#10: The Mother Who Hunted a Cartel

Full Episode Transcript

March 22, 2017. Ciudad Victoria, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas—a place where cartel insignias outnumber street signs, and law enforcement and lawlessness are indistinguishable from each other.

In the dead of night, under a sky choked by storm clouds, 29 men slipped through the bowels of the CEDES prison—a facility notorious for overcrowding and corruption. Inside, hidden beneath a trapdoor, lay a tunnel: five meters deep, stretching 40 meters toward freedom—roughly the length of four city buses.

Using smuggled tools—crowbars, pickaxes, even a jury-rigged ventilation system made from plastic pipes—they’d chipped away at the earth. Prison officials later claimed ignorance, but locals whispered of bribes.

At 3:14 a.m., chaos erupted. Surveillance footage showed figures sprinting into the storm. One inmate, later identified as Marcos Ortiz, flagged down a passing Nissan Altima. When the driver, 34-year-old mechanic Javier Hernández, refused to surrender his keys, Ortiz fired a single bullet into his chest. The carjacking made headlines, but the true terror lay in who now rode those rain-slicked roads.

Miriam Rodríguez received the call at dawn. As founder of Colectivo de Familias de Desaparecidos, she’d spent years hunting the men who kidnapped her daughter, Karen, in 2014. Her investigative efforts and connections led to 11 arrests. Now, half of them were free.

In San Fernando, Miriam loaded her pistol. She knew the cartels’ code: death to snitches. Weeks prior, a note had been slipped under her door: “You’re next.” Her security detail? Dismissed by the state. Her allies? Terrified into silence. The escaped inmates didn’t just want revenge; they wanted a message written in her blood.

In the early hours of January 24, 2014 in San Fernando, a city located in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, 34-year old Azalea Rodriguez had been awakened by the shuffling of feet and a groan she immediately recognized as her father, Luis, approaching her front door. Having last spoken to her younger sister, 20-year old Karen at 3:30 P.M. the previous day, Azalea had grown increasingly worried when her sister failed to respond to calls and messages throughout the evening. Her unease was confirmed by the disheveled and frightened state of her father, from whom she had been estranged for nearly two years. As Luis stepped inside, his phone rang, and Azalea instinctively knew it concerned Karen. The caller, identifying himself as part of the group holding Karen, stated that after much discussion, they were demanding a ransom of one million pesos (around 75 thousand dollars) for her return. Then, Karen herself came on the phone, her voice sounding less than certain as she urged her father to pay, claiming it was solely about the money and that her release would follow. The call ended abruptly, leaving Azalea and her father in stunned silence, grappling with the enormity of the demand.

Azalea then made the difficult call to her brother, Luis Héctor, who lived in Ciudad Victoria and immediately promised to return home. Finally, Azalea faced the call she dreaded most: informing her mother of Karen’s kidnapping.

Miriam Rodríguez, then working as a housekeeper and nanny in McAllen, Texas, received a distressing 4 A.M. phone call from her daughter Azalea. Azalea, sobbing, delivered the devastating news that Karen had been kidnapped. Miriam, without hesitation, packed her belongings, left a note for her employers, and by 6 A.M. was waiting for a bus from Reynosa to San Fernando, embarking on a two-hour journey through the heart of Tamaulipas, the same route she had traveled with Karen as a toddler over twenty years prior.

This return trip was marked by profound grief and a growing understanding of the chasm left by a kidnapped loved one. As the bus traveled through the near dark, Miriam sat near the back and wept silently.

Others on the bus attempted to offer consolation, recognizing her distress. However, Miriam, who typically maintained a guarded demeanor around strangers, was consumed by her sorrow. It was during this journey, amidst her private anguish laid bare in the shared space of public transport, that an interaction occurred that would prove pivotal in her relentless pursuit of justice.

An elderly man, seated across the aisle from her, extended a simple gesture of human kindness. He handed Miriam his handkerchief and asked, "Are you okay?". Despite her usual reticence, Miriam received his compassion. Instinctively knowing what this was about —kidnappings for ransom was a booming business at the time—the man shared with her that his son was a Mexican marine and provided a piece of paper containing his contact information, Lieutenant Alex, assuring Miriam that he would help her with what she needed.

—

Meanwhile, Azalea and her father drove to Miriam’s house, where Karen had been living. Luis recounted having already visited the house after the initial call at midnight, finding Karen’s truck gone but the lights and television left on. Arriving again near dawn, they found the front door unlocked and Karen’s purse inside, its contents spilled out, a detail absent from Luis’s earlier visit. The house was in disarray, suggesting a struggle. They sought out Karen’s cousin, who had been with her the previous evening. He revealed that Karen had received a call during their meal, abruptly stating she needed to give a ride to a friend named Ulises, whom even the cousin did not know.

As Luis went home to shower before heading to the bank to seek a loan for the ransom, Azalea went to the bus station to meet her mother.

On the bus, nearing San Fernando, Miriam’s anxiety was palpable. She asked the driver to stop a few blocks before the terminal, wary of potential Zeta surveillance. Embracing Azalea on the street, Miriam’s relief at seeing her daughter was short-lived as her phone rang. It was the same voice that had contacted Luis, now brusque and demanding with Miriam. After outlining their demands, the caller passed the phone to Karen. Miriam’s voice cracked with guilt and fear as she asked about her daughter’s well-being, but Karen, sounding rehearsed, insisted it was only about the money. The kidnapper hung up abruptly, leaving Miriam in tears.

Luis, having secured a loan—local banks had grimly begun offering loans for such purposes—was finalizing the details when the kidnappers called again, demanding the money earlier than agreed. Despite his objections, they insisted the ransom be delivered alone to the San Fernando Health Center. The family pooled their life savings with the bank loan, amounting to less than ten thousand dollars. Miriam positioned herself down the street from the health center to observe the handoff. Two hours late, a teenage boy arrived, collected the money, and tersely told Luis that Karen would be at the cemetery in twenty minutes. They drove to the cemetery and waited in vain until dark. Calls to the kidnappers yielded assurances of bad weather delaying Karen’s release.

The following day passed with agonizing anticipation. An unspoken fear began to take hold: What if Karen wasn’t coming back? The next morning brought a call from a neighbor: a cherry-red Explorer had been seen outside Miriam’s house, and two women had entered with a key, leaving with a jacket, shoes, and Karen’s purse. The family clung to this as a sign of hope. However, later that day, the kidnappers called again, demanding more money. Luis, emotionally and financially depleted, refused to respond. Miriam’s enraged exclamation of their lack of further funds was met with silence. Calling the police remained out of the question, deemed too dangerous for Karen.

With nothing else to do, Miriam asked Azalea’s husband, Ernesto, to take her to her own house. Despite her apprehension, she felt a growing curiosity about the kidnappers and any clues they might have left behind. En route, at a local diner called Las Palmas, Miriam spotted the cherry-red Explorer the neighbor had mentioned and saw two men leaving, one of whom she thought looked familiar. Inside her house, Miriam found further signs of the kidnapping and a struggle, including cut charging cords and scattered papers. She also discovered a work ID belonging to Karen’s Venezuelan boyfriend and a pair of men’s boots. The scattered evidence offered no clear answers.

That evening, a visitor arrived at Azalea’s house: Carlos’s mother. Carlos, a family friend who had gone to Miriam’s house to fix Karen’s truck the night of the kidnapping, had also been taken, his mother revealed. The kidnappers had called her that morning demanding a ransom, and upon hearing she had no money, chillingly declared they would send him back in pieces.

