The father of Abigail Hay Urrutia, a 30-year-old from Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, does not understand what could have happened so that his daughter was detained by the municipal police on August 19 and, three hours later, appeared dead. .
“She entered the police station alive and came out dead,” José Luis Hay tells the press over and over again.
The man does not believe the version that the authorities have given him: Abigail committed suicide in the separos [the police station dungeons] by hanging herself with her own panties without any agent noticing her.
"My sister did not commit suicide," says Margarita Hay, 35, to EL PAÍS.
The family, in each interview, makes a clear message: it was not a suicide, it was a femicide.
The Oaxaca Prosecutor's Office has indicated that it is investigating the death according to the femicide protocol.
In Mexico, all violent deaths of women must be investigated in this way.
This Tuesday, however, the Public Ministry released the result of a second autopsy indicating that the woman died asphyxiated by hanging, not by strangulation, which reinforces the theory of alleged suicide.
"They confirm death by hanging, but they don't say what happened," says the victim's sister.
Despite the nuance between strangulation and hanging, the statement from the Prosecutor's Office does not explicitly say if the young woman was murdered or committed suicide, or if she was a victim of sexual abuse.
The family is now considering requesting a third independent expert opinion to resolve the previous doubts.
Meanwhile, they have decided not to bury Abigail until she finds out what happened.
For now, they keep her body inside her coffin, in one of the rooms of her house.
Margarita Hay tells this newspaper that when she was given the body of her younger sister, she had bruises on her legs and arms, scratches and a deep mark on her neck.
The case of Abigail Hay outrages her family and friends for having died while she was detained – which could escalate to a case of police brutality – but above all, what most outrages them is the version offered by the authorities.
“There is a high probability that it is a femicide, and aggravated, because it is about public officials,” says Yésica Sánchez Maya, from the National Femicide Observatory and part of the Oaxaca Consortium organization.
"Perhaps they wanted to defend themselves against aggression and they became more violent," she adds.
Dozens of people from Salina Cruz have marched in front of the police station where the young woman was detained and have demanded the resignation of the municipal president, the morenista Daniel Méndez Sosa, on whose government the local police depend.
This Tuesday, Méndez Sosa removed from office the civic judge who ordered the prison against the young woman.
However, the four police officers who participated in the arrest continue in their duties, while the investigation in the Prosecutor's Office is still open on all the actors involved that afternoon.
"The fact is that my daughter is dead, two minors were orphaned and there is no detainee," denounces the father.
Abigail Hay was the mother of two small children whom she supported thanks to a laundry that she had set up in her house.
“She was a cheerful, pretty, funny young woman,
On the afternoon of Friday, August 19, and according to the police report, a group of municipal agents arrested Abigail in the street for an alleged argument with her partner inside a car.
In a video of the arrest that has been leaked to the media, you can see how the young woman clings to the leg and arm of a man so as not to be taken away, supposedly her partner.
"I am the mother of her son," she can be heard saying.
“Have dignity,” a police officer replies.
After a couple of minutes, the agents manage to get her into the patrol car along with the man, who is not arrested.
Those are, for the moment, the last images and the last words of the young woman alive.
After that she was imprisoned.
Five hours later she was dead.
She went around 10 p.m.
According to the police version, the woman was transferred to the civic judge, who offered her three ways to pay for the offense committed: a fine, community service or spend 24 hours in jail.
She there she agreed to be locked up.
“Femicide has to do with an issue of power and undermining of women's bodies.
Even arguing that she committed suicide with her underwear is sexist and re-victimizing, ”says Yésica Sánchez.
The activist points out that one of the main problems of sexist violence in the State has to do with impunity and the inaction of the authorities, who barely issue arrest warrants and investigate the violent deaths of women.
Abigail Hay's death is reminiscent of the case of Dr. Beatriz Hernández, in Hidalgo, in 2021. As in Hay's case, the Progreso de Obregón municipal police arrested the doctor, who was found dead two hours later in a cell with signs of violence.
Authorities also said that she had committed suicide.
Other recent cases are that of Luz Raquel Padilla, of whom the Jalisco Prosecutor's Office insinuated that she had set herself on fire, or that of Yolanda Martínez, who, according to the version of the Nuevo León authorities, took her own life by drinking poison.
In all cases, the authorities hid behind the argument of an alleged suicide, when the figures for sexist violence suggest otherwise.
The murder of Lesvy Berlin Rivera Osorio, one of the most remembered femicides in the country, was also initially presented as a suicide: she hanged herself with the cable of a telephone booth, the authorities said, a version that was rejected in court after verifying that she was murdered by her partner.
"They beat her to death and then hanged her," says Abigail's father with firm conviction.
The woman's family, who gave her the last goodbye this weekend, denounces that until this Monday they had not had access to the girl's autopsy.
Family and friends surround the coffin of Abigail Hay Urrutia, on August 22, 2022, in Salina Cruz, Mexico.
Daniel Ricardez (EFE)
The Isthmus of Tehuantepec region, where Salina Cruz is located, is one of the most violent areas for women in all of Oaxaca.
The figures have only increased, although in 2018 an alert for gender-based violence was declared.
During the last six-year term, under the PRI government Alejandro Murat, 673 cases of femicide have been recorded in the State.
“Men in Oaxaca know that they can violate, hurt, kill women and nothing happens.
There is no forceful action by the authorities to end violence or femicide," says Sánchez.
Before hanging up the phone, Abigail's sister takes a deep breath and says: "We are fighting for justice for my sister, we are not going to allow this to go unpunished."
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