Mexican authorities say they have taken into custody a man from Tucson, Arizona, in connection with the March 25 murder in front of a religious shrine in Nogales, Sonora.
Last Wednesday, the Sonora Criminal Investigations Agency apprehended Mario Alberto N., 25, on the Mexican side of the Nogales-Mariposa Port of Entry and accused him of premeditated murder.
The suspect, along with another man, reportedly kidnapped Gerardo Esteban N. and transported him to the San Judas Tadeo temple on the Nogales-Imuris highway. They instructed him to run and then shot him in the back, according to a statement from the Sonora Attorney General’s Office.
Sonora authorities said they identified one of the suspects as “El Bolas” (Balls), obtained an arrest warrant, and found him through intelligence gathering and information exchange with other, unnamed law enforcement organizations in the Sonora-Arizona region.
Mario Alberto N.—Mexico does not reveal the complete names of suspects or victims—came before a Mexican judge late last week, and his lawyer asked for additional time to fight the charges. The judge ordered the suspect’s custody pending a hearing.
Several murders have been reported near Nogales’ wayside religious shrines. According to local media, authorities discovered a body with traces of violence and a bullet wound to the face near the Capilla de la Santa Muerte, or Holy Death sanctuary, last month.
Another two bodies were discovered in February, and El Diario de Sonora said that a dozen bodies had been left there in prior years.
In a 2021 article, The New York Post stated that gang members involved in perilous “missions” pray to Holy Death and other religious figures for protection, including St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes.
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