The morning of Thursday, September 14, 1978 in San Juan de los Lagos, Jalisco, began like many others. Milky skies, barely rising heat and a dense silence broken only by the distant hum of a broken fan. At 7:15, Ramón Herrera Hernández, a 36-year-old mechanic, a reserved and cautious man, closed the door of his small workshop in the El Rosario neighborhood with a rusty padlock.
He was wearing his faded blue polo shirt with oil stains, the same one he had worn for weeks, and was carrying a lunch box of corrugated sheet metal with traces of red paint. He told his neighbor, without much intention of speaking, that he was taking an urgent order in Lagos de Moreno and would be back at dusk. It was the last time anyone saw him alive.
Ramón had a reputation for being serious, but obedient. He didn’t drink, he didn’t go out, he didn’t talk more than necessary. His world was his workshop, his Chevrolet C10 model 73 truck and the machines he dismantled as if he were removing watches. However, that Thursday, there was something different about his appearance. He avoided the baker’s gaze, walked faster and started the machine with a lack that was not his.
The disappearance was noticed that night when his mother, a charming woman, with broken hands and devotion to the Virgin of San Juan, walked to the workshop, when she saw that he had not returned. The truck was not there. The gate was still locked with its own padlock, but inside the lights remained on. On the tool bench, a pewter cup with cold coffee and a letter with no addressee.
It was written in shaky handwriting and stained with ink. The only thing that hurt me was the silence. For the first 48 hours, the local police assumed it was a voluntary escape or a minor settling of scores. There was no formal complaint, until the following Monday.
The first file was filed under the category of missing person. His mother, weeping, swore that Ramón would never leave his workshop, not even for money or fear. What no one knew at the time was that under the dry soil of a forgotten ravine a few kilometers from the Moreno lakes, quietly lay the key to a story that would take three decades to emerge.
In the early days, the disappearance of Ramón Herrera Hernández was a constant rumor among the residents of San Juan de los Lagos. No one understood why such a reserved and methodical man, with such a predictable life, could simply disappear. His mother, Doña Ernestina, walked the streets with a framed photo in her hands, visiting police stations, parishes, gas stations.
Every night he leaves a lit candle in front of the workshop and prays in a low voice, as if those prayers could cross the fields, the mountains, the kilometers of silence. The local police acted without enthusiasm. In their initial report they mentioned that the disappearance could be related to some unpaid debt or a sentimental dispute.
There is no indication of violence,” one of the first minutes says. In fact, there is no indication of anything. His truck did not appear. His wallet was not used. His signature did not reappear in any way. A dry blot, as if he had been torn from reality with surgical precision.
By December of that same year, the search had been reduced to the desperate efforts of his mother and Rogelio, her young apprentice, who had put up posters in nearby towns with a black-and-white image of the mechanic. The truck, a wine-red Chevrolet C10 model 73, was considered a valuable piece, but no one had found it. Vague theories were considered, that he had absconded with someone else’s money, that he had witnessed something improper, that he had been mistaken for someone else.
None of them had come forward. In 1981, a man with a northern accent called from a pay phone in Aguascalientes, saying he had seen Ramón at a notorious boarding house. When the police arrived, they found a confused alcoholic, who had no identification. In 1991, a retired former traffic agent said he had stopped a similar truck in the 70s, but the files were incomplete and the trail was lost.
In 1999, an anonymous complaint claimed that the truck was being used with fake license plates in Tepatitlán. A patrol was sent. They found a burned-out vehicle in a ravine, but the serial number was filed. Again, no conclusion. Over the years, the case became a shadow. New police officers did not know how to pronounce the full names of the missing.
The workshop was closed, covered up and then dismantled to build a chain pharmacy. Rogelio moved to León and never spoke of it again. Doña Ernestina died in 2003 in her bed with a lit candle next to her and a picture of her son taped to the wall. She did not know anything. On her grave, someone painted with lime.
She did not leave, she was swallowed. No one erased that inscription. San Juan de los Lagos grew, but Ramón’s case remained. Like many other stories of men missing on back roads. The archive was moved to a court warehouse in Tepic and has been dusty for three decades, but the silence has not been forgotten. Something is waiting underground.
