The Case of Miriam Rodriguez

Hi everyone, This is Christina and Carmen and this is another episode of his Spooky Tales, the podcast for all things as spooky but also sometimes very sad, tragic, infreerating two crime stories, and that's what we're doing today. Carman Great, Yeah, and we are going to have a listener story, but it's going to be at the end of the episode before speaker recommendations. As for the case, we're just going to dive into this week's case. I don't know if you've heard about and I didn't know her name for the longest time. I just heard about the case. But although like headlines are articles that announced or talked about it all said the same thing. It was like women takes down cartel by herself. Do you remember seeing that. Yeah, that's who we're talking about today, that woman. Her name was Medium Rodriguez. And again it's very sad. It happens in Mexico, and so if you, you know, don't want to hear a very sad, tragic case, then skip this episode. Medium Elizabeth Rodriguez Martinez was born on the fifth of February nineteen sixty in San Fernando, Tamolipas in Mexico. And everyone that knew her since childhood describes her in the same way that she was fierce. She was a fierce, strong Mexican woman, and sant Fernando was her home. It always has been, but it wasn't the place that she knew from her childhood. It changed a lot, especially, you know, starting in the late nineteen nineties. And I don't know if you know where San Fernando in Tamolipas is, but I'm sure you can imagine why it changed so much because it became a very dangerous place. It's eighty five miles from Brownsville, Texas, you know, along the US Mexico border. This made it very easy for it to become stomping grounds for cartels because of the location. It's along highways that lead directly to the US, it's in the desert, it's very easy to make, you know, different smuggling roads for drugs. So it was like an ideal location for cartels, and that's what happened. By the time she was an adult, that's what it became. And she was there in San Fernando raising her three children who were now adults as well, Louise, Assalea and Karen, with her husband, who was also Louise. There they had a cowboy apparel store called Cowboy No, sorry, where's the name? I wrote it down Rodeo Boots. Wow, it's cool. Yeah, And they've had this store for a very long time. They didn't want to leave, but many were leaving because, like I said, it was a very dangerous city by this time. It's the stamping grounds for losse Ettas and Losenta's control San Fernando. They were formerly for you know, people that don't know. Losseettas were formerly part of a bigger cartel, the Golf cartel. They were the armed branch of the golf cartel and then like former military Mexican military members branched off and became Losttas. So they were they're trained, they're armed, and they're dangerous. Ever since they split from the golf cartel, they've been feuding with you know, that cartel and numerous others. Yes, thank you, and I mean again, very dangerous Losettas. They need to finance their way of life. They're feuding with other cartels, so they started kidnapping innocent people for ransom, stealing, extorting local businesses, all typical cartel things, and many many, many in this area and all over Mexico have been killed by the cartel. In twenty ten, a mass grave of seventy two Central and South American migrants was found in San Fernando. When sorry, twenty ten, and they were possibly killed because they refused to work for Lossettas. That was like one working theory. The other one was that Losettas believed they were going to be recruited by the opposing cartel and killed them before that happened. But I mean that's still seventy two, Yeah, Central American and South American migrants, Like one would be too much. With seventy two, that's just like out of this world. It's horrendous. And then in twenty eleven, the following year, another one hundred ninety three remains were found across seven different mass graves in San Fernando, all cartel related. How many sorry, one hundred and ninety three remains across seven different mass graves. Every time you see the numbers, like, I don't grasp it. It's unbelievable. And then those are the mass graves. But it's not uncommon for at least once a month for twenty people to be found in different areas to this day and that's still the case. So yeah, many fled San Fernando because of the increasing violence, but many stayed, including Mediam and her family except her oldest son, Louis, moved to two hours away. But a lot of people stayed because you know, this was their home. This is all they knew, and they had I don't know, friving businesses like Medium and her family, and then on top of the business, their own store. Mediam also occasionally did some nanny work in Brownsville, Texas. She would drive across the border to work there. Fu Sometimes she'd stay like a week and then you know, go back home and then her youngest daughter, Karen, and her husband will work at the store. And like I said earlier, Louis, the oldest son, had moved two hours away to Suda, Victoria, hoping to escape the violence. The Rodrigues Martinez family, they were not rich, but they were okay, they were better than most in this area because of you know, their business and the other work Medium was doing as a nanny. So Acelea and Louis were gone from the home, and Karen, who was twenty, she was still working there, finishing college and working at the family store. And then on the evening of January twenty third, twenty fourteen, Karen was leaving rodeo boots. She was in her in the family truck trying to emerge into traffic when two trucks pulled up on each side of her truck, forcing her to come to a stop. Then armed men forced their way into the family truck and drove away with it with Karen still inside, and they drove to the family home. No one else was there because you know, Miriam was in Texas at her nanny job. We don't know where the dad slash husband where he was. He was just gone work at work or something, I don't know. So they bound and gag Karen and then left her laying on the floor, and then there was a knock at the door and it was the uncle's mechanic. He had stopped by to work on the family truck. So the kidnappers grabbed him tied him up, but then they later let him go for reasons unknown to this day. We don't know why. He was just they didn't need him, I guess. Then Ascelea called Medium