Serial killer sentenced to life imprisonment in Mexico

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Andrés Mendoza, known as the “serial feminicide of Atizapán,” was sentenced to life imprisonment for a murder that occurred in May last year on the outskirts of the Mexican capital, authorities announced Friday.

After a judicial process that lasted several months, which was preceded by the scandal unleashed following the discovery of thousands of skeletal remains buried in the floor of Mendoza's house, a judge found him guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment for the murder of a 34-year-old woman, whom he dismembered after murdering her, the Attorney General's Office of the State of Mexico.

Mendoza, a 72-year-old former butcher, was captured thanks to an investigation conducted on his own by a police commander, husband of Reyna González. She showed up at the house in Mendoza, who was known to her family, and he murdered her. Later, the husband also came and, by calling his spouse's phone and hearing that it rang, he managed to find the whereabouts of the woman's body, who had been missing for four days.

After his arrest on May 18, the humble house of Mendoza, located in the Atizapán municipality of the State of Mexico, was taken over by dozens of police officers and prosecutors, who, with the help of dogs, a shovel, and radars, began a thorough investigation lasting several days that allowed the discovery of 4,300 skeletal remains corresponding to 19 different bodies. Six of these victims were identified through criminal techniques.

The site also collected notebooks with people's names, photographs, makeup products, nail polish, chains, earrings, bracelets, women's bags, shoes, mobile phones and various videos.

In recent years there has been a wave of murders of women in Mexico, but it remains unclear why such killers are not caught before so many victims accumulate.