In September 2008, after a powerful storm in the Lagos de Moreno region, everything changed. The rain washed away a section of dry soil on an unnamed rural road, opening a ditch several meters deep. Below, rusty and covered in roots, a piece of metal with recognizable curved lines appeared.
A farmer looking for firewood saw it shining in the mud and alerted the police. It was the back of an old truck, half buried, with paint worn away by the years. No one knows yet, but time is beginning to dig up the truth. On Monday, September 22, 2008, on a dusty path that crosses the border between the Ejido El Platanar and the dry fields of La Estrella, Tomás Lerma, a 63-year-old farmer, was walking with his machete over his shoulder, searching for dry branches for firewood. After the previous week’s rains, several roads in the area were blocked by mud and landslides. It was as he approached a ravine torn apart by the storm that he noticed a metallic sheen between the exposed roots and the wet mud. At first he thought it was an old tire or the side of a rusty trailer, but when he cleared the brush covering it with his machete, he revealed what appeared to be the top corner of a truck, its paint completely stripped away by rust and its hood sunk beneath a cracked rock. The discovery, silent and vague like a whisper swallowed by the ground, disturbed Tomás. With nothing else to do, he returned to town and informed the Lagos de Moreno command. The next day, Tuesday morning, two state agents and a forensic expert went to the area with a shovel, yellow tape, and a portable flashlight.
The discovery, silent and vague like a whisper swallowed by the earth, disturbed Tomás. Without further ado, he returned to town and informed the Lagos de Moreno command. The next day, Tuesday morning, two state agents and a forensic expert went to the scene with a shovel, yellow tape, and a portable flashlight.
After more than 3 hours of manual removal, a half-buried vehicle emerged, a Chevrolet C10 truck, old model, clearly damaged, no wheels, no mirrors, with a collapsed rear bumper. Inside there were debris, branches, caked earth, but the chassis and part of the structure still retained the distinctive design lines of the 70s.
It had no visible license plates, but the serial number engraved on the inner side of the chassis on the driver’s side was still partially legible. After carefully cleaning the rusted metal and photographing it, the expert compared the digits with the state database of old vehicles. Then a file filed decades earlier jumped out. The truck matched one reported missing in 1978, linked to a forgotten name.
Ramón Herrera Hernández. The case, dormant for more than 30 years, had lain dormant under layers of institutional indifference. No one in the Regional Prosecutor’s Office remembered Ramón. The truck was taken away with a crane at noon. When it was moved, the loose soil exposed the driver’s door and part of the vehicle’s floor.
The interior, melted by humidity, smelled of rancid metal, rotten rubber, of confinement. There was no trace of the original seat or steering wheel, but under the back seat, surprisingly intact, one of the agents found a kind of makeshift compartment. It was a rectangular cavity covered by a sheet of metal riveted and sealed with hardened pitch. When they carefully opened it, they found several stacked pieces of banknotes.
These are old pesos from the ’70s. With the image of Miguel Hidalgo printed on thick paper, they are damp, stained with mo, glued by time, some almost destroyed. The total number was uncountable at the time, but experts estimate that it must have originally been several million.
The money, clearly hidden, could not have been there by accident. This was money that had been hidden, preserved, and designed to remain hidden for a long time. An embarrassing silence fell over those present. [Music] One of the agents suggested searching the rest of the vehicle before moving it.
There they noticed that the floor behind the chassis had a welded sheet. Very different from the others, with improvised weld marks. The forensic expert recommended not touching it at the site. The truck was secured and sent to the facilities of the Guadalajara Forensic Medical Service with armed guard and a protection order. The case was assigned to the Prosecutor’s Office of Property Crimes. The news was barely leaked to the local press.
The newspaper La Región published a brief note. There is a truck buried with old money in Barranco de Jalisco. However, that line was enough to reach the ears of Rogelio, Ramón’s former apprentice, who was still living in León, a few days later. Seeing the file photo published in the note, he recognized the dent on the left side of the rear bumper.
