Dad of slain children stoic, detective says

BALTIMORE -- A veteran homicide detective, who became choked up when testifying yesterday about the three Mexican children butchered and killed in their apartment last year, said the father of two of the victims appeared stoic when questioned by police the day of the killings. "He didn't show any outward signs of emotion," Baltimore Detective Sgt. Darryl Massey said. Sgt. Massey had to pause to collect himself when he recalled seeing the bodies of Lucero Solis Quezada, 8, her brother Ricardo Solis Quezada Jr., 9, and their 10-year-old cousin Alexis Espejo Quezada. The children were beaten with an aluminum baseball bat and nearly decapitated with a boning knife in their Northwest Baltimore apartment in May 2004. When Sgt. Massey became choked up, a defense attorney seated near the witness stand offered him a cup of water. "That won't help me," Sgt. Massey said. He said he had never seen a crime scene like it. "I actually prayed," he said. The children's cousin Adan Canela, 18, and their uncle Policarpio Espinoza Perez, 23, are on trial on first-degree murder charges in Baltimore Circuit Court. They face life in prison if convicted. The defendants, the victims and their immediate families were illegal aliens from Mexico. Family members have received special visas for the trial, which could last a month. The victims' families have defended their kin accused of the killings, and police have testified that family members had been "reluctant" to cooperate with investigators.

Here is how the 'Voz de Aztlan' scum have spun this:

Heinous hate murders of undocumented Mexican immigrants on the rise
Posted bypaisano on Sunday, September 19 @ 06:41:24 CDT
Contributed by paisano mexicano

Los Angeles, Alta California - September 14, 2004 -
(ACN) Murderous ogres are today getting away with the
horrific killings of undocumented Mexican immigrants
due in part to uncaring and often racist USA law
enforcement agencies. Anti-immigrant hysteria, once
the purview of fringe vigilante groups, has now
afflicted some in the mainstream media and this has
fanned the flames of anti-Mexican bigotry throughout
the nation resulting in a series of heinous murders of
undocumented immigrants that have included women and
children.

By Ernesto Cienfuegos
La Voz de Aztlan

Three cases this year should alarm the entire Mexican
nation here in Aztlan and south of the border. These
three cases of murder were extremely brutal and
specifically targeted undocumented Mexican immigrants.

The most recent murder of Mexican immigrants
occurred at 2:30 AM this past Sunday in west Columbus,
Ohio. Ten Mexican immigrants from Leon, Guanajuato
were burned to death when an arsonist set their rented
apartment building on fire in the early morning hours.
Three of the ten where children; Jesus, 6, Jose, 3,
and Enrique, 2. Their mother Lidia Mejia, age 22, and
their father Ismael Noriega, age 36, also perished in
the flames.

Firefighters suspect arson is behind the fire at the
immigrant friendly 24-unit Lincoln Park West
Apartments that killed the 10 Mexican undocumented
immigrants and forced some to jump from third-story
windows. An unknown number of people are still missing
said Columbus Fire Chief Steve Feustel.

Fire Chief Steve Feustel says it's suspicious
that the fire burned so fiercely in a stairway, which
isn't designed to burn in modern buildings. In
addition, a fire hydrant closest to the apartment
building had been broken on purpose according to Fire
Chief Steve Feustel.

Mitra Singh, a neighbor, said she was awakened about 2
a.m. Sunday by the sound of people talking and car
doors opening and shutting. About a half hour later,
she heard a loud whooshing sound, which she said
reminded her of using gasoline to burn grass when she
lived in New Mexico. "I saw a huge fireball just fly
out the front," she said. "It wasn't an explosion. It
was just a long loud whoosh, like the traveling of
fire."

Gerald Robinson, Chief Deputy State Fire Marshal, said
yesterday that the fire was extremely suspicious
because of its magnitude, the number of deaths and
previous fires in the same building. On July 11,
firefighters investigated three fires there, one in a
stairwell and two in an abandoned apartment, Fire
Chief Steve Feustel said. After what will be called a
thorough investigation, let us not be too surprised if
the crime will be blamed on the immigrants themselves
as was done in the following case that occurred in
Baltimore, Maryland.

On Thursday May 27, 2004 undocumented Mexican
immigrants Ricardo Espinoza and his wife Noemi Quezada,
came home from work to find the bodies of their
daughter Lucero Quezada, 8, and son Ricardo Espinoza,
9, and their cousin Alexis Espejo, 10, dead in pools
of blood. One child was decapitated and two partially
decapitated. All three children lived in Ricardo
Espinoza's and Noemi Quezada's apartment in the 7000
block of Park Heights Avenue in Baltimore.

