Two police officers stand guard outside the house where the Tirado brothers and their uncle were murdered, on December 22, 2022. Marco Ugarte (AP)
It is 1:52 p.m. on a Sunday in December.
The winter sun hits Rome without burning too much.
Mexico City bustles these days with a pre-Christmas atmosphere.
A police car patrols the streets of Campeche and Medellín in the apparent torpor of the afternoon.
The day before, two young men, the brothers Andrés and Jorge Tirado (27 and 35 years old), disappeared in the neighborhood.
At that time, the vehicle of the Secretary of Citizen Security receives an emergency call by radio.
"They tell us to go to Insurgentes 420," reads the police report to which EL PAÍS has had exclusive access.
The patrol drives towards the place, where a man asks for their help.
He hasn't heard from his parents since the day before and he's worried.
They go with him to the address where his parents reside, Medellín 113.
They probably think that this is a routine job.
Less than an hour later, three bodies appear in a cellar of the house.
The bodies belong to the two disappeared brothers and their uncle, José Luis González (73 years old).
The man who called the police is the son of González and the only survivor of the crime, María Margarita Ochoa (72 years old).
His call was the definitive clue that uncovered the brutal murders of Medellín 113: a kidnapping of more than 48 hours that ended with the murder of the three men and the torture of Ochoa.
Three of the alleged perpetrators —Blanca Hilda Abrego (64 years old, mother), Sally Mechaell Arenas (43, daughter) and Randy Arenas (about 20, grandson)— lived with the victims.
In total, there are five detainees -with Azuher Lara (37, Sally's partner) and another person from her environment, identified as Rebeca-, although the Prosecutor's Office believes that there could be more accomplices.
Two pages of the statement by Margarita María Ochoa to which EL PAÍS had access.
MEXICO CITY, DECEMBER 27, 2022. Margarita María Ochoa is the aunt of the brothers Jorge and Andrés Tirado and wife of José Luis González, the three men murdered in the Roma neighborhood by the tenants with whom they lived, on December 18 .THE COUNTRY
When the two policemen arrive at Insurgentes 420, at 1:54 p.m., the son of Ochoa and González explains that he has come to the city because his parents disappeared on Friday the 16th, two days ago.
That same afternoon she filed a complaint, but something strange happened: she received a call from Abrego, whom she knows because the woman has lived in Medellín 113 since 2004, as a full-time nurse for one of Ochoa's brothers, who died in May —Ochoa and her husband, residents of Jalisco, moved into the house to regularize the sale, and temporarily welcomed their nephews.
Abrego puts Ochoa on the phone, who tells her son that she is fine.
But he notices a strange touch in his voice.
Restless, the next day the man calls Abrego again, who does not answer the first time.
Try a different number with better luck.
The woman explains that her parents have left, but that she would notify him when they return.
She never comes through.
The man becomes restless and flies to Mexico City.
At 10:40 p.m. on Saturday, he is already in front of the black doors of Medellín 113. "When he tried to open it, he realized that the door was stuck, it is for this reason that he again communicated with Mrs. Blanca Hilda Abrego," the file continues.
The nurse justifies herself: she says that she can't open it because Ochoa has asked her not to let anyone in.
The man can't believe it.
Everything is weirder and weirder by the minute.
On Sunday the situation takes another turn.
At 1:30 p.m., Ochoa's son receives a call from Abrego: “Don't say anything, or where you are.
I'm going out and you wait for me at the corner.
I'll explain to you now."
He replies that he is not near the house, but at that moment he hears the muffled voice of his mother on the other end of the phone in the background: “Son!
Child!".
I'm losing the signal.
He reacts by calling 911, which mobilizes the closest patrol car: the one that is now with him at Insurgentes 420.
The brothers Andrés and Jorge Tirado.RR.SS.
"The complainant requests our support to verify the situation of his relatives, asking us to accompany him to the aforementioned address in order to make sure that they are okay," the file continues.
The two policemen, a man and a woman, arrive with Ochoa's son at Medellín 113 at 2:00 p.m.
The civilian knocks on the door.
There was a "female person, robust complexion, dark complexion, 1.55 meters tall, short black hair, red pants, blue flowered blouse, blue vest," the report describes.
He is Abrego.
"Immediately when the complainant entered, we heard a cry for help from the interior of the ground floor in the voice of a female and followed by this, the complainant was heard shouting: 'Mama!'"
One of the agents runs in after him, the other stays watching the door.
The policeman bursts into the room, where he meets Ochoa "in a black and chrome wheelchair, bound by the hands and feet with gray adhesive tape."
A meter and a half away he also sees Azuher Lara, Sally Mechaell Arenas and her three-year-old son.
Ochoa's son removes the gag from his mother, who denounces that Abrego, Arenas and Lara have kidnapped her.
The woman does not know if her nephews and her husband are in the house or have been taken to another place.
The suspects are arrested on the spot.
The police inspect the rest of the house in search of the brothers Tirado and González, "given the reasoned suspicion that the rest of the victims could be inside the building."
In the background, to the right, in a narrow cellar, they find the three corpses, covered "by a white plastic tablecloth with transparencies."
“The bodies were taped over the mouth, face, hands and feet with gray tape,” the report states.
They had been dead since Friday.
It is 2:48 p.m. on a Sunday in December.
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