Decidió presentarse ante la fiscalía. con voz temblorosa”, he said, “Esa era la troca del maestro Ramón. Nadie más tenía una igual. Three days after the discovery, on September 25, 2008, the truck was inspected in a closed nave of the Forensic Medical Service of Guadalajara. The procedure was carried out by fiscal Leticia Muñoz with the presence of two forensic experts, a criminologist and a physical anthropologist.
The only interest was the deteriorated money, from which they had managed to recover more than 800 partially legible bills, sino la mysterious lamina soldered al fundo del chasis, una metallica sin tornillos, fixed with irregular welding, como si alguien had improvizado un escondite con urgencia o miedo.
With specialized tools and cameras recording each angle, the technicians began cutting the board. El olor que emergió fue penetrante, ácido, inconfundible, una mezcla de óxido, encierro y decomposición añeja. Tras retirar completamente la covertera, encontraron lo que parica una una vidad rectangular de unos 70 cm de profundidad. En su interior, envueltos en bolsas negras de plástico deterioradas, yacían resto humanos incompletos.
First, large hues were visible, then fragments of fabric and more at the bottom of the skull in a lateral position with the mandible displaced. The fabric, destroyed by time, still conserves vestiges of a blue shirt. Una pequeña placa de identificación de aluminio colgando de un cordon oxidado decía R herrera H.
There were no doubts for the fiscal, they were still the remains of the mechanic who disappeared 30 years ago. The autopsy was complicated by the advanced state of decomposition and prolonged exposure to the closed environment. Sin embargo, los análisis antropológicos preliminares establecieron correspondence in age, complexion and stature with Ramón Herrera Hernández.
In addition, bone samples were extracted for mitochondrial ADN analysis, which would be compared with preserved tissues of his mother. Still available in an old sample taken in the civil hospital during his last internment in 2003. The revelation shocked the researchers. Ya no se trataba de una simple disaparición ni de dinero escondido por contrabandistas.
There was a body, a name, a crime carefully silenced. The compartment where the corpse was found seemed to have been designed to remain invisible for years. In parallel, the experts analyzed the bills. More than 40 fajos conservaban fragmentos de huellas dactilares, aunque muy degradadas.
Algunos de ellos estaban impresos en papel de seguridad usado entre 1973 y 1975, lo que reforzaba la teoría de que el dinero había sido durante esa decade. Uno de los fajos, atado con una liga azul completamente fossilizada tenía una inscripción barely visible en uno de los bordes. RDC 878. Esa sigla reactivó una sospecha antigua.
During the initial investigations of the 70s, there were unconfirmed rumors that Ramón was linked to a money laundering group through mechanic workshops in the Altos region. One of the names that appeared in those anonymous complaints was the then commander Rodolfo del Sid, head of the traffic department in Lagos de Moreno in 1978.
Aunque nunca fue formally investigated, su nombre aparecía en un par de denuncias ciudadanas que hablaban de briberos, desapariciones encubiertas y favores a narcotraficantes locales. Muñoz solicited immediate access to the historic archive of the Directorate of Public Security of the State.
El expediente de Dels was incomplete, partially burned during an inundation in 1994. Still, a key document survived, a typed sheet with a list of confiscated vehicles between July and September 1978. Among them was a Chevrolet C10 with plates, an identified driver, retained for 4 days and released from the expedient by the firm responsible.
This data changed the course of investigation. The vehicle was not only located in 1978, it was also in the hands of the authorities, albeit briefly. ¿Quién ordenó liberarlo? ¿Por qué no se vinculó entonces con la desaparíción de Ramón? ¿Por qué nadie informó de ese discovery? El equipo de la fiscal Muñoz decided to reconstruct the movement of the vehicle during this month.
The truck, according to emerging tracks, did not disappear completely. Fue retenida, manipulada y luego ocultada deliberadamente. A systematic cover-up seemed to have been put in place. La pregunta era, ¿quién y por qué? El 27 de septiembre, fiscal Leticia Muñoz convened a una rueda de prensa discreta sin cámaras ni titulares llamativos.
The case was too old, too delicate. A esas alturas ya no se trataba unique de clarificar una disaparición. Lo que estaba saliendo a la luz was a structure of institutional complicity that in his moment allowed not only that Ramón Herrera disappeared without leaving a trace, sino que his corpse was deliberately hidden inside a vehicle that at the same time was retained and released by the local police with some justification. La hypotesis de trabajo began to take shape.
