"The Camel" Confesses Participation in Killing of US Consular Employee

In the Diario today (click here): Jesús Ernesto Chávez Castillo, a.k.a. "the camel," captured member of the Azteca gang in Cd. Juarez, has confessed that he ordered the killing of Lesley A. Enriquez and her husband last March 13 (see story below, March 15); Enriquez worked at the U.S. Consulate office in Cd. Juarez. Chavez claims she was singled out for death because she facilitated the granting of U.S. visas to rival gang members. Her husband, who was killed in the attack, worked at the county jail in El Paso and it has previously been rumored he might have been the true target of the assassination.

The attack on Enriquez and her husband, Arthur Haycock Redelfs, occurred in front of the Municipal building in Juarez, after the couple had attended a children's party on a Sunday morning on March 13. They were driving a white Toyota Rav4. At the same time the attack was taking place against them, another attack was taking place against a white SUV containing Hilda Antillón, also a U.S. Consular employee who had attended the same children's party. The attack resulted in the death of Antillon's husband and another man in the automobile. The simultaneous killings caused a great deal of speculation about possible motives; the U.S. Consul suggested publicly the attack on Enriquez might have been a case of mistaken identity. The confession of Chavez appears to clarify this somewhat, inasmuch as he has stated that the attack on the second SUV was provoked when the killers were not certain which of the SUV's contained the target, who, he claims, was Lesley Enriquez. To make sure Enriquez was killed, it seems, Chavez ordered an attack on both vehicles. On the other hand, no woman was killed in the attack on Antillon's vehicle. Why would Chavez order an attack on the men in the second white vehicle if his intended victim was a woman?

In some ways the confession raises more questions than it answers, and it is known that interrogation techniques in Mexico are sometimes "aggressive," the euphemism the U.S. government has used instead of the more accurate term, "torture," and which, according to most experts, often yield information that is unreliable.

Without providing further details, the Diario story reports Chavez "presumably" participated in the mistaken killing of the 15 high school students of the Doble A Football League at Villas de Salvárcar on January 30. If so Mr. Chavez was implicated in at least two assassination incidences that went wrong.