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Teresa Rodríguez, an Emmy Award-winning journalist at Univision, recently published her first book - The Daughters of Juárez: A True Story of Serial Murder South of the Border. The book jacket tells us that "The Daughters of Juárez promises to be the first eye-opening, authoritative nonfiction work of its kind to examine the brutal killings and draw attention to these atrocities on the border. The end result will shock readers and become required reading on the subject for years to come."

Throughout the book, Rodríguez weaves narrative details about the last days of the murdered women with investigative reporting into the causes of the horrific violence that claimed their lives. She told us about the process of researching and writing The Daughters of Juárez in the following Q&A.


Juego de Palabras: You have been reporting on the murders in Juárez for Univision for over ten years. How did you first learn about the murders? What drew you to continue investigating the story?

Teresa Rodriguez: Actually, it was towards the end of 1998 that I first heard about the crimes. I was researching story ideas for our news magazine series of specials, Aquí y Ahora con Teresa Rodriguez, when someone in our office mentioned they had read something about women being murdered in Cd. Juárez in Mexico. I began to look into it and could not believe the number of murders, (there were a little over 200 at the time), and the brutality behind the homicides, (how the women were raped, tortured, beaten, their bodies mutilated, many found with their left nipples bitten off and strangled with the shoelaces from their sneakers.... all of them left to die in the desert wastelands that surround this city). At first, it seemed that there was a serial killer or killers at work due to the similarity of the victims' appearance (they were young, slender, had long dark hair, full lips and almond-shaped eyes and they were all poor) and the modus operandi of the criminal, which authorities did not disclose completely given the fact that the investigation was still open. However, the more we researched, the more we became aware of the machista attitude that prevailed, the indifference on the part of the authorities towards the victims' families, the police corruption and ineptitude, the death threats directed towards those who tried to get to the bottom of these crimes and what can only be described as an apparent disregard for human life, especially the lives of young, poor women.

The first three-part report aired in March of 1999 and since then, I have been updating this ongoing cycle of violence against women and girls. My last trip to Juárez was last year with Lisa Pulitzer. We made the trip in order to familiarize her with the city, the families of some of the victims, etc...and most importantly, to try to tie up any loose ends and gather any new information in order to finalize our manuscript.


JdP: How did you balance working on the book with your demanding career as a broadcast journalist?

TR: Balancing both tasks was not easy, but I was able to do it thanks to my extremely patient and understanding family and colleagues and supervisors at Univision. I arranged my travel days to Cuidad Juárez when it would not interfere with my duties at the network, namely traveling on a Friday, (our show airs live on Thursday evening at 10pm, Eastern Std. Time) and taking advantage of the weekend to do my work. Also, I would take advantage of any holiday and set time aside to get ahead. Interestingly enough, I also found myself working on the book late at night when everyone else was resting or asleep, which worked better for me anyway, because I am a not a "morning" person. Furthermore, as the deadline to turn in the manuscript drew closer, I took some comp days and vacation days in order to finish. In addition, since many of my co-workers in Univision's news department were aware that I was working on a book, anytime there was any development related to the story, they would email me or call me, making sure I was abreast of it. I can also attest to the importance of my home computer and wireless Internet service.... I can't imagine life without it or my cell phone. The internet became an indispensable tool and it was something that back in late 1998, when we first started to research these crimes, was not as sophisticated as it is today.


JdP: You list two co-authors in your byline – journalist Diane Montané and true crime author Lisa Pulitzer. What role did they have in developing the book? What was the collaboration process like?

TR: It was actually Diane Montané's idea to write the book. She was interviewing me for a print story and asked me which stories, of the many I had covered in my career had been memorable and had impacted me in some way. I quickly responded, "the murdered young women of Ciudad Juárez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas." When I began to explain, she paused and said, "this sounds more like a horror movie, why don't you write a book about it?" To which I quickly responded, "I would love to, but with my career and the kids, I don't have the time nor resources that this story merits in order to write a manuscript." That's when she replied, "I'll help you.... let's write it together!" That's how the original manuscript came about. It was written in the first-person narrative based on the findings of a reporter (me) and her crew and all the interviews we conducted. That manuscript was to be published in Spanish in, but the publisher closed its doors due to financial problems and the manuscript returned to us. It sat gathering dust in my home office for a couple of years.