Ramón no había sido víctima de un crimen pasional nor de una confusión. había sido eliminated por haber sabido demasiado. Algunos documentos recovered from the judicial archive point to que su taller, aunque modesto, estaba siendo utilizado por terceso para modificar vehículos que luego cruzaban a Zacatecas y Aguascalientes, cargados con dinero ilícito.
Ramón, probably sin saberlo al principio, fue cómplice técnico. But something changed in August of 1978. A letter written by his own mother, guarded in a parish notebook, mentioned that the boy was nervous and sad.
The investigators did not delay in confirming that Rodolfo del Sid, the former commander linked to the vehicle, had died in 2001 in an automobile accident on the way to San Luis Potosí. Although never formally accused nor even investigated, several sources pointed him as an intermediary between corrupt security elements and emergent criminal groups during the second half of the 70s.
Con él muchas respuestas se habian perdido. Sin embargo, el testimonio de Rogelio, el exaprendiz, proporcionó un nuevo hilo. Aseguró que semanas antes de su desaparación, Ramón le había confesado que estaba pensando en cerrar el taller. Me dijo que no le gustaba la gente que venía, que olían a muerte y que quería silencio.
A partir de esa frase, los fiscales commenzaron a estudiar el entorno immediato de Ramón. The name that emerged was that of Rubén Arteaga, alias el tapatío, an intermediary known in the area for effective movers with traces. Arteaga had been arrested in 1984 for fiscal evasion, but was released for lack of evidence.
died in 1992 of natural causes. Although Arteaga and Dels Sid were not interrogated, the cross of their names in the records was constant. Ambos frecuentaban los mismos bares, compartían ciertos inmuebles bajo testaferros y tenien vínculos con otros casos no resueltos de la época. El patrón se repetía.
Desapariciones, vehículos manipulados, policías que callaban. fiscales que archivaban. During the final inspection of the truck, a revealing detail was found. Beneath the worn-out tapestry of the right panel of the door, there was a small oxidized metal cross with wire wrapped in a piece of fabric with hand-embroidered initials. Doña Ernestina Herrera was almost sure an amulet placed by her.
Quizás en algún momento en que helped a su hijo en el taller. Esa reliquia fue entregada a Rogelio, quien loró en silencio al recibirla. Eso lo hungó su madre. Siempre le decía que no saliera sin ella. El caso, aunque en apariencia resuelto, dejaba más preguntas que ceretas.
El móvil apuntaba a una execution silenciosa para proteger una red de lavado de dinero en la que Ramón, al parecer dejó de querer collaborar. Su muerte entonces fue una advertencia, el entierro de la camioneta, un symbolo de poder y silencio. The fiscal issued an official statement closing the case based on the forensic findings, recognizing Ramón Herrera as a victim of willful homicide and requesting the State Commission of Historical Memory to place a plaque on the building, now converted into a banking branch. The request was approved. En la pequeña
ceremonia de collocation, nadie de la familia sobrevivía ya. Solo Rogelio, de traje arrugado, permaneció en silencio frente al muro recien pintado. Allí se leía en letras de bronce. Aquí trabajó Ramón Herrera Hernández, disappeared in 1978, found 30 years later. El silencio no lo borró. From the discovery of the remains of Ramón Herrera and the C10 truck buried, the Jalisco Fiscalía activated an investigation parallel to the reopening of the original case, focused on clarifying a disappearance, who
in unraveling the possible existence of a structured network of complicities between authorities, police bodies and operators of economic crime during the second half of the 70s. The fiscal Leticia Muñoz formed a special multidisciplinary team that included criminologists, specialists in historical archives, forensic anthropologists and two assistant fiscals.
The objective was to reconstruct step by step what happened to Ramón from the last day he saw him alive until the moment his body ended up hidden in the chassis compartment. Uno de los primeros pasos fue regresar al expediente original, the same one that had been archived in 1978 with the persona label not located.
