CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Police on Monday recovered the body of a woman killed by a blow to the head and thrown out of a moving car in this border city made infamous by years of unsolved slayings of women.
An anonymous caller tipped authorities to the whereabouts of the body of 29-year-old Abigail Rodriguez, who was discovered early Monday on a dirt road in Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, police said.
State prosecutor Flor Rocio Munguia said no arrests had been made and the circumstances surrounding Rodriguez's killing were unclear. Monday's discovery was the 14th woman's body found in Juarez so far this year, according to local authorities.
About 100 young women who were sexually assaulted and strangled have been dumped in the desert outside Juarez since 1993. The killings appeared to fit a serial pattern. Most of the victims were young, slim brunettes who worked in foreign-owned assembly plants. Many disappeared walking home on unlit streets in working class neighborhoods.
Rodriguez had long, brownish-black hair, but it was unclear if she otherwise fit the pattern.
Federal authorities intervened in 2003, promising to solve the rape-strangulation cases of 14 teenagers and women in Juarez. But the office of Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca quietly closed those investigations recently, without getting to the bottom of what happened.
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