and immediately Medium thought something was wrong because you know, Alia was crying and she told her the cartel has Karen. We received the ransom call. So Medium left the nanny job right away to head home. And one of the hard parts is she had to ride the bus. God, she has like this urgent, urgent, urgent crisis going on, and she has to wait for the bus, wait for the bus, like be on someone else's time. Yeah, and then on top of that, it was a two hour bus ride, which is that is just I can't imagine having to sit there knowing this is happening and there's nothing you can do because you're just you can't do anything. Yeah, yeah, you're trying to get there. As soon as Medium arrived in San Fernando, Ascela picked her up and they got another call to Medium's phone and it was the kidnappers again with Karen this time, and you know, it was the typical ransom call where they forced Karen to give the message of like drop the money off here, and then they just hang up. They don't give they didn't give the family a chance to talk to her or anything other than Karen giving them the message. And the family they talked, they were like, well, this is this is the cartel, this is a business transaction. They don't want Karen, they want money. So if we give them the money, obviously, well we see Karen in return, and that makes sense, like to think that. Yeah, Plus she wasn't the first kidnapping at all. This was such a common thing. Yeah, like people knew how these things went. Yeah, it wasn't a matter of if, but a matter of when for a lot of people. And so they gathered just under ten thousand dollars with their own savings. Then they went out to get a loan at the bank. And it was so bad that banks now had loans to give families for rants. God, that's terrible. Yeah, I can't even fathom being the lone person and be like, our loans for ransoms actually have lower interest rates. Like what the fuck? Right, that's terrible, it really is. It's crazy. It's terrible. But they gathered, they gathered all this money. They followed the kidnappers instructions to the tea. They dropped the money off at the health clinic like they were instructed, and they waited at the local cemetery. This is where the canappers were supposed to give back Karen. And they waited hours. The cannamppers never showed, so two days later, Medium asked for a meeting with the members of the local cartel, and to her surprise, they agreed. So she met with the tall, skinny, light skinned man with curly hair. They met at a restaurant called a Junior, and he told Medium that Lossettes did not have Karen, but he could help find her for two thousand dollars. But then he was contradicting himself and everything he was telling Medium because he was like, well, I'll find her for two thousand dollars. Also, Karen has been such an ideal captive person. She's been so easy to deal with. Okay, so you can't tell someone, hey, I don't have your daughter, but also your daughter is a good kidnapping victim. Yeah. Wow. Also, these kind of situations are so difficult because yeah, like anyone could be like hey, I can and you hear about it all the time. Like I remember this other I don't remember the case or the names of anybody, because I'm horrible with memory, but I remember that it was this girl. I say girl, but she was probably like early twenties. She went missing from a boat or something like that. Her family didn't know what happened to her. And then during their search, they hired a private detector and gave him so much money, but he had been making up everything he was doing. He wasn't helping them at all. Oh my god. Yeah, and they just gave over all this money. And so like, I think about that guy you just said, saying like, oh, I can help you find her for two thousand dollars, and it's like, it's it's so horrible and a putunistic and so easily to be taken advantage in that state of desperation one hundred percent, and it wasn't adding up. But Mediam she didn't do anything, obviously, anything to get Karen back. So she gave him the two thousand dollars. And during the meeting, the man had a walkie talking on his belt and there was conversations going coming in and out that he wasn't responding to. But she overheard the same thing again and again, Sama, and she was like, that must be his name or a nickname that'll come back. So then over the next weeks, Sama, he stopped answering the phone. He so obviously this was what you said, him being a pristina sick the Krktel probably didn't even know he did this. He just was like, oh, this is an easy way to make two thousand dollars. And then other others appeared, claiming to be Karen's kidnappers, and they it was always the same thing. They asked for more money. The family continued to pay, hoping to find Karen's because they don't know who it is either. Yeah, this is terrible, it really is. And after every payment there were more calls demanding more money. And after each payment that failed to return Karen, they they began to lose hope naturally. And I mean when things like this happen, like, no one knows how they're going to react, what's going to happen, But sometimes families lose hope, they start to fall apart. Yeah, So by this time, Medium had separated from her husband. She had fallen into despair. They both had fallen into their own despair. He was not doing anything either. He was I mean depressed, and so was she. I mean it's very common for that to happen, like too, families, even when someone dies, like a child of theirs dies, Yeah, they don't make it. By this time, Mediam was living with Asselea, the oldest daughter, and she was neglecting pretty much everything. Then one day, suddenly, weeks after the first payment was made, Medium got out of bed, she showered, she fixed her hair, and then she just turned to Asselia in like a super matter of fact tone. She told her Karen's not coming back. Karen's dead, and Assela was what's happening? She was confused. Then Medium told Asselia she would not rest until she found the people that took Karen, and she vowed to hunt them down one by one until her own death. This is when Assela understood the mother that she once knew was gone, completely gone. Any hope that Medium maybe had felt or still had it was not there anymore. It was now replaced with the desire to avenge her daughter. And so, instead of continuing in the loss and despair like her husband a medium, Medium started to make a list of like people she knew that were in the