Aquella foldera, compuesta por barely 12 hojas mecanografidas incluada la denuncia de su madre, un par de declaraciones vecinales contradictorias y un informe policial sin firma. Más allá de eso, todo lo demás eran omisiones. Neither did they investigate the workshop, nor did they interview the young apprentice, nor did they trace the journey to Lagos de Moreno.
For Leticia Muñoz, the fact that no order of vehicular location had been issued at any time was the first serious indication of negligence or cover-up. Rogelio, the apprentice, was formally interrogated under oath. declared that in the week before the disappearance of his teacher, two men in gray clothes had come to the taller to demand something.
Ramón, according to record, went out with them to the rear street and returned pale with trembling hands. Esa misma noche, Rogelio lo escuchó murmurar mientras cerraba el taller. Ya no quiero seguir en esto. Nadie en 1978 le pregunto nada. La fiscalía obtuvo judicial permission to inspect el terreno donde antes se erigía el taller. The structure had been demolished in the 90s, but the original local plans were preserved.
Beno la losa de concreto, que ahora sostenía una bodega de medicamentos, se descubrieron three subterranean storage compartments, possibly used to guard pieces or tools. One of them, of unusual dimensions, contained the remains of old tools wrapped in hardened rags, a broken wooden box with inscriptions in corrida ink Pro i78 and an oxidized drum that still contained traces of industrial solvent. But the most perturbing discovery was not físico, sino documental. En el Archivo
General of the State, an employee named Edgar Villaseñor found a loose leaf inside a folder labeled as Talleres autorizados 19779. The paper signed by Rodolfo del SID was completed in August 1978 and authorized the administrative inspection of the workshop Herrera Servimotor for alleged activity outside of its registered office. Nunca se halló constancia de que esa inspection se hubiera realizado.
Sin embargo, en la misma hoja aparecía la firma de recibido de un tal R. Arteaga, identifiable as Rubén Arteaga, el presumonto intermediario de dinero ilícito. El equipo de la fiscalía then formulated a hypothesis. Ramón Herrera had been forced to modify or hide vehicles linked to laundry operations.
Cuando intentó salirse del esquema o mostró señales de arpentimiento, fue eliminated. Su camioneta, un vehículo común, sin placas visibles, sin modificaciones externas llamativas, fue elegida como su ataúd. Ocultarla no era solo paseracer a Ramón, era era borrar la existencia de la traición, de la disobedience. To sustain this hypothesis, more than deductions were needed.
The exhumation of the body of Rodolfo del Sid, deceased in 2001, was ordered to obtain a genetic sample that could be compared with the partial traces found in some bundles of bills. The order was authorized by a district judge. During the exhumation performed in the Jardines del Recuerdo pantheon, it was discovered that the tomb had been altered. El ataúd no coincidedía con el modelo registrado y la caja interior presentaba signos de haber sido replacedada. El cuerpo, aunque conservado, no tenía las manos.
For Muñoz, this was not just a case of impunity, it was a plot organized for the destruction of evidence. The news about the exhumation of Rodolfo del SID did not filter to the media, but inside the fiscal team it caused a silent shock.
El hecho de que el cuerpo estuviera sin manos, que la caja original hibera sido substituida y que no existiera formal constancia de ese cambio en los registros del panteón, activated an institutional alert. Someone had intervened the corpse a year ago after its burial. ¿Quién habriá tenido acceso? ¿Con qué fin? Para borrar qué huella.
The death certificate indicated that Del Sid died on August 17, 2001, victim of an automobile accident while driving in the early morning on the road to San Luis Potosí. The vehicle, according to the expertise of the time, had gone off the rails and crashed into a tree. No naked witnesses nor recordings.
The body was moved directly to a private funeral home and buried on the following day. The funeral home consulted in 2008 had changed owners. El expediente del ingreso extraviado. Una línea más de desapareción dentro de otra. Leticia Muñoz solicited a review of Del Sid’s familiar environment. Su única hija residente en Querétaro, se negó a declarar.