About two years ago, I received a call from Johanna Castillo, an editor for the Spanish-language division of Atria Books at Simon and Schuster. She had worked at the other publishing house and had read our manuscript. She was surprised that someone else had not published the story and asked that I send her some chapters. A few weeks later she contacted me again and asked whether I would consider revising the style of the manuscript to that of a true crime account and whether I would work with a writer and former journalist named Lisa Pulitzer who they thought would be perfect for this topic. I agreed to fly to New York and meet with them. There was instant chemistry between Lisa, our English-language editor, Wendy Walker and me! My goal was to create greater awareness of the situation in Juarez, Mexico by getting this information to the public and to an audience beyond Univision's television market; the style in which the story was told was secondary to me. My only condition to Lisa and one which she readily accepted was that if she agreed to take on this project, she would have to travel to Juárez with me and meet the families of the victims, see the factories where many worked, the shanty-towns where they lived and the places where some of the bodies were found. It was a condition that Lisa immediately accepted and to which she replied: "I wouldn't do it any other way." That's how Lisa became one of the co-authors of The Daughters of Juárez. It took various women (editors included) & almost 9 years to make the book a reality, but the effort, time and sacrifices along the way were well worth it!


JdP: In the book, you discuss how several activists and journalists received death threats because of their work on behalf of the women of Juárez. Did you fear for your safety at any point while researching this book? If so, how did you handle the situation?

TR: The last night that my crew and I slept at a hotel in Cuidad Juárez a few years ago was the only time I have felt threatened. I clearly remember it was Valentine's Day and we had conducted interviews in a couple of conference rooms at the hotel. The first interview we did was in the morning with the wife of a bus driver accused of 8 of the murders and the second interview was later that day with the attorney representing the accused man. As we escorted the attorney back out to the lobby, I noticed two men who I remembered seeing in the lobby earlier that day. They were well groomed and nicely dressed. I mentioned it to my producer and asked her to accompany me to the restaurant right off the lobby in order to see if we were in fact being followed. They also entered the restaurant and sat down. After consulting with her and the rest of the crew, we decided to call our news department heads in Miami and alert them. That evening, as I lay down to sleep, I received a couple of phone calls on the hotel phone, but no one spoke, all I heard was heavy breathing. When I called the front desk to complain and to ask that they not transfer any more calls to my room, they explained they had not done so, in other words, the calls had originated from inside the hotel.

I immediately called my crew, gathered my most essential belongings and placed them in a bag. We went downstairs to speak with the manager and were told that they were very sorry, but they could not control calls made to guest rooms from within the hotel. They also commented on the purpose of our visit and reminded us how "sensitive" the topic was. We proceeded to go to my producer's room where we spent the night, albeit without much sleep. The next morning we left the hotel and drove to the airport to catch our flight back home. Ever since then, anytime we travel to that city to work, we make it a point to cross the border and sleep at a hotel in the United States.


JdP: What effect do you think this book will have on the situation in Juárez?

TR: I hope the book will expose these horrific crimes to mass audiences and thereby help create greater awareness about how young women and girls are violently dying in a city just five minutes across the border from the United States. Ultimately, the goal is to help end the violence and "solve" some of the outstanding cases. As one activist told me, "it is a disgrace to be a woman in Ciudad Juárez, but it is a crime to be a poor woman in Cuidad Juárez." I would hope that readers would identify with these families and their pleas for answers. In their opinion, because they are poor, their daughter's lives are worth nothing.... as one mother told me, they are treated as second-class citizens, voiceless in a traditionally male and class-dominated society. Also, let's not forget that at the beginning, many families were turned away by the authorities when they went to report their missing daughters, asked whether the girls had boyfriends and if they were wearing mini-skirts, insinuating they led a double life and had probably run away. Many were told to come back in a couple of days and perhaps by then, the girls had returned. It was a frustrating experience for desperate parents, anxious for cooperation from police. Many were worried that while police waited to begin looking, their daughters were dying in the desert.

Furthermore, I would like to point out that in the United States whenever a person is reported missing, there is an Amber Alert issued and the media covers the story almost immediately and in some cases, constantly. Yet in this Mexican city, which is a short walk from El Paso, Texas, the number of missing young women (of whom the majority are later found dead) is staggering and the same mechanisms don't apply. It was only recently that they began to use a Star Alert (their equivalent of an Amber Alert).

Furthermore, in an age when forensic science can yield so many clues about a crime scene and the murderer(s), why is it that in Cd. Juárez, we know so much about the last moments of life of some of these victims, yet so little about the perpetrators? As a parent, I cannot imagine losing a child in such a horrendous manner and years later, knowing that the authorities have learned nothing knew about the crime.

I hope this book will help end the impunity and injustice, but most importantly, I hope it will be a call to action. I am encouraging readers to write letters to the new Mexican leader, President Felipe Calderón and to the Governor of the State of Chihuahua, Reyes Baeza, demanding that these crimes be fully investigated, perhaps by an independent third party, so that some of these families can finally find closure and peace. Unfortunately, the Statue of Limitations on hundreds of these murder cases is fast approaching, (there is such a thing in Mexico) and therefore they may never be solved, closed forever while these murderers remain free. However, there is still hope for those other dozens of unsolved cases and for the women... who are still alive.

I thank you for your interest in this "labor of love" and ask that you visit my website: Teresarodriguez.tv - for any other information.

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