Decomposed body of the teen Mexican student who was left on the side of a highway late at night in northern Mexico, was found in a cistern.
The body was apparently unrecognizable after what may have been nearly two weeks in the water, reported the Associated Press. The body had a crucifix necklace and clothes that Debanhi Escobar was wearing the night she went missing, said Assistant Public Safety Secretary Ricardo Mejia on Friday. This comes after authorities in the border state of Nuevo Leon said that a massive search for her was done.
Mejia said that the alert was sounded by hotel workers, because of the "fetid odors coming from the area." Later, state prosecutors said that they had confirmed the body was Debanhi's.
Previously, her photograph taken by a driver who was supposed to take her home that night was trending online after which her case made headlines. The reason why she got out of the car is not clear. But her father, Mario Escobar, said that prosecutors told him that surveillance camera video suggested the driver had inappropriately touched her. Mario said, “I suppose that my daughter did not put up with the harassment."
The driver, identified only as Jesus, aged 47, has been questioned. The driver might not have killed her, but he was responsible for his daughter's death, said Mario. The driver, who worked for a taxi app, took the photo to show the 18-year-old got out of his car alive April 8 on the outskirts of Monterrey.
According to Mirror, in the viral image, the law undergraduate was seen on "Death Road" alone at night, wearing a skirt and sneakers. She had been on a night out with two friends when she got into a cab with the driver. She wasn't seen until late Thursday, when detectives pulled her body from the 12-foot deep water tank.
On Saturday, her family conducted her funeral in the municipality of Galeana, reported Pledge Times. Mario said that her family believed that they were going to find her alive, but the days passed and the "Prosecutor’s Office did its job wrong." The father added that the Prosecutor’s Office have not given him what belongs to him by law, all the folders of the case.
The case has caused outrage over the alleged flaws in the investigation by the Nuevo León Prosecutor’s Office, which first treated it as an accident. Later it declared to the media that the main cause of her disappearance was due to “rebellion” and “lack of family communication." Her father said that he will show evidence of a video that shows the driver touching his daughter’s breasts. He feels that the driver should be considered the main suspect in the act.
