Description

The Lady of Silence: The Mataviejitas Murders

Between 1998 and 2006, elderly women living alone in Mexico City were systematically murdered by someone who gained their trust by posing as a government social worker. The killer was Juana Barraza Samperio, a professional wrestler known as La Dama del Silencio—The Lady of Silence. Her traumatic childhood, sold by her alcoholic mother for three beers and subsequently sexually abused, created the psychological foundation for her displacement of rage onto symbolic maternal figures. But the investigation was catastrophically flawed. For years, authorities searched for a male killer, unable to conceive that a woman could commit such systematic violence. This gender bias led directly to the wrongful convictions of Araceli Vázquez García and Jorge Mario Tablas Silva, innocent people who were prosecuted based on fabricated forensic evidence while the real killer remained free. Though Barraza was eventually caught and sentenced to 759 years in prison, Vázquez remains imprisoned today despite definitive proof of her innocence, including fingerprint evidence that was falsely attributed to her but actually belonged to Barraza. This meticulously researched account exposes how investigative failures, institutional self-protection, and the systematic persecution of marginalized individuals created injustices that persist decades after the truth became undeniable.