cartel, people that she had seen, or because you know, you're in these towns and you know names, like all that house in that corner, Yeah, the house in the corner belongs to so and so, and he's a member of the cartel. Whatever, yeah, exactly, So she started to make a list of the things that she knew, and then thanks to the mechanic that was let go during Karen's kidnapping, he was the one that confirmed some was there. Oh, Media met with him and got the details. Then Mediam cut her hair super short, died it a bright red and hopes that when she found Sama, he would not recognize her as Karen's mother, the woman he met at that restaurant. So then Medium spent hours looking through Karen's Facebook profile looking for clues, just clicking on tag picture of their tag picture, just slothing, looking for anything that would help her. After days of the search, and she finally found something. It was a picture taged with the name Sama, and it was him. She recognized him from her meeting at the restaurant, so she knew him. Yeah, she recognized him in the picture and he was with a young woman who was wearing a uniform, wearing a uniform of an ice cream shop in Suda, Victoria, where her son lived. She knew the uniform because she'd been there before, so then she was She went to sud Victoria and she stocked the store for weeks until she memorized the young woman's schedule, and she waited outside of each shift, waiting to see when Sam would show up because she knew he would. And when he finally did, she followed Sama and the ice cream worker. Yeah. Yeah, she was doing like legit detective work. Yeah. When he finally showed, she followed them to her house and she marked on the address. But she knew she needed more information than just an address. She needed like names, more information on him, anything, right, Yeah, So then she found one of her old government uniforms from years ago when she worked at a health clinic, a government health clinic. She put the uniform on, she used an old ID that still looked like legit, and she spent the day conducting a fake poll in the neighborhood, going door to door getting information on everyone, including Samma, oh my god, how does she think of this? Wow? Yeah, the determination and yeah, she got the basic information. With this information, she went to authorities local, state, federal. She tried them all, but no one was willing to help. I mean, it was a cartel case, like nobody wanted that. Yeah. Not to mention the people that were working with the cartel, because we know that's a thing too, So nobody wanted to help her until one police officer, one federal police officer, did. He remains anonymous in all of the articles. He never says his name, but he did see the following about her. When she pulled her files onto the table. I had never seen anything like it. The details and information gathered by this woman working alone were incredible. She had gone to every single level of government and they had slammed the door in her face to help her hunt down the people who took her daughter. It was the greatest privilege of my career. Oh that gave me chills. Oh my god, I know, and you know what, I would have remained anonymous too, follows him, So, oh, one hundred percent. The files, he mentions, though, she had like you know those folders to have you open them, and they like an accordion file I think is what they're called. Yeah, she had one of those, and that's where she put everything that she was learning into. So it was like a legit big case of files that she carried everywhere with her. So with this information, there was finally enough for an arrest warrant, but it took a while. So when the arrest warrant was finally issued. Sama was nowhere to be seen. I knew it, yeah, and this frustrated Medium, of course, but she continued her work to gather more intel on everyone. Eventually, though, Sama did turn up two hours away in sud Victoria. And it was September fifteenth, twenty fourteen, the day before Mexican Independence Day. And still on that day, there's festivities leading up to Elidito. Right, yeah, so places are still closed, there's still you know, things going on. And Louis, who had his own shop in Suda, Victoria, he was getting ready to close his own shop to celebrate when one last customer walked into his store. It was Samma. I fucking knew it. Oh my god, I know, I know. Leave him alone. Well, no, Sama didn't know who he was. He just walked in. Oh I'm sorry, okay. I thought he was gonna go kill him or something. No, no, he just walked in to buy some things. Didn't we police call some Okay, never mind, No, you're fine. Louis recognized him from his mom's files, so he immediately called Medium and then he followed Sama. Oh wow, and like did not lose trial of him until the police arrived to arrest him, and of course when the police arrested Sama, he faked out. He was like, I have a heart condition and he was like crying and screaming like he couldn't be arrested. Basically been a little bitch. I have no words. But he was arrested good, and then he folded. He started giving names, wow, yeah, everything. He filled the details that Mediam was missing in her files. So arresting Sama led police to then arrest Christian Jossa Gonzalez, who had just turned eighteen and was pretty young to be part of the cartel. That's young. Yeah yeah. And so when he was picked up and being interrogated, Medium sat outside of his interrogation room and he could hear Christian repeatedly asking for his own mom and repeatedly saying he was hungry. And Medium entered the room, gave Christian her own lunch, and then went and bought him a coke. Oh my god. Yeah, and the police were like, what are you doing? Let him suffer, like, yeah, you know, he did this, and then Medium told them like, I'm still the mother and that is a child, no matter what he did, because she's an amazing person. She's gonna make me cry. You're gonna cry. I cried. And after she did this, he started talking and it's I mean maybe because of the kindness she showed him. Yes, yeah, so yeah, he said everything. And he then said he could take them to the ranch where all the kidnapped were held, killed and buried. It was going to be like us, like this whole big operation a raid and Mexican marines and police work together during the raid, and they let Medium participate and she put on a marine uniform. Oh my god, I mean she she did all of frontwork for them, so they better let her write. And when