—

The following day, while driving, Miriam noticed the red Explorer following her. Before she could react, the driver cut her off, and two young men emerged. The taller one, asking if she was Karen’s mother, instructed her to meet him alone in ten minutes at Restaurant El Junior. Inside, Miriam sat across from the Zeta, whom she recognized from Las Palmas. He was referred to as Sama on his handheld radio, and he claimed to be a commander who could help get Karen back. Another, younger man sat beside him, eating. Sama assured Miriam that Karen was alive and well, even suggesting she was unusually relaxed. He stated that he wanted to let her go but needed the approval of El Larry, who ran the Zeta cartel in San Fernando. Sama offered his help for $1,600. Despite her distrust, the overwhelming desire to believe Karen was alive led Miriam to agree, though she questioned why she needed to pay more when Sama claimed he wasn’t in charge. Having been taken to the restaurant by Azalea, Miriam had no choice but to accept Sama’s offer to take her home. Being seen entering her older daughter’s car after being told to be there alone was too much of a risk not worth taking. Sama then drove her back to Azalea’s, revealing he already knew where she was staying.

More than a week passed with no word after paying Sama. Azalea’s living room became a makeshift operations center, filled with the signs of worry. Occasional calls from unknown numbers raised fleeting hopes, often turning out to be unrelated ransom demands. Two weeks after Karen’s disappearance, a call seemed genuine, with the voice on the line claiming the commander had ordered Karen’s return for a small additional payment. Despite her suspicion, Miriam paid the $400, the penury of love driving her to grasp at any possibility. She waited in the plaza until nightfall, well past the designated time, before accepting it was another false hope.

Two weeks after Karen’s disappearance, Miriam and Azalea were driving, searching for the red Explorer, when they spotted Karen’s friend La Chaparra at a roadside meat shop, acting suspiciously. Miriam noted the restaurant’s strategic location with a clear view of the old municipal dump, rumored to be a Zeta camp, suspecting La Chaparra was a lookout. Not long after, at a grocery store, Miriam saw Sama with an older man she assumed was his boss. Confronting Sama, she demanded to know Karen’s whereabouts. Startled, Sama gave her a number and promised to speak later before hurrying after his associate.

Days turned to weeks, and Miriam saw the truth before anyone else dared to speak it. One night, on the one-month anniversary of Karen’s disappearance a transformation occurred. She turned to Azalea and said it out loud. "Karen’s never coming home." Her voice was steel. No tears, no trembling. Just cold, burning resolve.

She picked up her purse. Walked to Luis’s truck. Pulled out the scrap of paper.

And dialed.

Lieutenant Alex answered on the first ring.

Miriam Rodríguez was born in 1960, the youngest of nine children, on a ranch known as Rancho Loma Prieta, located about twelve miles south of San Fernando. Her parents were ranch hands and farmers who worked a modest thirty-acre plot, cultivating sorghum and corn and raising animals primarily for their own consumption. Being born twenty years after her oldest sibling, Miriam benefited from the changing times, receiving an opportunity for education in town alongside her brother Jorge, a privilege not afforded to her older siblings who worked on the ranch with their father.

San Fernando, for the better part of two centuries, had been a small cattle-ranching town, but by the time of Miriam's birth, it was undergoing significant urbanization. Known then as Villa San Fernando, it was still a place where most residents knew each other. Miriam, however, possessed a certain sophistication and quick intellect that set her apart. Even as a young girl, she advised her older brothers on their problems and excelled in school, even teaching herself to type before graduating.

As a teenager, Miriam displayed a strong-willed and determined personality, finding it difficult to concede a point. In high school, she fell in love with Luis Salinas, a conceited athlete. They began dating, meeting secretly away from her parents' watchful eyes. Miriam was three years younger than Luis, whose family owned a household goods store in town. Their relationship progressed until Luis graduated and moved to the United States to work in a factory, seeking opportunities beyond the limited scope of agriculture and ranching in San Fernando at the time.

Not long after Luis's departure, at the age of seventeen, Miriam discovered she was pregnant. In the conservative social climate of 1970s Mexico, this news led her parents to all but disown her. Luis was unaware of the pregnancy, and Miriam chose not to tell him, as their communication had ceased after he left for Texas without any explicit promises of a future together. Rather than apologizing for her situation, Miriam demonstrated her independence by packing her bags and moving to the opposite end of the country to live with her eldest sister, Socorro. There, she supported herself by selling Avon products, displaying a knack for connecting with people and a charmingly pushy sales style.

Despite her initial resolve, Miriam grew restless for home. Her foray into business was driven by a singular goal: to return to San Fernando and forge her own life. Three weeks after giving birth to her daughter Azalea in December 1977, Miriam returned to San Fernando, testing her parents' pronouncements of disownment. Seeing their grandchild softened their stance, and Miriam moved back home. She still maintained her stubborn nature by refusing to contact Luis, believing he would reach out if he wanted to see her again. An eventual encounter with his sisters in town, who recognized Azalea as Luis's child, led to them informing him, and he proposed marriage a few days later. They married in January 1978, altering Azalea's birthdate to shield her from the social stigma of being born out of wedlock.

Eager to return to work, Luis left for the United States shortly after the wedding. Miriam resumed life as a single mother, now with her parents' approval. She found employment with the government, which was expanding its efforts to modernize farming in Mexico. This job not only provided a good income but also valuable benefits, allowing Miriam to build a life for her family during a time of economic prosperity known as the Mexican Miracle. Working in the agriculture department, Miriam served as a key point of contact for local farmers and ranchers, drawing on her own background as the daughter of a farmhand to understand their needs. She also displayed her entrepreneurial spirit by starting a side business selling cowboy boots, which she sourced from Guanajuato and found a ready market for in San Fernando. Their family grew with the birth of a son, Luis Héctor, in 1984, and later, in 1992, their youngest daughter, Karen, was born, marking a period of relative financial ease for the family.

In 1997, a significant health crisis impacted Miriam’s life when, at the age of thirty-seven she received a diagnosis of cancer. This news came as a shock, and the doctor's initial prognosis was dire, suggesting she would face a difficult battle. Determined to survive for her three young children, Azalea, then 19, Luis Héctor just barely 13 and Karen 4 , Miriam confronted the challenge of securing adequate medical care after her departure from her government position. The family made the decision for Luis to formalize his business, allowing him to hire Miriam and provide her with access to the IMSS healthcare system.

After the initial operation, the same doctor informed Miriam that the surgery was unsuccessful and the cancer was still present, suggesting a terminal situation. Miriam subsequently found a highly recommended specialist who worked within the IMSS system in Matamoros. She underwent long weeks of radiation and chemotherapy, commuting by bus and often returning nauseated from the treatment. A year into it, her doctor suggested removing her uterus. Following this surgery, Miriam began a slow recovery process. Her children, Luis Héctor and Azalea, helped clean her wounds to prevent infection.

Miriam's return to health was complicated by the treatment impacting her thyroid, causing her to gain weight rapidly. Despite this, she remained deeply involved in her children's lives. Years later, around 2007, when considering gastric bypass surgery, Miriam referenced her past cancer diagnosis when asked by Azalea if she was frightened of the procedure, saying, "I feel like I answered that question with the cancer diagnosis... If that didn’t kill me, you think this will?".

This newfound physical freedom allowed her to more readily manage her businesses, help care for Azalea’s son born in 2000, and visit Luis Héctor who returned to Ciudad Victoria in 2007 to finish his studies.

Up until 2013, Miriam had established herself as a resilient and determined individual, navigating significant personal and health challenges while raising her family and running successful businesses in San Fernando. As her children transitioned into young adulthood, the town itself was experiencing a shift with the growing presence and influence of drug cartels, unknowingly setting the stage for the tragic events that would soon befall her family.

