The forensics of the Attorney General's Office of El Salvador located on Friday the buried remains of at least 10 people in the house of a former police officer prosecuted for a double femicide, according to the institution, which will present a formal accusation for a mass murder on Monday. The victims may include girls as young as 9, 7 and 2 years old.
Authorities investigated in early May the murder of two men and two women in a town in the western department of Santa Ana, 45 miles (73 kilometers) from San Salvador, the country's capital.
For this crime, ex-police officer Hugo Ernesto Osorio Chávez, 51, accused until now of double femicide, was arrested.
The victims were identified as Jacqueline Cristina Palomo Lima, 26, and Mirna Cruz Lima, 57, apparently mother and daughter, according to the Salvadoran newspaper La Página.
Subsequently, a search began at his home in the eastern town of Chalchuapa.
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The Public Ministry indicated that "it has been possible to rescue the remains of 10 people, some with evidence of having been murdered two years ago" in the house of the detainee, in building 11 of the Callejón Estévez in the city of Chalchuapa, according to the digital website El Salvador.com
The first four bodies correspond to Mirna Lima Cruz, 57, Jackeline Cristina and Alexis, both surnamed Palomo Lima (Mirna's children), and that of Chávez's brother, according to the same newspaper.
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The authorities added that this investigation will be able to clarify "cases of people who had been reported as missing" in the municipality.
The forensics also found in the house and in an adjoining land "seven more graves where it is presumed that this alleged murderer buried other victims," according to the authorities.
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The institution also ordered the arrest of nine "defendants involved in 13 murders as perpetrators, instigators and accomplices" of the former police officer, without specifying whether it is a group of people previously detained on suspicion of having collaborated.
Objects in the former policeman's house where they found the buried remains of at least 10 people in Chalchuapa, El Salvador.
According to local press reports, the Salvadoran authorities indicate that Osorio
acted for "sexual deviations" and also committed "commissioned" homicides
.
The Prosecutor's Office received between 2014 and 2019 more than 22,000 complaints of missing persons, with a daily average of 10 cases, according to a study by the Foundation for Studies for the Application of Law published in April.
The investigations indicate that these people collaborated directly in the homicides "as perpetrators, instigators or accomplices," according to the National Civil Police of El Salvador. National Civil Police of El Salvador
Israel Ticas, one of the most recognized forensics in the country and who works for the Prosecutor's Office, has pointed out on different occasions that if a person spends more than eight days missing there is a high probability that they have been murdered and buried in a clandestine cemetery.
With information from AP, ElSalvador.com, La Página and EFE.