Al Letson From the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX this is Reveal I'm Al Letson and today we bring you the conclusion of our three-part series After Ayotzinapa about the disappearance of 43 Mexican college students We left off last week in the spring of 2016 a year and a half after the students disappeared Omar Gómez Trejo is a man without a country He had to flee his native Mexico after he and a group of international investigators held a press conference accusing some of the country's most powerful officials of covering up what really happened to those students Omar Gómez Trejo Spanish Al Letson The Organization of American States had formed a group of independent investigators known as the GIEI because the parents did not believe the government's version of events The government claimed a local gang was behind the attack but Omar and the independent investigators found evidence of a much broader conspiracy They suspected the government had planted and concealed evidence and coerced confessions to cover up for state and federal officials who were connected to the attacks They concluded that the government was trying to make it look like a local crime and close the case quickly When the independent investigators released their findings about the suspected conspiracy Speaker 4 Spanish Al Letson Mexican officials were furious and experts left in fear returning to their countries They convinced Omar to leave too Omar ends up going to Honduras and working on another human rights case for the UN but he's struggling He can't get the Ayotzinapa case out of his mind and neither can Jim Cavallaro from the Organization of American States He wants to keep the case open but from Washington DC So on a trip to Honduras Jim tracks down Omar and they go out to dinner Omar Gómez Trejo So I get to dinner with Jim and he says What are you doing here And I say Nothing I'm sick of Honduras I just quit my job If I can't stay in Mexico I'm going to get a little piece of beach in Panama open up a little bar And Jim's like Are you crazy Resign take a little vacation do whatever you want But I want you in Washington by the 1st of April Okay Al Letson Reveal's Anayansi Diaz-Cortes and our partner Kate Doyle from the National Security Archive uncover information that points to new leads in the case But first we pick up the story with Omar's move to Washington and how that ends up putting him on a path back to Mexico Omar Gómez Trejo Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Omar Kate and I are standing in front of a cream-colored brick building in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington DC We look up at the windows of a small apartment It's where Omar lived when he first got here in 2016 Omar Gómez Trejo After I left Mexico I dragged around two suitcases a couple of books my camera my Mexican wrestler mask things that were symbolic for me Anayansi Diaz-Cortes It was a bare-bones existence but Omar remembers he was just excited to be working on the case again Jim Cavallaro had put together a small team that Omar joined Omar Gómez Trejo And then I get to Washington and they hadn't done anything about the case nothing Anayansi Diaz-Cortes And so Omar decides to dig into the case He starts combing through the Mexican government's case files hundreds of reports and interviews He's looking for key facts witnesses contradictions It takes over Omar's life and his apartment Omar Gómez Trejo My apartment was covered in papers I would scribble things on them I would say to my friends Okay go in Don't look at the walls Anayansi Diaz-Cortes His friends think he's kind of losing it His head in clouds of smoke from chain-smoking When he takes what he learned back to his coworkers at the Organization of American States they don't take him seriously They tell him Omar Gómez Trejo Come on Omar you are not a CSI This is not your job Anayansi Diaz-Cortes For a few months Omar plods along like this working pretty much alone Then he's invited to dinner by one of his old bosses in the Ayotzinapa case former Guatemalan attorney general Claudia Paz y Paz She has dinner plans with her good friend Kate Doyle who's in town visiting Kate Doyle And she said Oh I've invited Omar Remember Omar Our secretary I was like Oh yeah Omar Right Okay Anayansi Diaz-Cortes We learned in the last episode how Kate who investigates human rights crimes got involved in Ayotzinapa after being contacted by the lawyers of the parents of the missing students At this point Kate had only met Omar once They all had dinner at a Mexican restaurant near Omar's home Kate told me the story over Zoom a few months ago Kate Doyle And there he was just as nice and smart and fun And he smoked cigarettes which I did too at the time And he's loves his mescal or tequila He's fun to be it Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Then they talk business Omar about how he's been reading the Mexican government's enormous file about Ayotzinapa Kate Doyle Oh my God What did we not talk about on this case It all started with the intercepted text Anayansi Diaz-Cortes The intercepted text we told you about in our last hour that the