--

The war between the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas arrived in San Fernando in the early-morning hours of March 31, 2010, marked by what initially appeared to be a routine call to the police. A fisherman’s truck had reportedly overturned along the highway south of San Fernando, a few miles before the Y junction that separated the entrance to town from a freeway. A small crew of local policemen and paramedics, including captain Angel’s firefighter squad which served as first responders, raced out of San Fernando to the site at kilometer marker 153, nestled in the foothills of the Loma Prieta mountain.

For months, rumors of a brewing war between the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas had circulated. Following their split, anonymous social media posts had even warned of an imminent assault on San Fernando by the Zetas, who had been run out of town by the Gulf Cartel in January 2010. While the border town of Reynosa and other areas in Tamaulipas had already experienced violence as the two groups battled for territorial control, San Fernando had remained relatively quiet. By March 2010, the vigilance of the local police, who took their orders from the Gulf Cartel, had waned, with some even dismissing the warnings of a Zeta assault as mere bluster. Instead of positioning lookouts along the highway leading to Ciudad Victoria, a Zeta stronghold, about fifteen police units were stationed within San Fernando’s town limits, near a local trade school not far from Miriam Rodríguez’s house.

When the call about the overturned truck came in around 4 A.M., ten of the police units were dispatched to the crash site, approximately six miles south of town. The remaining units stayed behind, stationed outside the school. The scene at kilometer marker 153 appeared unremarkable: a single driver who refused medical attention and a rolled truck. The paramedics, local cops, and federal highway officers stood in the quiet stupor often associated with early-morning traffic incidents, awaiting further instructions.

Angel, the captain of the firefighter squad, felt uneasy as he scanned the area around the crash site. The highway undulated before abruptly swerving south toward the state capital, the bend concealed by a large mountain. Angel had been hearing increasing reports of shootings along the highways; just the day before, two federal highway cops had been killed in Las Norias, south of their current location. He instructed his men to pack up, not wanting them to linger on the road unnecessarily. Some of his crew demurred, wanting to finish smoking, but Angel reminded them of the recent killings in Las Norias, stating, “Well, those people are still out there”. As they began to gather their equipment, the officers heard movement along the edges of the highway, a low rumble. Suddenly, a cascade of lights pierced the darkness of the scrubland, tearing along the dirt roads that ran parallel to the highway, accompanied by the growing sound of engines and tires on sand. For a moment, the police froze, mesmerized and terrified by the unexpected light show. The sight of dozens of trucks snapped them out of their paralysis; someone was coming, having waited in the dark for the opportune moment.

A parade of heavy-duty vehicles then spilled onto the highway, a chaotic display of trucks, trailers, SUVs, and gun-mounted rigs spray-painted with the letter Z. The convoy sped toward San Fernando like unhinged fighters heading into their first battle. The police, with a brief head start, fled, bellowing into their radios, “They’re shooting at us, they’re shooting at us. These bastards are coming from all sides”. Near the entrance to town, the Zeta convoy split, with some vehicles diverting to the highway bypass, looping east toward the town center, while others drove directly toward the fleeing police convoy on the south side. This second group chased the police vehicles, firing wildly at the patrol cars, which nearly crashed into their parked colleagues outside the trade school. The officers at the checkpoint, having abandoned their posts, cowered in a nearby construction site as their vehicles were riddled with gunfire for nearly ten minutes, turning the squad cars into burning wreckage. The panicked cries on the police radio frequencies went unanswered.

Angel, the emergency responder, heard the frantic calls as he and his men drove back toward town. He decided to pull his vehicle to the side of the bypass. His boss called, warning him that the city was no longer safe—the Zeta convoy had broken through the police blockade and was wreaking havoc, attacking every government building with automatic gunfire. The deep explosions of 50 caliber rounds echoed through town. In his rearview mirror, Angel saw another convoy speeding toward him. Accepting his imminent death, he reclined in his seat. However, as the vehicles passed, they weren’t shooting; they were honking their horns, mocking him, and calling for him to join them. He counted forty-nine vehicles in all. The Zeta takeover of San Fernando had begun with a brazen display of force, targeting the symbols of government authority.

—

Having encountered Sama and others involved in the ransom demands, Miriam came to understand that her initial belief that Karen might still be alive eventually gave way to the assumption she was dead. By late February, she had lifted herself out of despair and had pronounced Karen dead. It was at this point she pondered how to track down the people responsible. Miriam had a history of taking action herself; back in 1989, she had found culprits and recovered stolen goods after thieves emptied her husband's safe, and in 2012, she had insisted on paying the ransom herself when kidnappers threatened her daughter Azalea's husband. This fearless and relentless nature, though sometimes making others uneasy, served her mission now. Miriam made Sama her target number one, setting her sights on finding him.

Miriam quickly realized that while the Mexican marines she began working with from her connection to Lieutenant Alex, could conduct lethal operations, they could not build a legal case against the responsible individuals or bring closure. She came to the unwelcome conclusion that she needed to work with the police and leverage state investigators who had the authority to detain suspects and raid homes. To mobilize the system, however, she needed specific information. She was certain she could recognize Sama, but she needed his identity. Without his proper name, the police could not issue a warrant, and as far as the legal system was concerned, he was "no one, an alter ego floating over the criminal landscape... a ghost". The system mattered to Miriam because it meant resources and the legal authority to seek justice, but it was dysfunctional and required connections and patience. Getting things done often meant working the "rusted gears of the bureaucracy" with a deep familiarity with its baroque language and an inexhaustible well of patience and energy.

Determined to get Sama's real name, Miriam understood there was "no magic to investigation," just the need to "put in the work, be methodical about your process".

Fueled by this understanding and her desperate resolve, Miriam began searching for Sama through available means. For months, she had been searching the name Sama on social media, specifically Facebook, hoping he might make a mistake and reveal his identity or post a photograph. It was through this sustained effort that Miriam experienced a breakthrough. While scrolling through Facebook on her cell phone one day in early July, she let out a shriek. She had found a photograph that, despite being a "poor image," was definitively him. She recognized his "lanky frame, thin face, and curly hair". Beside Sama in the photograph was a young woman wearing a distinctive uniform – that of a local ice cream chain, Helados Sultana.

Miriam realized that this seemingly minor detail was a crucial lead. The Helados Sultana chain, however, had "dozens of locations spread across the state". Miriam mentally prepared herself for the monumental task of visiting every single one to find the woman from the photo. Sama had previously told Miriam he had been living in Ciudad Victoria, and this seemed like a logical place to begin her search, as the state capital had only four branches of Helados Sultana. The journey to Ciudad Victoria was fraught with danger, involving travel on a single-lane road known to be trafficked by Zetas, but Miriam made the trip repeatedly on her mission. For weeks, she endured long hours sitting outside the entrances of the Helados Sultana locations in Ciudad Victoria, patiently surveilling for the face of the girl she had seen in the Facebook photograph.

After weeks of painstaking surveillance, Miriam’s perseverance paid off. She finally spotted Sama's girlfriend emerging from one of the Helados Sultana stores. Miriam continued to observe the situation, waiting, until Sama himself eventually arrived. Now knowing where he was frequenting, Miriam’s next objective was to obtain his real name. To facilitate this, she adopted a disguise. She cut her hair short and dyed it a bright red, a color she believed was "attention-grabbing... that distracted from one’s face". She retrieved an old uniform and her expired government ID card from her previous employment with the state health department, intending to "play the part" of a state worker.

