70 Bags of Human Remains Found in Clandestine Grave In Tonalá, Jalisco

“HEARST” for Borderland Beat

On May 18 2021, the State Attorney General announced 70 bags of human remains had been extracted thus far from a mass grave in Tonalá, Jalisco.

It began on April 25, 2021, when residents of the Alamedas de Zalatitán neighborhood in Tonalá noticed a foul odor while they were walking through an isolated section of the neighborhood. The smell was coming from a seemingly empty dirt lot that was surrounded by brick walls and a gate closing off the entry.

On the exterior brick walls, graffiti reading PET plastic (in reference to PET bottle recycling) and CHATARRA (Spanish for scrap metal or junk) was written. The residents later told Milenio that the property, #102 on Armería Street, was rarely walked by because all the houses surrounding it were abandoned, so the fetid odor could have gone unnoticed for some time.

The smell was reported to authorities. The Prosecutor’s office requested a search warrant for the property which was granted two days later and excavation of the site began. A truck from the Jalisco Institute of Forensic Sciences has been seen entering and leaving the site, as well as a backhoe.

By April 29, the forensics team had already discovered 5 bags of human remains. On May 4, the total grew to 13 bags. By May 13 the total number of bags jumped up to 51. And at the May 18th press conference, State Attorney General Gerardo Octavio Solís Gómez announced the current total of bags extracted as 70.

“The progress of this property is that 70 bags with various human remains have been located that at the moment are counted in 11 victims and the corresponding work is still being carried out,” said Octavio Solís.

Currently excavation continues on in search of more bags. A unit of the Public Security Police of Tonalá can be seen guarding the place 24 hours a day.

According to a report from the National Search Commission for the Ministry of the Interior, between December 01 2018 and April 7 2021 Jalisco state has had 3,096 new cases of disappeared persons and clandestine graves.

In 2020, 433 bodies of people buried in clandestine graves in Jalisco were recovered. This means that 42.96% of the 859 bodies found in mass graves nationwide were found in Jalisco state alone.

Note: The property number is erroneously reported as #309 in some publications. However Guardia Nocturna correctly identifies it as #102.

Sources: Informador, Video of Jalisco AG  Press Conference, Telemundo 52,  Milenio, Guardia Nocturna