crime

Visiting Detective Emilia Cruz: “Hunt for the Missing”

The Law Enforcement landscape changes as societal needs evolve. Years ago, local police departments generally focused on car thefts, bank robberies, burglaries, the occasional drunk, domestic disputes, etc. These days, car and home break-ins are a very low priority, with drugs, human trafficking, and cyber crimes on the rise.

The increase in new crimes and more sophisticated criminals requires a level of training few departments have available, so conferences sometimes fill the gap. If the budget allows, ranking officers and detectives attend in order to discover what other people in the country (or our border countries) are doing to solve the issues causing the most harm.

That’s how I met Detective Emilia Cruz, a guest speaker at a recent conference in Virginia, not far from D.C. Her topic hit pretty close to home, since our north Jersey county, with its proximity to seaports and major highways, was also experiencing an uptick in missing women and girls. Combined with the Mexican and Central American citizens fleeing the drug cartel violence, coming with stories of horrors their families had faced, made for complex problems. I invite you to read Detective Emilia Cruz’ account:

Hunt for the Missing with Detective Emilia Cruz

“I never expected to be lecturing a bunch of norteamericano detectives about hunting for missing persons in Mexico, but there I was in Alexandria, Virginia, sweating bullets and trying to remember how to speak English. My plan was to stumble through my presentation, fly back to Acapulco and slay my boss, Lieutenant Franco Silvio, for sending me to this conference on law enforcement.

Fortifying myself with a dose of caffeine before my presentation seemed like a good idea, although I was already buzzing with nerves. All the attendees were circling around, paper cups in hand and meeting each other. Ten men to every woman. Just like in Mexico.

A fellow joined me at the coffee urn and introduced himself. “Charlie Kerrian,” he said and stuck out his hand. “You must be our guest speaker.”

“Hello, I’m Detective Emilia Cruz Encinos, from Acapulco.” We shook hands. I liked him right away. He didn’t try any stupid moves, like squeezing too hard or tickling my palm like Mexican colleagues often did. “Mucho gusto, Mr. Kerrian.”

“Call me Charlie.” He sipped his coffee. “I’m really looking forward to your presentation.”

A bell rang and we filed into the conference room.

My audience was well aware of Mexico’s organized crime situation and the violence washing through the country due to the drug trade. The United States is the biggest consumer of illicit drugs that move through Mexico and cartels are forever fighting over territory and lucrative shipping routes. Violence has spiraled in Acapulco because it’s a port of entry for the Chinese chemicals used to make synthetic opioids, especially fentanyl.

My particular area of expertise is in hunting for those who have gone missing amid the drug war violence. It’s hard to get a perfect count, because many go unreported, but over 100,000 people have gone missing in Mexico over the past ten years. As many as 39 go missing every day. More mass graves are found every day, too.

Beyond a numbers tracking database, the federal government hasn’t allocated many resources to finding the missing. We have nothing like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Is it because too many of our civil and military authorities are involved with the cartels? Are they taking drug money to look the other way?

The bottom line is that in Mexico, finding the missing is left to families, private detectives and cops who hunt for the lost on their own time, like me.

I keep a binder of women who have gone missing in Acapulco. I call them Las Perdidas. The Lost Ones. I start with missing persons reports and morgue files of unidentified women. Next, I collect every scrap of helpful information that I can, starting with newspaper advertisements.

Families pay for newspaper advertisements with the headline DESPARACIDA, meaning “disappeared,” and a picture of the missing person along with a call for information. Similar notices are printed on burger wrappers or posters plastered on walls alongside ads for Jumex juice and Tía Rosa snacks.

If I’m lucky, an advertisement points to a body or a report. Usually I’m not.

Many of the women in the Las Perdidas binder are probably dead. They’ve been missing for too long. Perhaps they’re in one of Mexico’s mass graves. But without better DNA recordkeeping, we’ll never know.

Yet I have high hopes of finding one particular girl named Lila. She has swum in and out of my grasp as I investigated other crimes, but I’m going to find her again.

When I do, I will bring her home.