Dressed in her disguise, Miriam returned to the neighborhood in Ciudad Victoria where she had followed Sama and his girlfriend. With her expired identification card displayed around her neck, she began a systematic process, starting with the first house on the street. Going door-to-door, Miriam conducted a "mock survey" of every home on the block. She asked residents questions, such as the number of children, adults, and elderly people living there, ensuring her questions were convincing enough to maintain her cover. Crucially, she also asked for the names and birth dates of all residents, recording this information in an official-looking notebook. By the conclusion of that day, Miriam had successfully gathered the details of everyone on the block. Among this acquired information was the specific piece she had desperately sought: Sama’s real name, along with his date of birth, which was December 23, 1994. This hard-earned information, obtained through her own relentless investigative work, finally provided Miriam with the necessary details to formalize a complaint and apply pressure on the police to issue an arrest warrant for Sama.

On the afternoon of July 31, 2014, she called the special unit for the investigation and prosecution of kidnapping in Tamaulipas, the group responsible for Karen's case. After asking her usual, often futile, question about new developments, Miriam relayed the new details she had discovered through her own investigation. She identified the Zeta known as Sama and demanded that the state authorities issue an arrest warrant for him. She shared his name, date of birth, the name of his common-law partner, and their shared address, which the agents recorded for the growing case file. She ended the call with her typical promise to continue investigating. Believing she had done their job for them, Miriam expected the authorities to act swiftly. However, a week passed with no action, so Miriam tried another approach, sending them a formal request to launch an investigation into Sama. She later requested that Sama's home be raided, starting with asking officials to confirm his address.

Months after Miriam filed the complaint and began applying pressure, fortune intervened.

Luis Héctor kept several photos of Sama on his cell phone and reviewed them regularly. He had a store selling boots and hats in Ciudad Victoria, located near downtown in the historic center where state government buildings were situated. One evening, Luis Héctor planned to close his store early to go to the plaza, but he was delayed because his neighbor asked him to watch her store. He sat on a chair in front of his store, observing dozens of people heading towards the plaza.

While waiting, he noticed a shopper trying on hats near the entrance of his store. This young man was tall, skinny, with slightly curly hair, and was wearing jeans and a light blue shirt. Luis Héctor felt the individual looked "vaguely familiar". The young man commented to someone with him about how cool a hat was and said he would return to buy it tomorrow. Luis Héctor then saw the young man with a group that included a mother, a father, and what appeared to be a girlfriend. It was at this moment that it "struck him" that the young man admiring hats was Sama.

Recognizing him, Luis Héctor's heart began racing. He immediately jumped up and quickly started closing his store, yanking down the metal curtain and closing the register. He kept his eye on Sama, who was already moving into the crowd with his arm around his girlfriend. Luis Héctor fumbled with the locks to the gate as his neighbor returned, waved her off, and raced down the steps into the crowd, not stopping to clear the till or turn off the lights.

On the street, Luis Héctor followed Sama, maintaining a short distance and being careful not to lose him in the crowds heading towards Plaza 15. He called his mother, Miriam, who was in her store with Azalea, and asked what he should do. Miriam instructed him, "Don’t let him out of your sight" and said she would make a call, telling him to stay with Sama and not let him see him.

Miriam then called a federal police officer she had met at Restaurant El Junior, who answered right away. She explained the situation, stating her son was following the man responsible for taking her daughter and emphasizing it was a chance to apprehend the "bad guy". Miriam passed the officer's phone number to Luis Héctor. The officer asked where Luis Héctor was, and he whispered his location, "In the centro, heading toward Plaza 15". The officer confirmed he was on his way and told him, "Don’t lose him. And don’t lose faith". Police checkpoints were already set up at the plaza entrances, requiring everyone, including Sama, to pass through metal detectors.

Miriam called Luis Héctor repeatedly to check in, but he eventually asked her to stop to avoid potentially making Sama suspicious, as Sama had no idea who Luis Héctor was or that he even existed. Luis Héctor felt afraid, seeing Sama as the "devil himself", and worried about losing him. After about 30 minutes, which felt like an eternity, Luis Héctor called the officer again. The officer seemed relaxed and confirmed he was close, heading toward the plaza on foot. Miriam had previously advised the federal police officer not to arrive with a convoy of vehicles, blaring sirens and flashing lights, calling it "making a scandal," as it would cause Sama to flee.

Luis Héctor angled himself towards the main church. The three officers arrived and he walked them to within thirty feet of Sama. Sama still had his arm around his girlfriend when the commanding officer grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. Luis Héctor watched from a distance, finding everything too calm. Through the phone, when Luis Héctor called the officer again to ask what was happening, he could hear Sama yelling about a heart condition and claiming he couldn't be a criminal because he was too unhealthy. Luis Héctor felt it seemed too friendly and began to fret, calling the officer again and begging him to arrest Sama. The officer laughed, said "We have him", and told Luis Héctor to get his mother there as fast as she could. Sama was not handcuffed, as he was too frightened to run. Officers escorted him out past the barrier fences along the plaza, and Luis Héctor lost sight of him.

The family later converged at the special unit for kidnapping at the state attorney general’s office where Sama had been taken. Luis Héctor waited outside for over an hour, his heart still racing, wanting to confront Sama face-to-face. However, Miriam stopped him at the door, telling him, "No, not you," and adding, "They don’t know you exist. You are our secret weapon".

After a long night of interrogation, Sama began to talk. He offered some lies, claiming to be only a lookout and hearing secondhand about Karen. However, he could not lie entirely because Miriam was present during the questioning, able to testify that he had personally demanded and received bribes for Karen's rescue. Sama attempted to push the blame onto others, a tactic that ironically gave Miriam an advantage by providing her with more names to investigate. As Miriam jotted down notes, she also fed questions to the investigators. Sama, prompted by questioning influenced by Miriam's knowledge, implicated others, including Cristiano, stating that Cristiano had told him Karen had been killed at a ranch near Paso Real, close to the exit for Ciudad Victoria and the Federal Police barracks. Sama also corroborated that the ransom payment had been received in San Fernando, handed off by Karen’s father nearby the Health Center. Officials took a photo of Sama shirtless, his face showing fear, his eyes red and appearing to brim with tears. With Sama in custody and talking, Miriam had achieved a critical breakthrough in her relentless quest for justice for Karen.

—

Miriam focused her efforts on the next key individual revealed by the unfolding investigation: Cristiano.

Miriam had already known Cristiano's name, having heard it months earlier from Carlos, the family friend who had been kidnapped the same night as Karen. Carlos, though traumatized and initially reluctant to speak beyond Facebook messages, had eventually shared more names he overheard while blindfolded: El Chepo, El Flaco de la Ribereña, and Commander Cherokee. Sama's account corroborated Cristiano's involvement and linked him directly to the alleged killing site and the ransom exchange. With El Chepo already in prison for an unrelated kidnapping and CKan, another name mentioned by Sama, reported dead, Cristiano emerged as a primary target. Sama had placed Cristiano in a position of authority in his own testimony, potentially to divert blame, but Miriam reasoned that Cristiano, with his "childish frame and teenage hunger," might be more forthcoming than Sama if apprehended.

Eventually, based on the intelligence Miriam gathered, a federal police officer was able to locate Cristiano. He was found more or less where Sama had suggested he would be, peddling dime bags of pot on the street. The officer spotted the young man, who was wearing jeans and a red T-shirt and carrying a backpack. As the officer followed him, Cristiano picked up his pace and began looking left and right, as if preparing to flee down a side street. Before he could make a break for it, the policeman jumped out of his vehicle and arrested him. Cristiano was taken without a fuss and admitted his identity almost immediately.

The officers drove Cristiano to the special unit for kidnapping where Sama had been taken. They waited for Miriam to arrive. Miriam was granted access to the interviews, a testament to her critical role in the investigation; as author Azam Ahmed in “Fear is Just a word” notes, she "knew more than any of the police" and without her, they would not know what questions to ask, how to frame them, or what evidence Miriam had already collected that might implicate Cristiano.