DEA tracked between members of the drug cartel Guerreros Unidos In the days before during and after the attacks on the students text messages were going back and forth between gang members in Iguala where the students disappeared and the suburbs of Chicago where heroin was being delivered in passenger buses Kate and Omar feel these texts could help identify the attackers Kate Doyle We meet with the Justice Department We meet with members of Congress We meet with the State Department We call the US attorney personally all kinds of creative ways that we could try to push on that door to get information from the US government about what they knew Anayansi Diaz-Cortes And then explosive news Omar discovers that his phone had been hacked with an Israeli spyware called Pegasus He says the Mexican government had been spying on him and the international experts when they were investigating the case Omar Gómez Trejo My phone was like a switchboard for all of our calls I spoke to victims I spoke to sources I spoke to everybody So it had all our information And all that information the government now had about the case Anayansi Diaz-Cortes And back in Mexico the government starts an all-out campaign to discredit the work Omar and the international experts had done the report that exposed a giant cover-up by Mexican politicians police and members of the military The government goes back to touting its original explanation of the attack on the students The so called Spanish or historical truth The parents of the missing boys don't believe them and do everything they can to keep the case in the public eye They march speak to the press and try to meet with government officials But they're turned down Cristina Bautista known as Doña Cristi lost her son Benjamín in the attack In April 2017 she and other families try to force a meeting with Mexico's secretary of the interior by just showing up at his office When they get there she says the building is closed off by a metal fence Cristi Bautista They began to launch tear gas at us Protesters crosstalk Cristi Bautista Oh I remember very well And when I looked around a young protester that was with us was badly hurt drooling crying on the ground in pain until he fainted Then I saw some girls that had Coca-Cola and I knew that Coke helped with the pain So I asked them Please please can I have your Coke And I ran to him and poured Coke on his face and mouth and he woke up It was terrible All we wanted was to demand a meeting with officials but they greeted us with tear gas Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Omar follows the news in Mexico from DC It's painful to watch the case collapse without being able to do anything about it But by summer of 2017 he's met someone he can confide in a young lawyer from Texas named Helen Omar Gómez Trejo And we would spend entire nights talking about life about stuff And Helen would ask me a lot about the Ayotzinapa case Helen became a part of a process of healing to say things to let them go to talk through stuff I don't think I had ever talked with anyone the way I talked to Helen in those days Helen We met in August We started dating in December And within three weeks we lived together And two weeks after that I don't know I think we'd just woken up And I turned to him and I said Hey do you want to get married And he said Yes Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Speaker 9 And in Mexico things are shifting too Crowd Viva Speaker 9 Viva Mexico Crowd Viva Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Presidential elections are coming up in 2018 and a leftist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador known in Mexico as AMLO is leading in the polls Doña Cristi remembers going to one of AMLO's rallies in the area where the students were attacked Cristi Bautista Andrés Manuel López Obrador was on the stage totally blocked off and security would not let us through Then he saw us and he told security Let them through And I remember I spoke Andrés Manuel López Obrador if you become president what are you going to do for our case I think the question touched his heart He teared up and said Because if I become president we will find out what happened that night Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Speaker 10 In July 2018 AMLO wins in a landslide Viva Mexico On the streets of Mexico City a celebrated victory more than a decade in the making Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Andrés Manuel López Obrador In December he's sworn in Anayansi Diaz-Cortes With a new government in Mexico Omar starts toying with the idea of moving back home Kate remembers when he first brought it up Kate Doyle He would joke to me Well yeah I'm going to become a house husband I'm going to get a dog I think I'll just cook dinners and be home with an apron on That kind of thing Anayansi Diaz-Cortes And in early 2019 Omar and Helen moved to Mexico She gets a job as an immigrant rights attorney And a few months later the new president announces he's going to reopen the Ayotzinapa investigation Kate Doyle I said So how's it going house husband And he's like Well it's good It's good And I