Sin embargo, una antigua trabajadora domestica aportó un dato inquietante. In 2004, 3 years after the ex-comandante’s death, a group of men dressed in dark clothes went to the pantheon accompanied by a government lawyer to conduct a legal review. La mujer no recordaba los nombres, pero sí la hora. fue al amanecer en secreto
This intervention was not registered in any official base. Meanwhile, the forensic laboratory managed to recover a partial trace of one of the plastificadas with the bills hidden in the truck. La huella, si bien incompleta, mostraba patrones coincidentes con registros antiguos de personal policial.
It was not possible to determine with certainty the identity, but the coincidence algorithm showed as the primary result. del SID, Rodolfo, legally insufficient, narratively devastating, the authorities began to maintain a larger file, a network of omissions, cover-ups and manipulations that seemed to have operated with total impunity in the Altos Norte region of Jalisco for at least 5 years.
Ramón Herrera, pequeño mecánico de provincia, had been una piece minor en una maquinaria mayor, but his negativity or his simple discomfort turned him into an objective. No era necesario que hablara, solo bastaba con que dudara. The testimony of Rogelio gained even more weight when he remembered that two days before the disappearance of his teacher, Ramón had been visited by a man called the engineer. Nunca supo su nombre real.
Vestía guallavera blanca, conducía un bocho verde botella y pregunto por el encargo de los martes. Ramón answered with evasiveness. esa misma noche dijo estar considering cerrar todo. El ingeniero no volivo a aparecer, but el apodo fue rastreado por el equipo de Muñoz en varios archivos. apareció ligando en 1977 a una causa por enriquecimiento ilícito contra agentes de tránsito.
His name is Gerardo Esquivias Nágera, exfuncionario técnico del Departamento de Transportes de Jalisco. Había muerto en 1995, pero sus propiedades seguían actives a nombre de terceros. [Música] Una finca en incarnation de Díaz registered a nombre de una sociedad fantasma fue cateada por orden judicial el 9 de octubre.
In one of his basements, destroyed archives, remains of vehicle parts and even a complete set of vehicle plates from the 70s were found, many of them with tampered numbers. El cateo también arrojó una libreta empolvada dentro de una caja fuerte oxidada. On the cover it read Ram Hal 0978.
The initials seemed to coincide with Ramón y Jalisco, and the date reinforced the temporal line. En su interior había cifras, nombres, rutas. Muchos estaban tachados. Uno de los apuntes decía, “El del motor no quiere. dice que no va a correr más para nadie, arreglar antes del 15. Ramón desapareció el 14. La chronología se estrechaba. Los indicios dejaban de ser suposicións.
There was a pattern of coersión, subtle warnings, obligatory silences. El arreglar parécia, en ese contexto no referirse a ninguna repaira mecánica. This finding triggered a review of similar cases in the area between 1976 and 1980. At least cinco desapariciones de pequeños empresarios had not been resolved. A blacksmith, a tire dealer, a freight transport choir, an upholsterer and a taxi driver.
Todos habien tenido contacts with vehicles, routes and modifications. Todos desaparecieron sin dejar rastro. Ninguno fue investigated a fondo. In each of these cases, like in Ramón’s, there was a constant administrative silence, police omissions and family members who never got answers.
The accumulated impact of the findings forced a The Fiscalía Estatal a acceptar que lo que estaba saliendo a la luz no era un caso isoladado, sino parte una network de operaciones oscuras que había operated durante años con cobertura institución. The figure of Ramón Herrera Hernández acquired in this context an unexpected symbolic weight, not only as a victim, but as a silenced witness of a system that preferred to erase those who were dudaba before facing the risk of being exposed.
Fiscal Leticia Muñoz ordered the centralization of all files related to the disappearance of independent workers between 1975 and 1980. In an attempt to assemble a more complete map, one of the most revealing documents emerged from the dead archive of the extinct address of vehicles in Guadalajara.
An oficio fechado el August 29, 1978, signed by Gerardo Esquivias Náera, the late engineer, en el que se authorizes the emission of five sets of temporary plates for field projects of vehicle inspection. One of those alphanumeric combinations coincided partially with the sequence found in the truck buried.
It was a clear sign that Ramón’s vehicle had been used as a screen for illegal purposes, possibly after his death. Paralelamente se reabrieron interviews with retired civil servants, one of them, Salvador Paniagua, antiguo jefe de sector en Tepatitlán.