Cristiano was clearly shaken during the interrogation, his voice quivering when he spoke. At one point, during a break from the questioning, he asked for his mother and said he was hungry. Hearing him ask for his mother evoked a "pang of sympathy" in Miriam, a feeling described as "more primal than rage". She went into the room where the young man was seated and offered him a piece of wrapped chicken she had brought for herself in case the interrogation ran long. An officer present was visibly angry and confused by Miriam's act of kindness, noting what Cristiano had done. Miriam, however, calmly shrugged, explaining that it was possible to "hold two truths at once: the hatred of a murderer and sympathy for a scared boy". She saw him as a child, regardless of his actions, and hearing him ask for his mother reminded her of her own child.

Cristiano, speaking as if unburdening himself, began to share details that Sama had only alluded to or omitted entirely. He provided new names to the investigators, including names Miriam had previously heard from Carlos and through her own investigation, but he gave them context and specific actions tied to each individual. He confirmed, for instance, that a man named Cuitol had been involved in the kidnapping and had been killed by the marines in their raid on the Basurero ranch, alongside CKan, Margarita, and Jessica. Cristiano's testimony confirmed the site of a mass grave. This information was invaluable; he spoke enough of the truth to make the lies feel more plausible. Cristiano's account helped locate where Karen had been killed. The names he shared required validation, a way to connect them to physical characteristics, birth dates, or property, as Miriam had done with Sama. While Miriam did not doubt that the people he named were involved, she needed to understand how and how to find them. Cristiano's detailed testimony, combined with Sama's information, provided essential pieces that began to assemble the complex puzzle of Karen's disappearance and murder.

—

According to the intel gathered by Miriam and the investigators, mainly from the interrogations of Sama and Cristiano, Karen was believed to have been killed at a ranch in the El Lodo area near Paso Real, a location also known as El Basurero. This was a remote area used by the Zetas. In the early hours of March 10, 2014, Mexican marines conducted a raid on this ranch, resulting in the deaths of several individuals. Chalo, who operated Funerales La Paz, was called to the scene that morning to collect the bodies of six people killed in the raid. At the site of the raid, Miriam, who was present in disguise, discovered items belonging to Karen, including a scarf and a seat cushion, offering a devastating confirmation that her daughter had been held there. The six bodies collected by Chalo on March 10, 2014, which included three young men and three young women, were identified as individuals involved in Karen's murder, though only one of the six was later claimed from the funeral home.

Months after this initial raid, in July 2014, forensic specialists conducted a search at the Basurero ranch and discovered three ribs in the silty earth in front of an old red tractor. Miriam was present during this search. Suspecting that these bones might belong to Karen, she formally requested that the government assign a forensic analyst to the case. The process of officially designating an expert took months, occurring on September 27, 2014, despite the request being made the same day the remains were collected, July 17, 2014.

On January 7, 2015, the state laboratory reported a positive DNA match between the genetic profiles of Miriam and Luis, Karen's father, and the three ribs collected in July 2014. The laboratory confirmed that these ribs were Karen's. Despite this official confirmation, Miriam remained skeptical of the state lab's findings, influenced by a lack of trust in government processes which she perceived as often unreliable due to incompetence or a desire to obscure the truth. She felt the need to be absolutely certain.

Miriam was determined to find more of Karen's remains, knowing that a human body contains 206 bones and only three had been located. She pursued an avenue for corroboration by arranging for Karen's alleged remains, the three ribs, to be sent to a genetics lab near Washington, D.C., for independent DNA testing, a process that required a lengthy petition to the government. She also knew there had been searches at the ranch dating back to March 2014, noting that the area where the ribs were found in July had already been dug up, indicating someone had collected evidence there previously, perhaps incompletely. To find out if other remains had been collected, she sent formal letters, including GPS coordinates, to numerous state and federal agencies, inquiring about searches conducted at the Basurero in early 2014.

Miriam's persistent inquiries led the state forensics offices to provide a list of every search conducted at the Basurero, including one that had taken place on May 14, 2014, a date Miriam had not been aware of. On that day, marines had contacted forensic services to come to the Basurero around 9:45 P.M. to collect a male corpse found partially buried. While at the site, authorities also recovered additional remains from another location on the property described as a mass grave where bone fragments were mixed in the mud near an old tractor. The medical examiner was able to distinguish two genetic profiles from these remains collected on May 14, 2014. The autopsy report meticulously documented the steps taken that day, including the collection and packaging of samples for legal effects.

A little over a month later, on June 18, 2014, the state forensics lab concluded their DNA tests on the remains collected on May 14. Later, in April 2016, a confrontation of the genetic profiles obtained from Miriam and Luis confirmed that two of the femurs collected from the Basurero on May 14, 2014, belonged to Karen. These specific femurs had been buried in a common grave on the northwest side of town. The government granted Chalo permission to exhume these remains from the common grave for further testing.

On May 5, 2016, other remains of Karen were formally delivered to Miriam and Luis in Ciudad Victoria. Miriam took possession of these remains and placed them in a silk-lined casket within Chalo's hearse. For this occasion, Miriam dressed formally, and Chalo, who was present, was also formally dressed, providing a sense of continuity amidst the grim circumstances. This second set of remains delivered included the two femurs identified from the May 14, 2014 collection. Upon receiving them, Miriam described them as "what they left me of my daughter". The first set of Karen's remains, the three ribs identified in 2015, had been shipped to Chalo and buried by him in a common grave in October 2014 after authorization from the state.

The process of recovering Karen, or at least the first part of it, concluded on February 10, 2016, when the family buried her in a plot within the San Fernando Cemetery. The burial involved her ribs interred in a child-sized box, among other pieces of her remains that could be found. For Luis Héctor, the burial provided an unwelcome, final conclusion that Karen was indeed dead, dispelling any lingering hope that she might still be alive.

While Miriam learned through Cristiano's later testimony that individuals like CKan, Margarita, Jessica, and Cuitol were among those killed at the Basurero ranch, these deaths also meant a half dozen potential witnesses to Karen's fate were gone. Miriam recognized she needed to work with state investigators to leverage their authority to detain suspects and gather formal testimony.

One critical source of information was Carlos, the family friend who was kidnapped the night Karen was taken when he came to fix her car. Carlos, who miraculously survived and was released, initially communicated with Miriam through sporadic Facebook messages, offering limited details as he was traumatized and scared.

Miriam pursued the names given by Carlos, El Chepo, El Flaco de la Ribereña, Commander Cherokee and others connected to the Zeta cell. She used her innate investigative skills, which included tracking down families, friends, and former associates of the Zetas. She meticulously built profiles of each target, utilizing handwritten notes, telephone numbers, and addresses. Miriam also exploited the Zetas' own online presence; many of the young men and women involved in Karen's murder had made tracking them easier by boasting about their exploits on social media platforms like Facebook, posting photos with weapons, drugs, and fellow Zetas.

It was in this digital realm that Miriam located a photograph depicting El Flaco standing alongside Sama and Cristiano, their faces displaying youthful bravado.

From this image and her other inquiries, Miriam began to construct a profile of El Flaco. The sources describe him as being twenty-one years old at the time of Karen’s kidnapping and murder. He was raised in San Fernando and was slight in build, weighing just under 130 pounds, with a slender frame, a sharp nose, and a narrow face. He was also known to authorities and his associates by the nickname El Flaco de la Ribereña.

