings to La Santa Muerte, FBI and Chihuahua state officials said.
The 22-year-old woman is accused of taking part in five homicides in Mexico and is suspected in several others as part of a bloodthirsty cell of the Artistas Asesinos street gang in Juárez, the FBI said.
"Pineda was known for her extreme brutality such as dismembering bodies, removing hearts, and placing the hearts in front of 'Santa Muerte' altars and statutes," the FBI said in a news statement.
Santa Muerte is a Mexican folk saint, depicted as a cloaked skeletal grim reaper, who has exploded in popularity among the marginalized and within narco culture even while condemned by the Catholic church.
Catholic church leaders have rebuked worship of Santa Muerte (meaning "Saint Death or "Holy Death") as "spiritually dangerous" superstition, paganism and demonic heresy.
Pineda was allegedly part of a gang crew suspected in more than 20 dismemberment killings in Juárez. The tortured and mutilated bodies were often dumped in public spaces, the Chihuahua Attorney General's Office said.
One Juárez newspaper described Pineda's gang as "narcosatánicos," claiming the removed hearts were offerings to the devil.
More:Bodies found in 'narco grave' in Juárez home after banner about 'El Pitufo'
In the merciless Juárez criminal underworld, it is common for drug cartels and gangs to behead and dismember victims, leaving body parts in gruesome displays for rivals, police and residents. Juárez had more than 1,100 homicides last year.
In December, the Chihuahua Attorney General's Office announced the arrests of four alleged gang members suspected in mutilation killings, including Pineda. A few weeks later, the attorney general's office issued a correction saying Pineda had not been arrested and was still a fugitive.
FBI, Border Patrol arrests 'La Chely' in El Paso
In the early morning of Thursday, Feb. 15, members of the FBI El Paso Safe Streets Gang Task Force and U.S. Border Patrol agents located and arrested Pineda at a motel in East El Paso, an FBI spokesperson said. The name of the motel was withheld.The FBI said that an investigation had found that Pineda, who is a Mexican citizen, had illegally crossed the border and was allegedly running a drug-dealing ring on behalf of the Artistas Asesinos gang in Juárez.
Inside the motel room, federal agents found machetes, knives, a shotgun, a revolver as well as a variety of drugs —fentanyl powder and pills, heroin, cocaine, Xanax and methamphetamine, the FBI and Border Patrol said.
Border Patrol agents arrested Pineda, who was taken to the middle of one of the international bridges and handed to Chihuahua state investigators. She is now jailed in Mexico.
Pineda has been formally accused of taking part in the killing of a couple on Nov. 24 and the slaying of man on Dec. 5, both cases in the southeastern edges of Juárez, the Chihuahua attorney general's office said over the weekend.
The man, identified only as Jorge R.R., had his neck slashed, his body was then hacked to pieces at a house before the remains were placed inside plastic bags and dumped in El Mezquital area of the city, authorities said.
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A break in the investigation occurred when municipal police stopped a person found with blood stains near the site where a mutilated corpse had been dumped, Carlos Manuel Salas, the state attorney general for the Northern Zone of Chihuahua, said at a news conference in December.
Investigators followed up by searching four locations, where they found blood evidence and seized cellphones that the killers used to record the executions on video, Salas said. "They are perverse people," he said.
cont'd