Hey con 82 años y en silla de ruedas aceptó recibir al equipo fiscal en su casa. During the conversation he confessed that in 1978 he had received direct orders not to intervene in cases with a mechanical key. Aquella frase ambigua, parécia referirse a algún código informal para referenciar talleres involucrados en operaciones especiales. Uno se callaba joven. En esos años, el que preguntaba mucho no duraba”, he said while holding an old notebook where with a trembling pulse he marked with an X the names of colleagues who, like him, were forced to look to the other side. That network of institutional silence, constructed by
miedo, conveniencia or directly por complicidad, made it possible that the case of Ramón remained buried for 30 years. Nadie firmó la inspection a su taller. No one reported the retention of their truck. No one investigated the register of old bills.
Todo parécia haber sido carefully desvanecido, but no todo pudo ser borrado. In the final forensic reconstruction of the case, the experts managed to determine the exact position of Ramón’s body inside the chassis compartment. The corpse had been placed in fetal form, with arms crossed over the chest and the head tilted toward the right side. This position was not casual.
indicateda que había sido introducido a la fuerza con violencia, pero también con un conocimiento profundo del vehículo. Era muy probable que quien lo ocultó supiera exactamenta qué partes desmontar, cómo distributer el peso para evitar que el vehículo delatara su carga y cómo coverrlo para resistir años de humedad sin collapsar. El cuerpo presentaba fracturas antiguas compatibles con una caida or un golpe contundente.
There were no firearm injuries. En el informe final se estableció la causa de muerte como traumatismo cranioenfálico severo con hemorrhage interna non tratada. The coup, according to estimates, occurred between 8 and 12 hours before the hiding, which implied that Ramón probably died before dying alone, in silence.
The only belonging found with him was a medal of San Benito oxidized hanging from a hemp thread around the neck. That medal was returned to Rogelio, the only one who came alive with direct links. la sostuvo entre los dedos por varios minutos antes de guardarla en el bolsillo interior de su chaqueta. Él la llevaba todos los días.
Decía que lo protégía. But there are things contra las que ni los santos pueden. In parallel, the Comisión Estatal de Derechos Humanos issued a pronunciamiento extraordinario, recognizing the institutional responsibility for serious omissions in the disappearance and concealment of the case.
It was the first time in the recent history of Jalisco that a forgotten victim from the 70s was officially recognized as such. The media, which at the beginning had barely paid attention to the discovery of the truck, began to cover each advance with more interest. Local television programs interviewed historians, lawyers and specialists in crimes of the past.
Se halaba, for the first time in decades of the possibility of reopening dozens of forgotten cases. Ramón, sin quererlo, se había convertido en symbolo, un symbolo de lo que ocurre cuando un solo hombre se nega a seguir fingiendo. The last stage of the investigation coincided with a growing media pressure and a strong institutional resistance.
No todos dentro del aparato estatal estaban cómodos con las conclusions a las que el team de la fiscal Leticia Muñoz se acercaba. Algunos archivos began to disappear in an inexplicable way. Others, such as the registrations of confiscated vehicles between August and September of 1978, were handed over con páginas arrancadas or illegibles.
La fiscal, sin embargo, no se detuvo. Recurrió a copia antiguas conservadas por asociaciones civiles, notas de periódicos locales y entrevistas con exfuncionarios ya jubilados, tejidas con cuidado hasta formar una chronología indisputable. The final report of more than 600 pages details precisely how the network works.
Pequeños talleres were used as transition points for vehicles loaded with money, weapons or messages. The mechanics, in the majority of cases, were not members of organized crime, who were functional parts of fear, money, and oppression. En cuanto alguno se salía de la línea like Ramón, se activaban mechanisms of neutralization, disappearance, intimidation, assassination.
Lo más escalofriante was that all this happened with the passive or direct participation of elements of the traffic police, of municipal officials and, in some cases, of subaltern fiscals. Una figura emergió con fuerza entre los documentos. Manuel el Tuerto Gudiño, head of vehicular inspections between 1976 and 1981, who had been cited in at least three citizen complaints for illicit enrichment.