Miriam’s investigative method involved meticulously gathering information on each suspect, compiling handwritten notes detailing names, telephone numbers, and addresses. She understood that those who had left the criminal underworld and were living ostensibly normal lives would be harder to find, as the vastness of the civilian population offered greater anonymity than the comparatively smaller network of active criminals. She needed to find ways to penetrate this civilian world to locate El Flaco.

Miriam cultivated a network of contacts across various sectors, including government offices, demonstrating a gift for eliciting cooperation. She befriended a secretary working in the state offices of IMSS, Mexico’s national health institute. This individual, who had also experienced the loss of a child to violence, became an invaluable ally in Miriam's quest. The secretary took it upon herself to use her access to institutional records to help Miriam locate El Flaco.

Through the secretary’s efforts, Miriam received crucial intelligence about El Flaco's whereabouts and activities. The secretary discovered that he was working at a factory located in an industrial park approximately thirty-five miles east of Ciudad Victoria, the state capital. The factory manufactured cables and computer components. The secretary was also able to provide details about his life, such as the fact that he lived in Ciudad Victoria, paid his electricity bills, and was a registered voter.

Leveraging this connection, Miriam also managed to obtain copies of official documents pertaining to El Flaco, including his birth certificate, an electric company bill, and a copy of his voter registration card. This type of "extrajudicial" information gathering was a hallmark of Miriam's investigative work. She meticulously compiled all the gathered materials into a file.

Miriam then transmitted this comprehensive file, including El Flaco’s address, to the authorities responsible for investigating Karen’s case. To ensure her findings were officially documented and could be acted upon, she followed up by detailing everything in a formal written statement submitted to investigators in January 2015. Her persistence yielded results: by February 2015, based on the information Miriam had provided, an arrest warrant was issued for El Flaco.

The physical apprehension of El Flaco occurred in the late afternoon of March 24, 2015. Police officers arrived at the industrial park where he was working. An arrest information report was subsequently filed regarding the detention of El Flaco de la Ribereña in Ciudad Victoria. During his preliminary statement, El Flaco confirmed details about his identity, including his age and physical characteristics. El Flaco was the third individual Miriam had successfully tracked down and facilitated the capture of, following Sama and Cristiano, representing another tangible step in her unwavering pursuit of justice for Karen.

—

The individual known as the Florist was a member of the Zeta cell that had kidnapped Karen. Unlike some of the others involved, the Florist was harder to find on social media and barely appeared in the online profiles of his associates. This lack of an online footprint helped him evade Miriam for a longer period. He remained one of Miriam's targets. She continued to pursue every lead, tracking down anyone who might have information about the Zetas responsible. Through her network of sources, she even befriended the widow of a fellow Zeta who was close to the Florist. It was from this woman that Miriam received a crucial piece of intelligence: the Florist was back living in Matamoros, his hometown.

Armed with this tip, Miriam acted swiftly. In the early-morning hours of Sunday, March 27, 2016, she traveled to Matamoros, a city located two hours north. Her husband, Luis, drove her to the international bridge and parked the truck out of the way, as he often did when Miriam was on her hunts. Miriam was dressed in a trench coat over her pajamas, a baseball cap pulled low to cover her bright red hair. In her coat pocket, she carried a loaded 38 pistol.

Miriam scanned the crowds of street vendors along the concrete esplanade leading up to the bridge, studying the faces of everyone she passed. She paused periodically to show locals a photo of the Florist, hoping someone might have seen him. She walked along the footpaths and sidewalks, even the narrow entrance to the bridge itself, searching in vain. The triangular plaza with benches and a large tree near the toll plaza was filled with people, but not the Florist.

As she continued her search along the footpath, Miriam glanced up and noticed a young man selling compact discs. He was roughly five foot eight and slender. Despite the low odds, she moved closer and became certain. It was the Florist.

Miriam slipped her hand into her pocket, gripping her pistol. She was acutely aware that everyone in his old group likely recognized her by now. Even with her hat, her bright red hair was difficult to conceal. She watched him from a distance, frustrated by the circumstances, and decided to call a source in law enforcement to summon the police to the bridge. She knew the police would take time to arrive due to traffic, giving the Florist an advantage. However, she also knew he couldn't easily flee into Texas; if he ran, he would have to pass her first.

Miriam tried to remain inconspicuous along the narrow footpath, but the density of the crowd meant vendors were pitching wares directly to passersby. This also meant the Florist quickly noticed the woman lurking nearby, watching him with her hands tucked suspiciously in her overcoat. Abandoning his goods on the walkway, the Florist took off running. Miriam immediately pulled out her gun. As told by Azam Ahmed in Fear is Just a Word, pedestrians scattered as she grabbed the Florist by his shirt and jammed the pistol into his lower back.

“If you move, I’ll fucking shoot you,” she said.

She held him there until the police arrived. Miriam also called her police commander friend, Mariano, who had been promoted to statewide operations commander, and he promised to have men available in Matamoros to assist. The police arrived and took the Florist into custody. Miriam beamed as the arrest was made. The Florist was the fourth person Miriam had successfully tracked down and led authorities to, following Sama, Cristiano, and El Flaco. His capture was another significant step in Miriam's unwavering pursuit of justice for Karen.

—

By March 27, 2016, Miriam had already been instrumental in the arrests of several key figures connected to her daughter Karen's case. But her work was far from over. Among those still at large were El Mario, La Chaparra, El Kike, La Güera Soto, and La Machorra.

El Mario, an older leader within the Zeta cartel, had been present at the ranch where Karen was held. Miriam had once attempted to detain him herself, pinning him against a wall while awaiting police assistance that never arrived. Undeterred, she continued to gather intelligence, eventually providing law enforcement with a detailed, hand-drawn map indicating his exact location. This led to his arrest without incident.

La Chaparra, a young woman affiliated with the Zetas, had been tasked with monitoring the road leading to the Basurero, a site significant in Karen’s case. Miriam's investigation, which included analyzing GPS data from ransom calls, confirmed La Chaparra's involvement and her connection to her grandmother's home, where some of the calls originated. Despite a previous attempt to apprehend her in Ciudad Victoria, which resulted in a physical struggle and her escape, La Chaparra was eventually arrested there on August 4, 2016.

El Kike was identified as the individual who had pulled the rope used to strangle Karen. Miriam discovered that he was attempting to distance himself from his past, living as a born-again Christian in Ciudad Victoria. On November 14, 2016, she located him at an evangelical church and confirmed his identity. Law enforcement was alerted, and El Kike was apprehended at the church.

La Machorra, known for subjecting Karen to repeated beatings, became another focus of Miriam's investigation. She compiled an extensive dossier on La Machorra, including photographs, social media posts, and personal details. Miriam tracked her to Veracruz, where she was working as a taxi driver. She also located La Machorra's son, confirming his school by posing as a family friend. When confronted with evidence of her involvement, La Machorra denied it, claiming to be a different person with the same nickname. Nevertheless, she was subsequently arrested.

As the year 2016 drew to a close, Miriam Rodríguez remained fully immersed in her relentless pursuit of those responsible for her daughter Karen’s death. Her daily life was a detailed investigation, meticulously gathering information on the remaining members of the Zeta cell, compiling handwritten notes with names, telephone numbers, and addresses. Her methodical approach, honed over years of tracking, allowed her to uncover the whereabouts of individuals who believed they had escaped their past.

Miriam’s success in bringing these Zetas to justice meant that many of the perpetrators involved in Karen’s murder, or those connected to the same cell, were now incarcerated. Nearly everyone that Miriam had helped put in prison for Karen's murder was housed in the penitentiary in Ciudad Victoria. This concentration of individuals who had reason to resent Miriam, now held together in a correctional facility struggling with overcrowding and corruption, created a volatile environment.