they arrived at the ranch, it was like a scene out of a horror movie. There was a noose hanging from a tree. There was debris everywhere. Turns out there had been a firefight between other cartels there ten like ten days before this raid, and then they also went through a brief firefight. Oh wow, there was some cartel members that were killed. I think two female members were killed. No, sorry, they were found and the marines killed them on the spot. That's what happened, which they're not supposed to do, but they did because they're also kind of corrupt. Yeah. Yeah, And they found some people that were kidnapped and being held there. Sadly, Karen was not among them, and so the raid was semi successful. I mean, they saved some people, they found some remains. But Medium, of course she wasn't happy because Karen wasn't there. Yeah, And as she was looking around the ranch, she found a stack of personal belongings and among them there was a scarf that belonged to Karen and the sea cushion Karen used when she drove the family truck. So Karen had been there. Wow. After they analyzed and you know, identified the remains, they said Karen wasn't there, so she had to be somewhere else. Miriam had to keep looking. Right as they were leaving the ranch, Medium passed by a barbecue restaurant that's kind of at the entrance of the dirt road that leads to the ranch, okay, and she remembers this restaurant. She had been there two days after Karen's kidnapping with Acela and sitting outside of the restaurant at a table, there was a girl that Medium knew, Elvia Ulissa Bettencourt, and Elvia was sitting by herself sipping a coke. Mediam approached her and asked like, oh, have you heard about Karen. Everyone had by then, the whole city of San Fernando knew about Karen, and Elvia was like, no, I haven't heard what happened, So that's weird. It's suspicious, right yeah, And that's what Medium thought too, and it felt like a stab in the bag because Medium had known Elvia her entire life. Elvia had been abandoned by her own mother, and Mediam frequently helped her out, gave her Karen's old clothes, she looked out for her, and Elvia answering this was so suspicious because everyone knew what was happening. So Mediam left and when she got home, she returned to her research, and she discovered that Elvia was romantically involved with one of the suspected kidnappers of Karen, who happened to be in prison for a completely different reason. So Mediam went to that prison, and just like she had at the ice cream shop, she waited there every day for hours because she was like, Elvia is gonna visit this guy there together, like I know it. She did this for weeks. By this time, she had also found out that one of the ransom calls for Karen came from Elvia's house. Wow, Mediam's suspicions were right. Elvia finally showed up to visit her imprisoned boyfriend, and when she did, Mediam was ready to have her arrested. Media. I'm just getting it done, she is. So this was three cartel members involved in the knapping of Karen arrested. She crossed three names out of her list, but as she continued to investigate, her list grew and changed, because you know, she was researching. Yeah, and then during all of her research, she also began to work with other families of the disappeared. They began going to her because they saw what she was doing and what she was capable of too. Yeah, exactly. And it kind of reminds me of Maricella Escobelo Ortis as well, because when she started walking every single day to the judges offices protesting, and slowly she was joined by more and more people, like other family members would disappeared daughters, sisters, mothers, They started going to her too, And that's what happened here too. She began headn organization and this organization would grow to have six hundred families in it. Wow. Which is way too much. Yeah, so you know she was doing this, She was doing her research, and then her research yielded another name, Enrique Joel Rubio Flores, and she learned that he had left the cartel and became a born again Christian. So she found his hometown travel to it. It is three hours away from San Fernando. It's Aldama, and so she drove over there and she met Edriquae's grandmother at the local church, and Rique's grandmother told Mediam that Adrika had always been trouble, but he finally found God. He was attending church again. So medium knew, well, he's going to show up to mass. She was right, so she started attending mass herself, waiting for him to show up. When he finally showed up, she had him arrested and Angiquae's family begged her not to do this, to have mercy. Media. Yeah, exactly, that's what she says. She was like, No, where was his compassion when he took my daughter. You can't just say I'm a born again Christian and everything you did wrong is absolved. Not right. No, So the only way to hold them accountable is the criminal justice system, and that's what she's doing. She could have done worse. She could have killed them, like she could have killed all these people, yes, exactly, Yeah, and instead she's living it up to the justice system, which is not always right, you know, exactly exactly, And so yeah, she had him arrested and now at this point, she's two years into her fight for justice for her daughter. God, two whole years. Yeah. And it's the same thing that we said in the Maricella Escoblo or this episode when we talked about women murdered in the military, about Benesatgui Yen's mom and family members, there's no chance to even sit with your grief, yeah, because they're over here fighting against whole ass governments, whole ass cartils. There's no yeah, no chance to grief. And that's gonna take a toll, Like, oh yeah, I can't, I can't even imagine. So, yeah, two years after Karen's disappearance, she's still researching, she's continuing with her list, and the next person on her list was a former florist turned cartel member. She had even bought flowers from him when he was a florist, when he was before he joined the cartel, when he was like just a struggling florist in the streets. He claims he had been forced into the cartel and then he escaped. So when Mediam finally tracked him down, he was selling sunglasses and CDs near the US Mexico border. He immediately recognized Mediam when she was approaching him, so he ran. Medium ran after him, tackled him down, held him at gunpoint wow, and yelled, if you move, I'll shoot, and she contacted the police and she