Mexico: 5-year-old boy's eyes gouged out in apparent drug-fueled ritual; Mother arrested
Red Cross emergency responders carry away an unidentified 5-year-old boy on a stretcher after being flown via helicopter to a medical facility in Mexico City May 24, 2012. / AP Photo
(AP) MEXICO CITY - Police in a Mexico City suburb arrested a mother and several relatives Thursday for allegedly gouging out the eyes of her 5-year-old son in what authorities said appeared to have been a drug-fueled ritual.
The boy was taken to a hospital in Nezahualcoyotl, a part of Mexico state bordering Mexico City, in serious condition early Thursday and later transferred by helicopter to a more specialized facility in the capital, officials said.
Nezahualcoyotl spokesman Fernando Chavez said a passing police car was flagged down on the street by someone who reported the incident and when officers entered the home they found the mother in shock with the boy in her arms.
"Once the woman allowed local police to check the boy, they were astonished to see the boy had no eyeballs," the government said in a statement.
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Mexico state prosecutor Isaac Acevedo told local media that a total of eight people had been detained and that investigators believed the mother herself gouged the boy's eyes out with her fingers. The boy's father was apparently not in the home at the time.
The crime appeared to have been part of a ritual, but was not apparently related to the Santa Muerte or Saint Death cult, some of whose followers were recently charged with the sacrificial killings of two 10-year-old boys and a 55-year-old woman in northern Sonora state, he said.
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The boy's aunt and uncle were also apparently at the house when the adults began using some unspecified drug, the spokesman said. Chavez said one witness told police she had passed out under the influence of drugs and when she regained consciousness, the boy's eyes were gone.
The adults have not yet been charged in the case, but are being held pending investigation. Two children and a 17-year-old were also found at the residence.
In March, authorities in Sonora state arrested eight people for allegedly sacrificing the two boys and adult woman as offerings to Saint Death, an idol usually depicted as a robed skeleton. Followers of the cult include criminals and drug traffickers.
While statues of Saint Death are common in many poor Mexican neighborhoods, Chavez said no altar or statue of the figure was found in the Nezahualcoyotl home.
Mexico's worst case of ritual sacrifice came with the notorious "narco-satanicos" killings of the 1980s. Fifteen bodies, many of them with signs of ritual sacrifice, were unearthed at a ranch outside the border city of Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.
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Christians: In the Philippines, because of the catholic church; there is a fierce debate if it is moral to use a condom. The Philippines is suffering from overpopulation and poverty. It would be typical to find a very poor couple with 5-10 children. Most of these really poor children turn out to be criminals.
Muslims: Terrorism, Sharia Law, Women's rights, Suicide bombings and 40 virgins. Need I say more.
But if you refer to people looking for a better life, it is you who is the coward, for they are brave to come here, and you are afraid you'll lose your job.
As for fighting for their country, America stole this land, first from then natives, then the other empires, then from it's neighbors.
Today, the banks steal the land from the homeowners...and you're afraid of idiot cowards from another country...you are pretty misinformed about mexicans and the drug war that has cost the lives of over 59000 people there only on the other side of our border.
You are a pitiful creature, lucky to live here and undeserving.
don't generalize not all mexican's are pagans. we have our share of crazies too. remember the davidians of waco texas.
The way I see, this drug problem can only be solved if the U.S. gets seriously involved. The U.S. should allocate a significant amount of it's budget to fighting drugs in Mexico.
What are forms of condign action that would convince others not to do this?
Worse, the civilized trying to impose punishment and means to deter might be dragged down in the attempt.
Even worse, a country trying to impose such standards and ethics might be met with a backlash...
I agree.
Don't forget, "there is no such thing as society. There are individual men, women, and families." Or so we've been told in the past, by people who now have retired and ironically love on the government dole. (Support the system and enjoy working with it because it should be symbiotic. Don't denounce it but then live off of it. Hypocrisy helps nobody nor their messages.)