This situation dramatically escalated on the night of March 22, 2017. Twenty-nine inmates orchestrated a mass escape from the Ciudad Victoria penitentiary. The convicts dug a tunnel from the north side of the complex, burrowing under the outer security wall to reach a field nearly 120 feet away. The penal system in Mexico, often characterized as a blight on the nation's efforts towards justice, was overcrowded, underfunded, and rife with corruption, where officials often took payoffs to ignore the activities within.

Upon hearing the news of the prison break, Miriam frantically searched for information on what had happened and, critically, who had escaped. Prison officials initially had difficulty identifying all the fugitives. However, several hours later, an interim list of escapees, accompanied by mug shots, was released to the media. On this list, Miriam recognized a familiar face: El Kike. His escape meant that a man directly involved in her daughter’s death was now free.

During this period , Miriam’s stress became increasingly evident. Her family observed her growing more upset than usual, particularly obsessing over El Kike’s escape and the notion of other escapees, like La Güera Soto, a Zeta associate believed to be Sama’s cousin and involved in Karen’s killing, who was working as a nanny, potentially planning revenge. Her children and friends grew increasingly fearful for her safety, and their own, with her sister-in-law distancing herself and her brother requesting a gun. Despite these palpable fears and entreaties from her loved ones to stop, Miriam remained resolute. She told a journalist friend after the prison break that she suspected she might die for her efforts, but that she could not stop. Her response to the looming threat, as recounted to the journalist, was stark: she hoped the "bastards" would give her a chance to shoot back when they came for her. Miriam understood that her activism challenged the primacy of organized crime and set a dangerous example for others, making her a target. She knew that if someone wanted to kill her, they could, and she had learned to countenance fear and, to some extent, death itself.

However, her requests for protection were largely denied. Authorities across various agencies used what Azam Ahmed describes in his book as flimsy interpretations of the law and narrow definitions of their responsibility to decline her pleas. While the police in San Fernando were eventually tasked with conducting vehicular patrols of her home and workplace, these patrols were inconsistent and inadequate. A commission on human rights investigation later found that the state police agency responsible performed such a poor and erratic job that they initially refused to provide time sheets and later submitted falsified ones to prove they had conducted the patrols. Miriam herself highlighted the lack of effective protection, stating in public that the police officer assigned to her detail barely answered the phone.

Following the prison break, Miriam’s network of sources conveyed disturbing rumors: an order had been given from inside the prison, described as a nerve center for Zeta commanders, to have her killed. This order was linked to the recent escape, and sources indicated that some of the remaining fugitives had been tasked with carrying out the assassination.

—

On the night of May 10th, 2017, Mother’s day in Mexico, Miriam Rodríguez finished work and stepped out into the warm air of San Fernando, Tamaulipas. It was just past 10:20 p.m. She made her way to the car parked out front, climbed in, and began the familiar drive home.

At Calle Abasolo, she turned right, then took the southbound highway leading to Paso Real, the neighborhood where she lived with her husband and son.

By 10:30, she had reached her street. The road was unpaved and dark, the kind of street where the gravel crunched loud beneath tires and headlights were often the only source of light. She parked near the house and opened the door, reaching for her crutches. She had injured her foot when tackling La Güera Soto during one of her many assistances in catching the Zetas’s main figures.

A hundred feet away, tucked into the shadows near a neighbor’s yard, a white Nissan truck sat with its engine off. Inside, several men waited.

Two of them got out.

They moved quickly, quietly, both armed with nine-millimeter pistols. The noise of the street—the chirp of insects, the distant sound of televisions from nearby houses—was shattered by the gunfire. Thirteen shots rang out in rapid succession. Eight of them struck Miriam.

Inside the house, her husband Luis was watching television when he heard the sound. He leapt from bed and ran to the front window. Miriam’s car was there, parked on the road. He shouted her name and bolted outside, pushing through the garage and front gate.

She was lying on the ground, facedown, just a few steps from her car. One hand was tucked inside her purse, gripping the pistol she always carried. Luis knelt beside her and turned her over. Her eyes were open, her chest was rising, but her breathing was ragged. He couldn’t find the wounds. There was no blood. Just the sound of her breath and the unmistakable sense that something was very wrong.

He pulled out his phone and called Ernesto—Miriam’s son-in-law. His voice trembled as he tried to explain what had happened. When he hung up, he called the police.

Ernesto then called Azalea.

She was still at the taquería where she worked, the rush of the evening shift behind her. The tension in his voice was unmistakable. It was the same tone she’d heard years earlier, when they fled to Texas after Ernesto’s attempted kidnapping.

She asked what was wrong.

“Your mother,” he said. “She’s been hurt.”

She pressed him, but he didn’t offer more. By the time he picked her up outside the restaurant, she could feel the panic simmering beneath the silence. Their son sat quietly in the backseat. Azalea asked again what had happened. Ernesto avoided the question.

They drove quickly, wordlessly, through the streets of San Fernando. As they pulled onto Calle Margarita, just a few houses away from Miriam’s, he finally spoke.

“She’s been shot.”

Luis was waiting outside, standing under the amber glow of the streetlight Miriam had spent years fighting to have installed.

Azalea jumped out of the truck and ran to her mother’s side. She dropped to her knees and tried to rouse her, clutching her arms, calling her name. Miriam’s lips parted slightly. A breath came out—slow, low, but not quite a word. Azalea searched her body for a wound, anything to explain the state she was in, but like her father, she found nothing.

She tried to sound calm when she called her brother, Luis Héctor. She told him Miriam had been shot in the leg, but that she was stable. There was no need to rush, she said. Just be careful on the drive from Monterrey.

Minutes passed. No ambulance came. When officers from the Ministerio Público finally arrived, they walked up to Miriam, checked her pulse, then exchanged a look that said more than words could. Azalea pleaded with them to take her to the hospital, but they refused. They said they had to wait for the ambulance.

They said it was procedure but eventually, they relented.

Ernesto backed the family truck up close, and together they lifted Miriam into the bed. Azalea ran into the house to grab a blanket to cover her. As they drove, she sat beside her mother, watching her chest rise and fall, hoping that the shallow rhythm meant there was still time.

At the hospital, staff moved quickly. Nurses wheeled her down the hallway, donning gloves and calling for surgeons. The urgency gave Azalea hope. No one moved like that unless there was still a chance. She was given a sedative to calm her down, but the sense of unease only deepened. After a while, she noticed something had changed.

The hallways had quieted. Staff no longer rushed. The tones had softened. There were fewer voices now, fewer footsteps, fewer doors opening and closing.

A doctor—an old friend—entered the waiting room and took a seat beside her. She placed a hand on Azalea’s arm and rubbed gently, trying to comfort her.

Azalea pulled away.

“Why aren’t you with her?” she asked. “Why aren’t you inside?”

On the road to San Fernando, Luis Héctor had managed to arrange a police escort. The drive took two hours. When he called Azalea again, she told him to come straight to the house, not the hospital.

As the police vehicle turned onto Calle Margarita, he saw the van parked in front of the house.

It belonged to Forensic Services.

They don’t show up unless someone has died.

Inside the operating room, the lights had been dimmed. The only sounds came from the far end of the hallway.

Miriam lay on a steel table, her body covered in a white sheet.

Azalea stepped in alone.

She pulled the sheet back, searching for some sign that her mother was still there. That the shallow breath she’d clung to on the ride to the hospital hadn’t been the last.

But the room was still.

The chest no longer moved.

There was no sound.

Now, the wounds were easier to see. Gunpowder burns ringed the entry points, mostly clustered around her legs. One bullet had passed beneath her arm and torn through her ribs. Azalea touched the edges, her fingers tracing the clean black circles, still trying to make sense of it.

