TAXCO, MEXICO – A woman suspected of kidnapping and murdering a young girl was brutally beaten to death by a mob in the tourist city of Taxco, Mexico on Thursday. The incident occurred just hours before the city’s renowned Holy Week procession.
The mob was incited by the disappearance of an 8-year-old girl on Wednesday. Her body was discovered on a road on the outskirts of the city early Thursday. Security footage seemingly showed a woman and a man placing a package, believed to be the girl’s body, into a taxi.
The mob, in response, surrounded the woman’s residence on Thursday, threatening to forcibly remove her. Police managed to get the woman onto a police pickup truck, but the crowd, seemingly intimidating the officers, pulled her from the vehicle and onto the street where they brutally assaulted her until she was motionless.
The woman was later confirmed dead due to her injuries by the Guerrero state prosecutors’ office. The pavement where the incident occurred was left stained with blood.
A member of the mob, who identified herself as Andrea, blamed the incident on the government. “This is the result of the bad government we have,” she said. “This isn’t the first time this kind of thing has happened,” she said, referring to the murder of the girl, “but this is the first time the people have done something.”
Mayor of Taxco, Mario Figueroa, expressed his shared outrage over the killing. He confirmed that a total of three people, including the woman and two men, were beaten by the mob and were later taken away by police. The state prosecutors’ office reported that the two men were hospitalized, but their conditions are currently unknown.
Despite the violence, the Good Friday eve religious procession, a centuries-old tradition in the old silver-mining town, proceeded as planned Thursday night. However, the earlier incident cast a shadow over the solemn procession.