Maria Santos Gorrostieta, Mexican mayor hauled from car, beaten, killed leaving daughter behind
The woman mayor who was kidnapped and murdered by a Mexican drug gang pleaded with her attackers for her young daughter’s life, Mexican sources revealed today.
Maria Santos Gorrostieta
Maria Santos Gorrostieta, who had already survived two assassination attempts, was driving the child to school at around 8:30am when she was ambushed by a car in the city of Morelia.
The 36-year-old was hauled from her vehicle and physically assaulted as horrified witnesses watched, according to newspaper El Universal.
The witnessed described how she begged for her child to be left alone and then appeared to get into her abductors’ car willingly.
The little girl was left wailing as her mother was driven away.
Her family waited for over week, expecting a ransom call which never came. Gorrostieta’s body was stabbed, burned, battered and bound at wrist and ankle. She was found over a week later, dumped on a roadside in San Juan Tararameo, Cuitzeo Township.
She left behind her daughter and two sons as well as her second husband Nereo Delgado Patinoran.
Gorrostieta was elected as mayor of Tiquicheo, a rural district in Michoacan, west of Mexico City, in 2008. She immediately received threats and the first assassination attempt came in October 2009 when the car she was travelling in with her first husband Jose Sanchez came under fire from gunmen in the town of El Limone. The attack claimed his life but Gorrostieta lived.
The next attempt on her life was just three months later, when an masked group carrying semi-automatic rifles ambushed her on the road between Michoacan and Guerreo state. The van she was traveling in was peppered by 30 bullets. Three hit her.
This time her wounds were more severe, leaving multiple scars and forcing her to wear a colostomy bag. She was left in constant pain.
“At another stage in my life, perhaps I would have resigned from what I have, my position, my responsibilities as the leader of my Tiquicheo,” she stated publicly.
“But today, no. It is not possible for me to surrender when I have three children , whom I have to educate by setting an example, and also because of the memory of the man of my life, the father of my three little ones, the one who was able to teach me the value of things and to fight for them. Although he is no longer with us, he continues to be the light that guides my decisions.”
“I struggle day to day to erase from my mind the images of the horror I lived, and that others who did not deserve or expect it also suffered.”
“I wanted to show them my wounded, mutilated, humiliated body, because I’m not ashamed of it, because it is the product of the great misfortunes that have scarred my life, that of my children and my family.”
“Despite my own safety and that of my family, what occupies my mind is my responsibility towards my people, the children, the women, the elderly and the men who break their souls every day without rest to find a piece of bread for their children. Freedom brings with it responsibilities and I don’t dare fall behind. My long road is not yet finished – the footprint that we leave behind in our country depends on the battle that we lose and the loyalty we put into it.”
Maria was described by a prominent Mexican journalist as ‘a heroine of the 21st century’