She stayed there for a while, unable to leave. It didn’t feel real—not yet. The hospital staff eventually returned and told her gently that they needed to move the body. It was time to take her to Chalo’s funeral home. Her brother was waiting. Her father, last she saw, had been wandering the hospital parking lot, dazed and silent.

Miriam Rodríguez had spent years seeking justice for the murdered and disappeared. She had never stopped, even when others told her it was too dangerous.

Now, someone had decided she needed to be silenced.

In the weeks following the murder of Miriam Rodríguez, the investigation into her killers expanded beyond the streets of San Fernando. One name began to surface again and again. A man known by the nickname Pata de Queso—Cheese Foot.

He was fifty-six years old. In cartel years, that made him ancient.

His given name was never used. Among associates, he was simply Pata. The story behind the name was well known: years earlier, a female assassin had shot him in the foot. The nickname stuck.

He was a regional boss for the Zetas, operating primarily out of Las Norias, a remote zone south of San Fernando. For years, he kept a low profile. He rarely entered the towns under his control, relying instead on lieutenants and foot soldiers to carry out orders. He avoided phones and stayed in the background, careful not to leave a trail.

But when the Zetas lost control of San Fernando—after Miriam Rodríguez’s campaign led to the arrest of their local leader—Pata de Queso stepped in. From that point forward, he began issuing commands that reached deep into San Fernando’s criminal network.

According to a dying Zeta named Rocco, it was Pata de Queso who gave the order to kill Miriam. The payment for the hit came from another figure in the group—a man known as El Hugo.

At the time, authorities were already monitoring the phones of several cartel members. With help from Miriam’s son, Luis Héctor, investigators began piecing together connections, tracing phone activity, identifying voices. Every step pulled them closer to the top.

In early November 2017, federal officer Paisa received a tip: Pata de Queso was sick—badly. He had been transported in an ambulance to the General Hospital in Ciudad Victoria. The condition was serious: liver failure. He was undergoing dialysis.

Paisa and another officer found the ambulance driver and confirmed the location. Then, without backup, Paisa entered the hospital posing as a Zeta. He found the room and walked in alone.

Pata de Queso was lying in bed. His face was drawn, body slack, hair white. To Paisa, he looked less like a drug lord and more like a man from a nursing home—fragile, already slipping away.

The arrest happened without resistance.

He was placed in custody and transferred to Mexico City to face a growing list of charges. But he wouldn’t make it that far.

Three days later, Pata de Queso was dead.

The death occurred during the transfer to the capital. Paisa was on board the plane with him. At one point during the flight, he leaned in and asked a question that had haunted investigators for months:

Why was Miriam Rodríguez killed?

Pata de Queso gave an answer—whether clear-minded or delirious, no one could say for sure.

“She was bringing the law down on us too much,” he said. “She was causing trouble.”

With Pata de Queso dead, leadership of the region passed to El Hugo—the man who had paid for Miriam’s murder.

The chain of command remained intact.

But the man who had given the order was gone.

Her death, on Mother's Day, was an act that organized crime likely intended as a degenerate yet ingenious piece of criminal marketing, demonstrating their power, excising an enemy, and warning others against challenging them.

—

Those who knew Miriam sometimes expressed surprise at her newfound boldness when she decided to go after her daughter’s killers, while others recognized an inherent determination she had always possessed, citing past instances where she had located thieves or insisted on personally handling a ransom payment. According to her friend Chalo, the funeral director, Miriam was uniquely unafraid in San Fernando's climate of terror, once telling him that fear was merely a word.

Engaging with the formal justice system proved to be a persistent challenge. Miriam frequently encountered officials who were either unwilling or unable to assist her. She learned to navigate the system's complex, often intentionally obfuscating language, which she felt was designed to make understanding difficult. To force action, she discovered she needed an "inexhaustible well of patience and energy" and a deep understanding of the archaic bureaucratic processes. Miriam became adept at using victims' rights laws, understanding her entitlements and how to strategically pressure specific bureaucrats. She filed numerous requests, complaints, and detailed declarations, building voluminous case files to compel the bureaucracy to respond to her demands. This ability to "inflict bureaucracy on the bureaucracy" became a key method for making the state apparatus function on her behalf.

Beyond her singular quest, Miriam extended her efforts to support and mobilize other families of the disappeared in San Fernando. Recognizing that individual despair was often ineffective against the system's indifference, she advocated for families to "channel that desperation with purpose" and to be "entrepreneurial in one’s grief". She established a collective, organizing meetings, searches for clandestine graves, and providing a space for shared sorrow and action. She generously shared her detailed knowledge of victims' rights and bureaucratic procedures, empowering families—many of whom were paralyzed by fear or distrust of the government—to file complaints and advocate for themselves. As María Inés Vera Hernández, a mother who lost her son, recounted, Miriam's fierce support brought a measure of comfort and made her feel significantly less alone.

Miriam's activism, while achieving concrete results including the identification and capture of several individuals involved in her daughter's case, came at a considerable and ultimately fatal personal risk. She was acutely aware that her actions had created enemies, not only among the cartel remnants she hunted but also among resentful government officials who saw her as a nuisance or an obstacle.

Her death sent shockwaves, becoming a significant media event and drawing widespread condemnation. The government quickly issued statements condemning the murder and vowing justice. However, questions immediately arose regarding the state's responsibility. Officials claimed Miriam had been provided protection through patrols. Yet, this was contradicted by statements from others, including Gloria Garza from the state human rights commission, who claimed Miriam refused protection due to distrust, and a video posted by Guillermo Riestra showing Miriam publicly requesting protection and complaining that her assigned police contact didn't answer his phone. An investigation by the human rights commission later found that the state police tasked with her patrols had performed erratically and submitted falsified documentation when asked to prove they had carried out their duties.

In the wake of her murder, the government made arrests. One individual, Misael, was detained after the white Nissan truck used in the killing was identified. He was reportedly wanted on another kidnapping charge but was questioned about Miriam's murder while in custody. He was later sentenced to fifteen years, a term Miriam's family privately felt was insufficient for murder. Another alleged perpetrator, El Aluche, was killed in a confrontation with authorities later that year. Following Miriam's death, an anonymous note was taped to the entrance of the Ministerio Público providing names and details of men involved in her murder, a document the government highlighted as key evidence.

Miriam's legacy is multifaceted. Her relentless pursuit brought some of her daughter's killers to justice and recovered Karen's remains, providing a measure of closure. She transformed her grief into a powerful engine for change, becoming a symbol of resistance against fear and state indifference. She empowered countless other families of the disappeared, providing them with knowledge, support, and a collective voice in a society often numb to their suffering. Yet, her murder reinforced the ongoing, profound danger faced by activists and the persistent failure of the Mexican state to protect its citizens, particularly those challenging organized crime.

The violence in San Fernando did not end with Miriam; sources indicate the return of cartels and the perpetual cycle of conflict continued even after her death. Miriam's work brought out the state's shortcomings in forensic analysis, victim support, and providing security. Her story leaves behind unresolved questions about the depth of state complicity or incompetence, the true extent of the disappeared crisis (as Miriam herself noted, "Not even the government knows how many of us there are"), and whether true justice and security can ever be achieved in places like San Fernando.

Her son, Luis Héctor, attempted to carry on her work, but the void left by his mother, described as the literal killing of a symbol of resistance, was immense, reflecting the difficulty of filling the space left by such a singular, powerful force.

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Keywords: Miriam Rodríguez, Los Zetas cartel, true crime podcast, kidnapping, vigilante justice, Mexico, cartel violence, mother’s search for truth.

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