The following Friday, the murdered children's
uncle, Policarpio Espinoza Perez, 22, and their cousin
Adan Espinoza Canela, 17, came to the apartment to
support the family and were promptly arrested by the
Baltimore police when a neighbor pointed them out as
persons she saw visiting the apartment on prior
occasions. The accused relatives of the family, unable
to speak English, were interrogated by the police
utilizing notoriously incompetent language translators
and the two young men ended up being booked for the
murder of the three immigrant Mexican children. One
piece of evidence that the police say they have is
bloody clothing and shoes found in the home of Adan
Espinoza Canela who worked for an area slaughterhouse.

Timothy M. Dixon, Espinoza Perez's attorney,
said: "I have no idea why my client is charged with a
crime. There doesn't seem to be any evidence of it."
The trial has been set for December 13. "On Dec. 13, I
am daring the state to bring forth evidence that will
implicate my client," said James L. Rhodes, the
attorney for Espinoza Canela. Both defense attorneys
said that the state had not turned over any evidence
that the defense considers incriminating.

Family members are confused by the arrests and don't
believe that Canela or Policarpio Espinoza were
involved in the crime. There was no animosity between
the family members and no possible motive has been
established . The accused men were supported in court
by both mothers of the slain children and other family
members who have maintained that Espinoza Canela and
Espinoza Perez are innocent. Noemi Quezada, the mother
of two of the three slain children said, "I am 100%
sure that they are not the murderers."

In addition, Edgardo Flores Rivas, the embassy's head
of consular affairs, said in a letter that the Mexican
government has been following the case "with great
interest and concern." La Voz de Aztlan has learned
that a large number of Mexican government officials
believe that the horrific murders of the three Mexican
children may in fact be anti-immigrant and
anti-Mexican hate crimes.

La Voz de Aztlan received an e-mail on May 28 taking
credit for the decapitations of the Mexican immigrant
children. We have tied this person to an anti-Mexican
terrorist group. The e-mail along with "headers" were
forwarded to Irv Bradley, the Baltimore police
detective in charge of the investigation.

The third horrid case occurred on Sunday
February 1, 2004 in Fremont, California. Maria
Esperanza Hernandez, 39, of Central Mexico, left her
home at 2:30 in the morning, accompanied by her 19
year old daughter for a long walk to work in the
laundry room of the Fremont Care Center. The daughter,
Maria del Carmen Castillo Hernandez, had accompanied
her mother for safety reasons because Maria Esperanza
Hernandez had missed her ride.

At approximately 5 in the morning residents were
awaken by blood curling screams from the mother and
daughter who were being clubbed to death in the street.
One resident was able to come out in time to observe a
white youth in his twenties standing over the dead
bodies. The witness also observed a car with three
white men just watching the brutal murders. The
witness said that the youth than ran and the car sped
away, turning its lights off. Next to the two bodies
the murderer left a bloody wooden club he used to
bludgeon the mother and daughter to death.

This case remains unsolved due in large measure to
lack of diligence and incompetence by the mostly white
Fremont Police Department. As an example, we recently
discovered that the sketch of the prime suspect that
is published in the Fremont Police "Ten Most Wanted"
web page had been grossly mislabeled, possibly on
purpose. The error is shown at
http://www.aztlan.net/Ten_Most_Wanted.htm Please
notice that the prime suspect in the bludgeoning of
the Mexican mother and daughter was labeled as - -
Torres, Carlos aka Rodriguez, Carlos Hispanic 5 ' 8,
155lbs Blk Bro Age 20 Rape - - . After we e-mailed the
police department and pointed out their gross error
they promptly changed it to what they now have at
http://www.fremontpolice.org/wanted/wanted.html
Instead of thanking La Voz de Aztlan, the Police Chief
Craig Steckler sent us a very offending letter. There
is very little respect of the Mexican-American
community by white police chiefs throughout Alta
California.

The above three heinous cases concerning the murders
of undocumented Mexican immigrants, during just this
year alone, points to a very serious problem that
could get much worse. By and large these are the
consequences of the constant agitations of
anti-immigrant groups such as those led by the vile
anti-Mexican bigot Glenn Spencer and others of his ilk.
In many cases, these physical attacks on Mexican
immigrants are carried out with the complicity or
blessings of certain racist law enforcement personnel.
At minimum, these murderous ogres are getting away
with murder because sympathetic law enforcement
officials are dragging their feet on investigations,
turn a blind eye or even planting false evidence to
accuse the Mexican immigrants themselves.

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