held them there for an hour until the police arrived and arrested him. And you know, sad, and it's true, things like that do happen. People are forcing into the cartel. But again, he did something wrong and he has to be held accountable, so exactly, and she's doing this, yeah, because again she could have killed them, Yeah, no, for real, And so yeah, she continues with her lists. At this point, she's three years into her fight for justice. Almost ten members or actually by this point ten members that were involved with the kidnapping had been arrested by her, basically. And then it was March twenty second, twenty seventeen, there was a prison break in Suda, Victoria. Twenty nine prisoners had escaped by digging a tunnel. Most were members of Los Tetas, and the ten she had released or she had sorry imprisoned, also escaped, including one of the actual killers of her daughter. Two sorry two of them including them. One had been captured one of the killers, but one was still at large, and Medium had requested protection from the police. But even at this point, she said she wasn't afraid to die, because she died the day they killed Karen. Terrible, because I know that grief and especially when someone is taken from you that way, it's not you know, natural death. It changes people. But she, you know, she still has other even though they are adults, other adult children, you know, and it's like like her other daughter, said, the mom that she knew died or was gone whatever her words or or something like that. Yeah, it wasn't the same woman anymore. Yeah, no, you're right. So even after the prison break, Mediam was not done. She even when asked like when is it enough, she was like, mautas, there were still two bitches left on her list, That's what she would tell people. And these were the two women that she knew were involved. So she had finally found one of the two women, La Guera, so that's what she was known by. She had escaped or left the cartel life. She was now a nanny in Sudha, Victoria, and Mediam found her sat outside of her house waiting, sitting there, you know, listening to the radio and just waiting for her to come out. Her car battery died while she was doing this, and Louis arrived to jump her car, and then they watched the house together. And then when don broke, Medium called the police. Laguera left her house and Medium ran after her, and she like like whata ran Medium chased and then she pulled Lagua down to the ground by her hair and held her there until the police arrived. She did, however, break her ankle in the process of tackling Medium. And I mean she is not a young woman. She's in her late fifties at this point, fifty seven by this time to be catching up to people and tackling them and shit, yeah, so yeah, she broke her ankle. By this point three years later, Medium had also been to the ranch three times and had insisted for it to be checked for Karen's remains again and again. And this is when finally they re searched among the first set of remains that were found in that first raid, and they found that one of those femurs had belonged to Karen. Wow. So now it was like officially confirmed Karen was dead. And they kept searching on Medium's assistance, and they found more bones, I guess more bones, and it wasn't a complete skeleton. So Medium insisted they kept searching until they had all of Karen, but they still held the funeral because they had most of her now, so they held the funeral for her. God, that's terrible. It's terrible, it really is. And then on May tenth, twenty seventeen, so about a month after finding Laguera and breaking her ankle, Midame was still in crutches. It was Mother's Day, May tenth, They had been celebrating the day and it was ten twenty one pm. She was parking heading back home. She was finally living with her husband again, they had reconciled. She parked on the street got out of her car when a white Nissan truck pulled up next to her and fired thirteen times. Yeah. When he heard the shots, her husband ran out of the house. He found her lane on the ground. Her hand had been reaching for her pistol that she always carried with her, and he called an ambulance and she sadly passed away in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. It's terrible. I'm like, how much loss can one family take? You know what I mean? Yeah, And I I have chills because it's like it just reminds of Mariicella Escobelo Ortis, who fought and fought and fought against such a corrupt, unjust system and in the end she was also killed, likely by the same people that killed her daughter. And she's not the only one, obviously, because now we're talking about medium who ended up the same fate as Karen. Yeah, and even the whole like Nuna mass movement that I think we've talked about this maybe not, but it began in Afgentina, the whole color of purple, and I want to say that it was again a mother who lost her daughter in this manner. I think you're right, And then she is also killed in the same way. So it's not like just Mexico, obviously, but it's still so I don't know, infuriating, I guess, yeah. I mean, like femicide is alive and real out there. Yeah, that's why International Women's Say is such a big deal. That's what it's really for, Okay people, Well, not that it was working class women, but you know, violence, rampant violence against women internationally is a part of it. Against that and awareness of that. So that's why it pisses me off when people act like it's a Mother's Day type of day for women and it's like, no, we're not celebrating women this day. I'm sorry to say, it's not to celebrate women. Do not give your white flowers for National Women's Day. Why don't you go and I don't know, do something to uplift and fight against the oppression of women worldwide instead? Because what is given your wife flowers? Do nothing? Yeah? Yeah, become a feminist instead? Not that hard. Why don't you clean your house instead? Yeah? No, okay, brent over and go on. So her death was a shock to the community. There were protests and men injustice for her death. Even the governor of Tamaulipas himself went on the record saying like, we're gonna find her killers, and two men involved in her murder were arrested two months after her death, but they weren't. They may have been the ones who like killed her, but they were not acting alone because these were two eighteen and nineteen year olds. Oh yeah, the definitely were not. They were given these orders by