My presentation got a big round of applause. Charlie Kerrian asked me to write it up for an online notebook he keeps of investigative techniques. So here it is.

Thank you, Charlie, for caring about Las Perdidas. If you ever make it to Acapulco, look me up, por favor.

I could really use your help.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Carmen Amato turns lessons from a 30-year career with the Central Intelligence Agency into crime fiction loaded with intrigue and deception.

Her Detective Emilia Cruz mystery series pits the first female police detective in Acapulco against Mexico’s drug cartels, government corruption, and social inequality. Described as “A thrilling series” by National Public Radio, the series was awarded the Poison Cup for Outstanding Series from CrimeMasters of America in both 2019 and 2020 and was optioned for television.

Originally from upstate New York, Carmen was educated there as well as in Virginia and Paris, France, while experiences in Mexico and Central America ignited her writing career. She has been a judge for the BookLife Prize and Killer Nashville’s Claymore Award and is a recipient of both the National Intelligence Award and the Career Intelligence Medal.

Every other Sunday, Carmen is your guide to the mystery ahead with exclusive announcements, excerpts and reviews of books she loves and think you will, too. Subscribe here: https://carmenamato.net/mystery-ahead

Please click on the titles in the riveting Detective Emilia Cruz Series to find out more.

 

 

Begin your thrill ride with CLIFF DIVER: Detective Emilia Cruz Book 1

 

 

 

 

HAT DANCE: Detective Emilia Cruz Book 2

DIABLO NIGHTS: Detective Emilia Cruz Book 3

KING PESO: Detective Emilia Cruz Book 4

PACIFIC REAPER: Detective Emilia Cruz Book 5

 

 

43 MISSING: Detective Emilia Cruz Book 6.

 

 

 

 

RUSSIAN MOJITO: Detective Emilia Cruz Book 7

NARCO NOIR: Detective Emilia Cruz Book 8

MADE IN ACAPULCO: The Emilia Cruz Stories

THE ARTIST/EL ARTISTA: A Bilingual Short Story for Language Learning

FELIZ NAVIDAD FROM ACAPULCO: A Detective Emilia Cruz Novella

THE LISTMAKER OF ACAPULCO: A Detective Emilia Cruz Novella

Many thanks to Carmen Amato for taking the time to visit with the Kerrians! As in her books, her article is based in fact.

 

 

 

 

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KN, p. 258 “Foxglove: Pretty, Medicinal, and Deadly”

If there are no paragraph separations in this article, please double-click on the title to create a more readable version.

In general, an investigation into a suspicious death must show that the suspect had motive, means, and opportunity in order for a D.A. to pursue and prosecute a case.

A traditional mystery (not much blood and gore, with an emphasis on the howdunit, whodunit, and why) might focus on the little old lady who seems that she would never harm a soul. In fact, she may be the dastardly evildoer in a cleverly plotted story.

A detective must discover why the victim needed killing – the motive. Was the crime committed to cover up another crime? Was the mild-mannered little old lady, barely making ends meet through a glitch in her pension system, cashing social security checks that belonged to a long dead spouse now buried in the garden? Did the victim uncover the truth and need to be silenced before spilling the beans? Readers and jury members alike might relate to her desperate plight as a motive that pushes people over the edge.   

The detective must show that the suspect had the means to pull it off.

What would a little old lady do? The victim had no outward signs of blunt force trauma from being struck by a baseball bat or golf club. The answer lies in the multi-colored display of foxglove, readily available in our senior citizen’s garden. Every part of the foxglove plant can cause allergic reactions and a few fresh leaves are enough to kill a person. Collecting the foliage can irritate the skin and eyes, so wearing gardening gloves, eyeglasses, and a mask (commonly worn in pollen season) would have protected her when working with her weapon of death.

A detective must figure out if the suspect had an opportunity to deliver the poison to the victim. The foxglove leaves look very much like large baby romaine, if a bit fuzzier. But lathered in salad dressing at a neighborly gathering, nobody would be able to tell the difference.

Or, the senior citizen could bake up a special plate of brownies and share them.

