Margarita Cuevas was murdered in 2022, but her body was in the morgue for two years due to negligence.

MEXICO CITY (apro).- Institutions dedicated to searching for people in Mexico City lack communication and coordination with other states, which affects the location of people and the identification of bodies. The most recent example of this is the disappearance of Margarita Cuevas Suárez.

On June 4, 2022, Margarita Cuevas Suárez was last seen in the Ampliación Tepepan neighborhood of the Xochimilco municipality. Her body was found 13 days later on the Morelos state border, but authorities did not notify the victim's family, and she was not identified until December 2024.

After her disappearance, the affected family, like many others in the Mexican capital, began searching for Margarita, a member of the LGBTTTIQ+ community. They filed a missing person report with the Mexico City Search Commission and distributed a file detailing her characteristics: fair complexion, high forehead, dark brown eyes, and a wide nose. They began a series of independent investigations to determine her whereabouts. While they searched, Margarita Cuevas Suárez's body remained at the Morelos Institute of Forensic Sciences (INCIFO), without undergoing any identification process.

It took two and a half years for the remains to be located, not through the authorities' fault, but thanks to the search initiatives undertaken by indirect victims of disappearances in the Mexican capital, who are trying to compensate for the lack of response they receive from the authorities.

On December 6, a group of searching mothers and fathers from the collective "Una Luz en el Camino" (A Light on the Path) reviewed the forensic records of the Morelos State Attorney General's Office (FGEM). There, they found a match between a body with two gunshot wounds and the profile of Cuevas Suárez, who had 14 tattoos and was 19 years old at the time of his disappearance.

Her sister immediately went to identify the body, and then a new fight began: the search for justice in Margarita's case, now due to the serious omissions of institutions, which kept the family in suspense over her disappearance, searching for more than two years.

The beginning of revictimization

At the Morelos Prosecutor's Office, Margarita Cuevas Suárez's loved ones faced revictimization. First, there was the personal, physical, and mental devastation left by the pain of her disappearance: On the same day her body was identified, Margarita's mother, Guadalupe Suárez, lost her battle with cervical cancer.

Secondly, there was the undignified conditions in which the remains were found. An anthropologist was able to inform them that the body was missing teeth and bone fragments from the left hand, which should have been located at the discovery site, as they are recorded in the expert reports.

This only meant extending the time the family waited to return Margarita Cuevas Suárez home and give her a proper burial.

The goodbye

On May 9, family and friends of "Maguitos," as she was known, bid her final farewell during a mass officiated by Anglican Father Arturo Carrasco, who is dedicated to providing spiritual guidance to searching families in Mexico.

Margarita was finally laid to rest. Her family prepared a white coffin for her, surrounded by candles and wreaths. A banner hung in front of it bears a message reflecting the efforts families are putting into locating their loved ones, without the support of authorities: "Once we screamed, until we found you, and that's how it was."

The young woman was sent off with love, but also amid a cry for justice extended to other searching families who don't wait for the state to find their missing children; they go out and find them themselves.

The investigations of the case

In response to the abuses suffered by the searching family, the Morelos Prosecutor's Office committed to opening an investigation to determine what happened to the missing body parts.

After the body was discovered, which had two bullet wounds, the indirect victims demanded that the case be investigated as a lesbofeminicide, since Margarita Cuevas Suárez could have been the victim of a hate crime based on her sexual orientation.

Meanwhile, the investigation to find those responsible is being led by the specialized prosecutor's office for femicides of the Attorney General's Office of Mexico City (FGJCDMX).

As of press time, there has been no statement from the Prosecutor's Offices and Search Commissions of both states involved to explain the lack of coordination that affected the identification and location of Margarita Cuevas Suárez.