someone. There were one hundred percent more people involved, more men involved in her death, and to this day they remained free. No one else hasn't been investigated. And on top of that, those two, the eighteen and nineteen year old received eight ten to fifteen year sentence. So on top of that, her family, especially Louise, her son, who has pretty much taken over her work. But it's afraid of course. I mean, at this point his sister Karen now his mother explicitly targeted for her search and fight for justice. Yeah, he even has said this is a joke of a sentence like ten to fifteen years for the death of his mother. And I mean the other people involved remain at large. But yeah, he took over the group, the six hundred member group of other missing kidnapped people. But after her death, the group's activity diminished to the fear caused by her death because obviously it's scary, and what message are they sending, Like, you become too loud, you become too active, you say too much, we're gonna kill you and we can and we can get away with it, and so far they have so yeah, the group is still still there, but yeah, the activity has lessened. And in fact, it wasn't until another boy was kidnapped in the same town, San Fernando, that the group began to act again. That boy is Luciano, and the family even knew when they all knew each other, and see when he was kidnapped, what year, very recently, three years ago, Yeah, and it was like such a such a similar case. Trucks pulled up next to his took him. The family paid the ransoms just like they were instructed to, and the cartel still killed him. And they were like, we're not gonna do the same thing, same thing medium is did because like they were scared because it was all still so fresh. Her own death was what four or five years before his. Yeah, but they didn't stay quiet. They marched. They recorded a message with Luciano's mom, like asking for him back. They put her on speakers and they would drive around town. Oh my god, playing it. It's so sad. They would play this out loud. They interrupted like government meetings, protesting. They did a lot. But they what they were like, we're not going to do is track them down, and like what Medium did because they were like scared. And I think the dad he was interviewed by the New York Times and he says like, we can't all be like Medium, and I commend I don't know that's the very word, commend her for her bravery. But I'm not that brave, Like I'm I'm scared, and look what happened to her. Well even honestly, even then, protesting in this way, even that could make them a target because you know, it's and it's unfortunate. But and I could of course doAnd what he's saying about and not everyone like you shouldn't have. Medium should not have had to do what she did, and this family should also even like ideally, you know, ideally nothing like this would happen, but and it did. But like ideally the government would respond the way it's opposed to. Law enforcement would investigate the way they're supposed to instead of being in bed with the cartels. Yeah, exactly. And it wasn't until this happened with Luciano that the group that Medium started really started picking up again with their attempts to fight back protest. So, yeah, it's and and her funeral, thousands attended her funeral. They all knew who she was. She was buried next to Karen and the ough in a moment. Yeah, they have these like I don't know if they's cedar trees, but it was this part of the pantheon of the cemetery with like trees above it, and they're next to each other. There are like three plots down from Luciano. Oh wow, it's terrible. And even in death, Medium managed to catch the last percent on her list. Really, even after her death. Yeah, so one month after her death, authorities in Vera Cruz found the final person on Medium's list. They found the other puta Yeah, exactly, and they only found her because of Medium's intel. That's why they knew where to look. So she was a former member of loss ettas she had fled to Vera Cruz. She was involved in beating and torturing Karen during her captivity. Then she fled to Vera Cruz to raise her son. And yeah, Mediam did the work, gave it to Vera Cruz officials and they found her with Medium's information good two weeks before her own death. Medium had updated her WhatsApp status to say esperando and in Piena, despite so much pain, I continue to believe and hope in God, and I don't plan to stop. She just died. I have not been able to bury my daughter completely. And again they were still missing parts of Karen. They did the funeral because they had most of her, but not all of her. That's a big deal for a lot of people. Well, isn't that belief, the Catholic belief if I'm remembering right, that you had to be whole, your body has to be whole to answer heaven or something like that. Yeah, I think so. And it also has it's a like, I know it's a thing with Muslims too, because I know that's such a big thing in Palistan right now, where like, no, a lot of people are not complete, and it's such another insult on top of that because now their beliefs are yeah, yeah, I mean they can't you know, go to heaven. And yeah, they kept searching for her or trying to search for her, demanding the authorities to search for her. You can find a bronze statue of Medium in Laplasa, Central of Sanfedna and there's a plaque that reads apprendage no trifolia Elo. I learned that courage. It's not that absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not one who does not feel fear, but the one who conquers fear. Although I feel like they should have put a woman, not man, but I was gonna say, and the statue of a woman, yeah, woman, But yeah, she is still loved by you know, so many and remembered and visited. That plaque of hers it's that, yeah, it's there. And then yeah, it's just like we've been saying this whole time, it's just a tragic, tragic case. Like I've seen people covering it and they're like, oh, it's so inspiring, but to me, it's just so sad and unfair. And obviously this is a strong, strong, fierce woman who had to do this, but it's like she shouldn't have had to do this. Yeah, it makes me think of there's I think I've talked about this before too, but there's a clip and I don't know her name because I can't remember it right now, but there's a clip that goes viral almost every like international Woman's day of a woman, and it was when the march in Sudad, Mexico got like violent and women