From J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter to Agatha Christie, foxglove has been a popular way to ‘off’ annoying people in fiction. Snape uses foxglove to make a potion in Potions 101 and Christie mixed it with other, edible greens in the garden in “The Herb of Death.”

My wife, Sheila, picked up six plants in three different colors at the garden center. I warned her about washing her gloves after handling the plants. All protocols were followed and no brownies have been made recently at our house.

 

So, why do we allow foxglove to be grown if it can be deadly?

The botanical name for foxglove is Digitalis purpurea. “Digitalis” is heart medicine made from foxglove. With a controlled dosage, digitalis is valuable in treating heart failure, but the wrong amount of foxglove can cause irregular heart function and death. Long-term use of foxglove can lead to symptoms of toxicity, including visual halos, yellow-green vision, and stomach upset.

The good news is that measuring digoxin (a form of digitalis) concentrations in the blood can help detect foxglove poisoning. If the detective and the other investigators are savvy about plants and gardens and the neighborhood dynamic, asking the right questions will uncover the reason and method of the deed. Case closed.

*Please note: This post is for entertainment purposes only.

 

 

 

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KN, p. 211 “Does Your Town Have ‘Active Shooter in the School’ Defense Strategies?”

If there are no paragraph separations in this article, please double-click on the title to create a more readable version.

Homeland Security has defined an “active shooter” as someone with a gun engaged in killing or trying to kill people in a confined and populated place.

Most experts agree that there is no one simple solution to the level of violence being aimed at the schools by individual shooters in the USA right now, but most people have agreed that it has to stop.

While we, the parents and friends and neighbors of the children struck down since the beginning of 2018, as well as elected officials and law enforcement officers, wrangle over what the solution should be, take a look at the ‘stay-as-safe-as-possible’ methods the school children should practice, as suggested by Homeland Security:

Their plan is called: “Run, Hide, Fight,” and includes these strategies:

  • Be aware of your environment and any possible dangers
  • Take note of the two nearest exits in any facility you visit
  • If you are in an office, stay there and secure the door
  • If you are in a hallway, get into a room and secure the door

The ‘Fight’ part has to do with taking down the shooter, but no Elementary or Junior High student I know is capable of doing that, nor are 99% of the High School students or teachers I’ve met.

In many communities, fire drills must be performed twice a month to comply with City or State regulations. During these drills, children are escorted to the exits in an orderly manner – no running – and out designated exits to areas away from the building. Most schools have multiple exits and with several hundred people who must leave in under two minutes (State requirement for speedy evacuation) the teachers and administration take this responsibility seriously. At a well-run school, the end of day dismissal is conducted just as efficiently, but just to the outside door and sidewalks. The busses and cars are waiting at the curbs, and the walkers know where to go.

In the scenario of the active shooter, Homeland Security suggests that the children should always know two ways to get out of the building so they can get out as quickly as possible if needed. Children should leave behind their backpacks and just get out. So that any First Responders on the scene can sort out the good guys from the bad, the evacuating children should keep their hands in the air, leaving the cell phones in their pockets while exiting.

If the children are stuck in the building, they should hide – under desks if that’s the only shelter, or in closets – but, out of the line of sight of the classroom door. They should silence their cell phones, so as not to alert a shooter to the location of more targets.

Plus, if the children are lucky enough to be in a room that has moveable chairs or tables to jam under the doorknobs, they should do that. Please note: most classroom doors do not lock from the inside, and many don’t lock at all.

In this new reality, safety drills might include mock shooter scenarios where students try to remember how many shooters there are, their location, and even a description of their appearance – clothes, hair, shoes, etc. Every piece of accurate information helps in resolving the real-life incidents.

Many States around the country responded to the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012 by requiring their schools to increase school security and enact safety drills. In the wake of the Florida shootings (February, 2018 and multiple others in the country) more States are responding to public pressure and taking the step to examine current safety standards and procedures throughout the districts.

 

Whatever your stance on how to solve this issue, our children should be safe at school. Period.

 

Please visit www.dhs.gov for more information about the Homeland Security policies and programs.

 

 

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