En los expedientes se encontraba una hoja con una lista de nombres y fechas. The name of Ramón Herrera appeared together with the other three disappeared. El herrero de incarnación de Díaz, el tapecero de Tepatitlán y un choer nombre Hilario Díaz, visto por ultima vez en Arandas. La lista estaba titulada A mano, sinco. Gudiño was located living in Mazatlán, retired and away from public office for more than two decades. Al ser citado a declarar, se amparó.
No negó conocer a Del Sydney, a Esquivias Náera. but affirmed no recordar detalles ni nombres ni vehicules. The prosecutor had no elements to formally impute him, but his name was registered in the report delivered to the National Search Commission as a key actor in the context of Ramón’s disappearance.
At the same time, the forensic anthropology team reconstructed a three-dimensional model of the compartment, where the body was found. Utilizing digital impressions and chassis scans, they were able to demonstrate that the cavity had been purposely constructed with industrial tools. No era una improvisation. Someone knew exactly what he was doing.
El vehículo fue modificado para transportar el cuerpo sin que el peso alterara su funcción normal. There are no signs of fluid leaks or traces on the exterior. Todo estaba designed to disappear sin levantar sospechas. A new crucial piece appeared in the last days of investigation.
First photograph sent anonymously to the fiscal office. Mostraba el taller de Ramón tomado desde la calle en 1978. En la imagen se ve su camioneta afuera y a su lado un hombre con uniforme de tránsito apoyado en la defensa. The image was wrinkled, worn, but the face of the people was recognizable. It was Rodolfo del Sid.
The photograph was authenticated by an expert. No doubt. Del Sid había estado en el taller el miso mes de la desaparición. Esa prueba no solo reforzaba su directa implicación, sino que dementía por completo su suesta ignorancia del caso, tal como siempre se sostuvo en los informes oficiales. With the submission of the final report to the State Memory Commission, Leticia Muñoz closed the investigative phase.
Sabía que no habría detenidos, que muchos culpables ya estaban muertos, que los sobrevivientes habian aprendido a esconderse tras amparos. omissions, legal gaps, but also knew that the truth, por fragmentada que fuese, había salido de la tierra, del oxid, de la errumbre de un vehículo buried durante three decades. El taller donde todo comonez, convertido ahora en un centro de distribución pharmaceutica, was visited in secret by Rogelio days before the commemorative plaque was placed.
Caminó hasta la reja, apoyó la mano sobre el metal frío y murmuró una oración. No pidió justicia, only murmuró el nombre de su maestro, como si al nombrarlo algo pudiera volver por un instante. Lo que se cerraba no era un expediente, era una herida antigua, una memoria que se negaba a morir.
20 días después de haber iniciado one of the most delicate investigations of the recent history of Jalisco, the case of Ramón Herrera Hernández was officially closed, not for lack of evidence, but for lack of living culprits. There were no trials, no hearings, no sentencings, but there was no public recognition, no admission of institutional guilt, and no truth recovered for 30 years.
The plaque was placed on Monday, October 20 under a gray sky. La ceremonia fue breve, sobria, sin cámaras ni discursos políticos. Rogelio, in a simple dress, stood in front of the white wall of the old workshop. Sostenía en one hand the oxidized medal of San Benito, en la otra a white clavel.
Prosecutor Leticia Muñoz, who was present cautiously, watched from a distance. There was no band or ribbon cutting, just the words engraved on the bronze were silently read. Ramón Herrera Hernández works here. Lost in 1978, found 30 years later. He was not silenced.In San Juan de los Lagos, some elders still remember the quiet man with a strong hand who fixed machines without looking at the clock. But for new generations, Ramón is a story now told in schools, in the media, in conversations about the past that the country is trying to fix.
A story in which the crime was not only to kill, but to make no one ask questions. The final report of the case was included in the State Archive of Unfinished Crimes. Here, a sentence ends the last paragraph of words that seek not solace, but memory. Not all the missing were silent because of death. Others spoke from the floor.
After Rogelio left, he left the flower at the foot of the wall and walked without looking back. He kept the medal no longer as a symbol of protection, but as a relic of resistance. Because although justice does not always come as expected, the truth, when it finally emerges, has a weight that silence cannot bury. M.