like broke and burned down like buildings, which honestly I'm here for I'm here for it. But there's one woman who says, who cares? Who cares? If I burn down the world? Like you? She was my world and you took her and you're not doing anything about it. And obviously it's on Spanish and she's like a mom whose daughter was killed and she's saying this, and all these stories just make me think of her, or also of Veneseki Yen's mom being you know, outside for a hood by herself. With the Signina Maya who we've talked about, Yes, yeah, all these women, just all the women we've talked about, Yeah yeah, fighting not a chance to grieve, Yeah, and honestly, like going up against the world for their children. It's just sad, it is it is, And yeah, definitely the main takeaway also for me, like you, is not how inspiring it is, and of course it is. That's not to diminish that, but it shouldn't have to be, like you said, inspiring, like these women, these mothers, these families should have been allowed the time to grief and to process and to heal, and instead they had to fight and fight and fight and fight, and then they were killed for it. Yeah. And then after all that, they were killed many times by the same people that killed their own daughters. Sorry, my voice is done, but yeah, that was the case of Medium Rodriguez. And I'll put pictures up here so everyone can see her bright, fiery hair that matches her fiery spirit. Yeah. Eugh, but yeah, I guess I wasn't gonna do a listener story, but I was like, you know what, I guess we should have like something to undepress me specifically. So now we're gonna move on to our listener story. And if you have a story that you want us to read, you can email at Pookito gmail dot com. You can dm us on any of ourse socials. You can assimit it on Discord. We have a channel that says submit your scary story. You can also call the a Spooky hotline. That number is in the show notes, or you can record a voice Mella and email it all those other options. Carmen's gonna read it because my voice is done. I've been sick, I've been I'm a little better, but but my voice is done. Yes, so yeah, all right. So here goes to the listener's story. Heichi, guys, big fan of y'all. I really have loved the podcast I listen to Spotify. I have two stories to tell you. I don't know if you find it as spooky or not, but I thought they did to me. To start on the first story or event, it happened to my aunt who lives in Guano, Nonrancho. This happened a long time ago. One night she was coming back from work, and she would walk every day from work to the house, and one specific night, she was walking near this baseball field and she said that she saw this figure of a man leaning against a tree, and she passed beside him and told him buena nochez, good night. And she said that the moment he lived in his head, he had red glowing eyes and she just walked faster home. Oh no, that's that was Satanas. That was Satanas himself. Oh my god, that's so creepy. Yeah, that's terrifying. I definitely would have ran home. I would have thrown up. Yep. That's scary. Okay, So the next one, my next story, happened to my sister, my cousin, my niece, and my nephew. This happened back in twenty fifteen in the Rancho, where I'm from in Juanato. I went to Mexico to celebrate my kinsenera. And one day when we were in practice and we had to cut it short because it started to rain and didn't stop until dark. One of my damas couldn't be picked up by her sister because it was muddy and the motorcycles could slide it through the mud. So we decided to walk her home. Makes sense, And then in parentheses parentheses, she says, my mom didn't know we were going to walk all the way to our house, which was far from where we were having their practice. We walked her and when we were coming back, we walked through the baseball field. Oh no, not the baseball field, the one not the ant okay, wow. And we were holding umbrellas because it started to drizzle, and we started to feel like something was flying or I don't know how to explain it, but something moved the umbrellas from our hands, and then we started hearing something far like moving through the bushes. I just remember we were so scared that we decided to not look back, and I would have done the same m hm. And we just ran because we just kept feeling something following us, and in our minds we just kept saying, it's nothing and it was just some cows following us. But my cousin looked back, she saw nothing following us, and we just ran home. Till this day, I just want to keep it in my head that it was a cow following us. It was the cows. Sure, if that makes you feel better, it was a cow. I would have told myself something like that too, like, oh it was put on as bacas, like, don't worry, it was just it was just the cow's moving behind. Oh my god, it's horrible that it was the same baseball field because that immediately makes me think that no, sorry, it was not the cows. It was actually it was set a nass. Seriously, Yeah, that was creepy. Wow. Okay, well, thank you so much for your story. That was for sure a spooky, very spooky. Yeah. We I got scared for sure, Yeah me too. Wow. Okay, well, Carmen, do you have any spooky recommendations? I actually don't, Okay, me neither, Like I said last episode. I've been depressed. I haven't been doing anything. I did listen to the newest episode of Mora's Madita, So I guess that's in a spooky recommendation that you've already recommended. I had many times, many times, so it's fine. One of my favorite episodes was still When and When it was on there with them. Oh, that was a really good episode. But the one I just listened to at the end, it was hell funny. They told the guests, They're like, well, hopefully more scary things keep happening to you so you can come back and tell us about them. Yeah, they do that a lot. It was like the first time I noticed that they said that it was funny. Really Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not I haven't even been listening to any of the podcast episodes, like nothing, except been watching Lucifer. I've been doing that. So I haven't even played Stardo Valley. Wow, there's a new update that's coming out soon. I'm hoping to be out of my funk by then so I can start a new game. Yeah, hopefully you do that. Yeah it's sarcastic, but it wasn't. That's okay. I know your voice, so okay, cool, okay, and then I guess one update. We're almost ready to record our book Club