Free The Daughters of Juarez: A True Story of Serial Murder South of the Border by Teresa Rodriguez, Diana Montané Page A

claiming that Sharif Sharif had ordered all of the murders from the confines of his maximum-security jail cell. State police comandante Antonio Navarrete led the investigation that tied the gang to Sharif Sharif.
     
     
Gang members charged they had been beaten and tortured and ultimately forced to confess to crimes they didn't commit. Their stories were corroborated by family members, who described debilitating and painful injuries, including the gang leader's claim that he'd been handcuffed to his cell for three days straight and struck in the head hard enough to leave him with a permanent scar.
     
     
To many, the alleged murder-for-hire plot seemed absurd. How could Sharif Sharif make contacts with these individuals, convince them to carry out a series of murders, and pay them for their work from his jail cell? The men had no apparent connection to Sharif Sharif and no serious criminal backgrounds.
     
     
Further questions arose after it became apparent that police were not able to establish any money trail between Sharif and his supposed gang of assassins. Indeed, Sharif spoke only a few words of Spanish and would have been hard pressed to communicate with the men— much less lay out a detailed modus operandi for crimes to ensure that all of the murders looked similar.
     
     
In his exclusive one-on-one interview in February of 1999, the Egyptian told Univision he believed he was being used as a scapegoat. That day, Sharif was in day twelve of a hunger strike. Supposedly he was refusing food to call attention to what he characterized as his "wrongful conviction."
     
     
Sharif was an imposing figure, taller and fairer-skinned than most of the inmates at El Cereso. He appeared ashen, no doubt from twelve days without food. He was only allowing himself Gatorade and water, nothing else.
     
     
"I am the perfect scapegoat because I don't speak Spanish!" he cried, his voice rising as he spoke to the camera. "I didn't even speak any Spanish until I got into prison! And I'm not from here. I am a foreigner. I don't have family to defend me on the outside!
     
     
"But I am a hardworking man. When I was on the outside, I worked very hard. As vice president of a company in Midland, Texas, I supervised all the communications via telephone, fax, and computers. And I also started a company here."
     
     
Leaning back in the chair, Sharif pulled out a pack of Marlboros from his shirt pocket and lit up. "Mira, look," he said, pointing to some of the documents as he exhaled the smoke. "Here are the forensic findings on the body of the woman they say is Elizabeth Castro. Her corpse was at least two weeks old, and the Elizabeth Castro they refer to is a woman whose body was found only four days before.
     
     
"They come here, they take impressions of my teeth, sperm samples, blood samples, hair from my head, pubic hair, urine, and my…" He stretched out a hand, tapping the tips of his fingers, alluding to his fingerprints. "But everything was negative! They don't want to announce the results so we can't use it for my behalf, but everything was negative."
     
     
Sharif was correct. Authorities did, in fact, take dental impressions, and the teeth marks on Castro's body did not match those of the Egyptian.
     
     
Like so many others in Juárez, Sharif alluded to police involvement in the crimes. "I am absolutely certain of one policía," he claimed. "And I believe more, but I have no proof. I have the proof about one, and I am sure about two other people. But they're not policías. They're rich, they're drug traffickers… ricos, narcotraficantes, mafia."
     
     
Mexican mafia? This seemed entirely too far-fetched for such ritualistic crimes against the poor. Why would they waste their time with these girls? Could there be much more to this convoluted plot? Could the killers be raping the girls to satisfy their sexual whims, later murdering them so no one could identify them?
     
     
Sharif insisted that "incompetence, corruption,