Mexican authorities may have stumbled upon a particularly gruesome serial killer, after he allegedly chose a police officer’s spouse as his latest victim.
On May 15th, according to the Associated Press, a police commander in Mexico City went looking for his wife after she failed to come home from a shopping trip. A man whom they both knew, named Andrés, was supposed to have accompanied her. The officer confronted Andrés at his home and found his wife’s dismembered body on top of a table in the basement.
When police searched the rest of the home, they found women’s clothing, jewelry, and makeup, along with voter IDs, ID photos, cell phones, and audio and video tapes suggesting he had other victims and may have recorded them. Some of the IDs belonged to women who have been missing for as long as five years. The outdated technology, however — 8 mm tapes and VHS tapes — raised the possibility that the killings may have been going on even longer.
While the suspect awaits trial for the murder of one person, police continued searching his home for evidence of more victims, including digging up the earth beneath the house. On Saturday, investigators announced that since starting the search in May, they have found nearly 4,000 fragments of bone from 17 different people, showing the possible scale of the suspect’s alleged murders. (The Attorney General of the State of Mexico did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the case.)
Mexican authorities have released only the suspect’s first name, but they’ve shared that Andrés is 72 years old, a former butcher, and a neighborhood association president. According to the AP, he used a butcher’s hacksaw and knives to section and fillet his last victim.
Investigators are working on extracting DNA from the bone fragments to identify victims while continuing to search the property for more remains.