episode on Silver Nightrade. Oh for sure. I'm going to finish in a few days my notes. Yes, hopefully MJ will join us for that. She finished the book, she has thoughts Okay, she's written the thoughts down. Okay. I be her first episode back. Well, I'm looking forward to that, me too, Me too, But yeah, she'll be back soon. I think when she's back, it'll be the three of us, because I really want to do video. I've been insisting on it, and MJ doesn't want to do it, so but Carmen does. Carmen's fine with it. She's contractually obligated to do it anyway. Yeah, it's part of my contract. Yeah, it doesn't exist anyway. So I'm thinking that what we're gonna do is have me and Karmen on video and like MJ, just like a still picture and we'll put like a little soundwave. So I figured that would look better on video than just like me and a picture. Yeah, it'll probably once MG comes back, it'll be the three of us hosting. So cool, very excited. I don't have an exact date from official what was it? Official guest co hosts from unofficial official guest co hosts to official co hosts. Wow, Wow, I'm moving up. Wow, moving up in the world in the spooky world. Yeah, oh, I'm so sorry. It's this is off topic. But when I said moving up in the spooky world, that made me think of did you see that Olivia Rodrigo was giving out condoms or B six plum It was either B six that's the vitamin plan B. Yeah, it's the vitamin plunt B. That's what I was speaking of, not the vitamin in her concert. And then I don't know what like Christian thing it was, but they called her the high Priestess of Titanic Children to sacrifice some ship like that, and I just thought that was hilarious. Should that be our new title? That's I'm sorry, that's already reserved for Olviya. Let you go. Yeah, it's already hears you're right, And then that made me think of, sorry, this is more topic. Do you remember seeing this video of this guy? What is he doing? And I forgot what he's doing? And he's like, he calls her a Mexican, but I haven't seen that, and he says the wrong. I'm gonna have to find it because I'm explaining it really bad. I know one thing about me. I'm gonna do some reviews. They got a strawberry, It's like reviewing a Crumble cookies. Olivia Rodriguez, the Mexican girl who'll be singing all them sad songs. Oh my god, that's good. That's good. I'm glad I waited for that. You so, yeah, that was a long, needless It's fine. I needed to hear it. So no, I was gonna say, you're moving up in the Christina Verse because that's what my all my podcasts are, Oh, in the Christina Verse. Okay, yeah, our podcast together are part of the christina Verse because it's shorter than trying to say Christina Carmen Verse. Yeah yeah, yeah. And now I'm the co host of a third podcast, the Christina Verse. In the Christina Verse. Yeah yeah, that actually reminds me. Starting starting May, there's going to be a new podcast in the Christina Verse. Oh, starting in May. Yeah. I just released the trailer early so that I would all be ready for in May, because the first episode is going to be about single to my own. Oh, it's called a little bit, and like the title says, it's a little bit of it's gonna be a ten minute episode daily podcast only weekdays, not weekends, where I don't know, I just talk about things that are too short. Free story as a known but yeah, like the real story behind Syincle actually that could have been its own, like ten part series, but the real story behind Sinco and Mayo into like a ten minute episode. The history of La into a ten minute episode. Why are not just called nachos? Okay, things that I wonder uh my Google searches. Basically that's what it is. And there's it's just me very short episode, no bad words, so kid friendly you could say, but yeah, just either history, geography obviously Latin America, well a little bit of what could say a little bit. Yeah, you can find the trailer up right now. But again it's not there's no episodes until May. I just needed to do everything early because I'm gonna write like all of a bunch of episodes and have them ready. No, that's exciting. I am excited. Yeah, yeah, I am okay. So yeah, that's it for updates. M J should be back soon. I don't have an exact dates. People were asking, and I was like, did I know. I'm pretty sure I said it, but I think it was a very brief like, oh, she's stepping away for a moment, and I thought she was going to be back sooner. I do remember you saying it. Yeah, but yeah, she stepped away for a moment with family stuff. Then her computer broke and but she's ready. I don't have an exact date, but again, she should be back very soon. That's it. Don't cross baseball fields at ranchol and if you do, don't look back and just run. Look back in And it was the cows, for sure, the cows and yestya. Spooky will catch everyone next time. Bye. Spooky Tales is hosted by Christina and MJ, produced and edited by Christina. Everything is written and researched by Christina MJ and with the help of Don Shout Out Don. Thank you so much for your help. If you love what you hear, consider leving us a five star review. If you don't, then do not leave us anything. Please. If you want short spooky stories, follow us on TikTok at spooky Tails. You can also find some of the same videos posted on Instagram and that is at Spooky Tails. Everything is linked in the show notes. If you want bonus episodes, stickers, exclusive stickers, might I add, then consider joining our patreon. Go over to patreon dot com slash Spooky Tails. There are over at least fifteen bonus episodes right now, and we do at least one a month, sometimes two, depending on how we are feeling. If you want to support the podcast and don't or can't or don't want to, that's fine, join the patreon, then consider getting some merch. We have an adorable beanie that I love. I absolutely adore it. It's so comfy, it's warm, it has a spooky in Old English letters. There's also a baseball hat in the same way as spooky and Old English letters, and that's what I wear in the summers. They're both awesome hat. And there's other things in there, like the no Mama's shirts, which is a very popular shirt. If you like history, check out my other podcast, Istodia's Unknown, hosted with the unofficial official guest co host of a Spooky Tales, Carmen. And if you like no velast, checkout Novelaskosito, which Carmen and I also host together. And yeah, we love every single listen every single as spooky. Thank you so much, Stay as spooky.