The young woman from Veracruz, Montserrat Bendimes, in a photograph spread on social networks.RR.SS.
Her family said that during the days that Montserrat Bendimes was hospitalized with severe blows, the 20-year-old girl, an engineering student in Veracruz, pronounced a name before she died: "It was Marlon."
The young woman had been admitted in April of last year after her partner gave her a fatal beating, as she pointed out, that she kept her connected to the machines of a hospital until her body did not resist.
At that time, the main suspect was already unaccounted for.
With the help of his parents, according to the version of the State Prosecutor's Office, Marlon Boots managed to flee while his girlfriend was dying in a hospital.
More than a year after what happened, only his parents are serving a sentence for complicity, but Boots is still a fugitive and Bendimes' crime remains unpunished.
This Monday,
The murder of Bendimes provoked a wave of indignation in Veracruz, where the feminist groups that have supported the family since what happened have organized marches and actions to seek justice.
The capture of Boots's parents in Mexico City in November of last year set a precedent for those who collaborate with the murderers of women, according to these organizations.
And the State was wallpapered with the face of Marlon Boots: graffiti on the walls, dolls with his photo on the boardwalk, search and seizure posters, videos and images on social networks.
The Prosecutor's Office announced that it had asked Interpol to issue a red search card in almost a hundred countries – although the file is not public on the agency's website – and offered a reward of 250,000 pesos (about 12,500 dollars) for any clue about his whereabouts.
The Bendimes case has since suffered a tragic halt.
As it happens with most crimes in Mexico, where 95% of them are not solved.
And, especially, in cases of sexist violence, a national security crisis that no government has managed to control, that does not give half of its population a truce with impunity and that claims the lives of 11 women a day.
Despite the imprisonment of her parents, who had fled to the nation's capital, Boots had gotten away with it.
This Monday, the television channel Imagen, published a video that had reached them anonymously, its presenters pointed out, where the accused is observed on a white background.
Boots directly points out that what happened was an "unfortunate accident".
That his family had nothing to do with it.
And he alleged a "hunt" against him and his family.
He also asked that his parents, Diana Fuentes and Jorge Botas, be released.
And the networks burned.
The women of Mexico are accustomed to hearing so many times and in so many cases of other murdered women who committed suicide, fell, died alone.
The Veracruz Prosecutor's Office, as well as its governor, Cuitláhuac García, responded in a statement that the "procurement of justice is not negotiated."
"In this case, as in all those in which a woman is attacked, there will be no impunity," said the message signed by the State Attorney General, Verónica Hernández.
However, more than a year after what happened, the main suspect is still a fugitive from justice and the audacity to send a message to the authorities reveals the confidence he has that impunity plays in his favor.
The femicide of Bendimes has gained strength again and the fight of his family and organizations to demand justice has been fueled by Boots' message.
Some statements that again blame the young woman for her death and try to avoid the process that must be carried out in court.
Shouting "It was not an accident", hundreds of social network users have again shown their outrage at a case that was dormant in the national debate, overshadowed by others that do not stop in Mexico.
The latest, the murders of women in Nuevo León, that of María Fernanda Contreras, 27, that of Debanhi Escobar, 18, and that of Yolanda Martínez, 26, of which the authorities still point to a suicide without having given to know details of how he died.
The Mexican feminist movement, the only counterpower in the streets to the federal government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is stronger than ever.
Faced with rampant impunity, each case of a woman murdered or a victim of sexist violence provokes levels of protest that were unthinkable a decade ago.
It was also in Veracruz, one of the states with the most crimes against women in the country, where a historic national strike was promoted on March 9, 2020, organized by Las Brujas del Mar. The Bendimes case is once again a symbol of the horror in the entity and adds hundreds more each year.
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