said So tell me what's going on with the case and what do you think And he said Well they're looking for a special prosecutor And they've asked a couple of people and they have said 'No ' basically they don't want to do it Spanish And he said I think I'm going to put my name in for it And I said Wait wait wait what You're going to put your name in for special prosecutor but don't you have to be a lawyer to do that And he was like I am a lawyer And I said Wait you're a lawyer I didn't know you were a lawyer Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Helen Omar's wife Helen is all for it Anayansi Diaz-Cortes It's a head-spinning turn After fleeing Mexico and spending almost three years in exile for challenging the government's original investigation into the attack on the students Omar will soon be the chief prosecutor of a new investigation Al Letson Coming into his new position Omar is determined to uncover the facts of the attack But soon he finds out he's surrounded by people who still don't want the truth to get out This is Reveal's serial investigation After Ayotzinapa Speaker 12 Spanish Al Letson Chapter three All Souls Commercial break A week later he got the call to go in and have the interview He came back from the interview and he's like I'm never going to get this job It went horribly This is a disaster He spent the whole weekend depressed And then at like 8 30 AM on Monday he got the call Al Letson From the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX this is Reveal I'm Al Letson In June 2019 Omar Gómez Trejo is sworn in as the chief prosecutor for Spanish Ayotzinapa the case of the 43 missing students It's big news in Mexico Speaker 13 Omar Gómez Trejo Spanish Speaker 14 Spanish Speaker 13 Omar Gómez Trejo Spanish Al Letson A few months into his new position Omar reconnects with Kate Doyle and starts communicating on a regular basis with her and Anayansi Diaz-Cortes sharing his insider's perspective on what it's like to lead this case In order to keep his identity secret while reporting this story Kate and Anayansi always refer to Omar as the DJ instead of his real name On trips to Mexico they meet him in person usually at his home Kate Doyle Hi Omar Omar Gómez Trejo Spanish Al Letson As special prosecutor Omar now has the power to indict government officials who he suspects sabotaged the original investigation He can follow up on leads that could expose who the attackers were and what they did with the students During their visit Omar and his wife Helen tell Anayansi and Kate that doing this job means adjusting almost every aspect of their daily life to keep them safe Anayansi Diaz-Cortes There are phones in the fridge Helen why do you make DJ put his phone in the fridge Helen Because the fridge doesn't block the signal but it does block the mic That's what Edward Snowden taught us like 10 years ago Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Omar Gómez Trejo Is your phone in the fridge DJ Anayansi Diaz-Cortes It lives there Omar tells me He and Helen have gotten used to being super careful They even make jokes about it Omar Gómez Trejo Spanish Helen He likes the phone to be fresh Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Omar Gómez Trejo And then he gets serious Anayansi Diaz-Cortes And the threats go way beyond eavesdropping So they've installed double-thick windows and security cameras in the apartment A police car is always parked out front Omar says his early days as prosecutor are brutal because the prosecutor's office known as the Spanish is filled with many of the same people who had hidden the truth about the case He says one day he was given a file with some very sensitive information about people who worked for the previous administration Omar Gómez Trejo I put the file on my desk and at one point I get up and go talk to someone in the office about something And when I come back the file isn't there Anayansi Diaz-Cortes He goes to building security and they get the surveillance video It shows someone from his staff entering his office picking up the folder and walking out with it Omar Gómez Trejo And so I go to him I confront him He denies it And my folder is sitting right there in his desk I grab my file go talk to his superiors they don't want to do anything about it That's when I realized I have to take much more drastic measures and I begin firing people Anayansi Diaz-Cortes By the time he's finished cleaning house Omar has fired most of the people working in his department dozens of them The odds were stacked so high against him Omar says his bosses in the Mexican government had bets out that he would not last more than three months And in that first week Omar was put to the test I always assume that people are listening in on me even now without a cell phone Just days before his appointment was publicly announced a disturbing video was posted anonymously on YouTube And we should warn you the next few minutes of this story contain descriptions of torture that may be difficult for some listeners to hear Speaker 30 Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes The video's about a minute long It shows a man in a chair blindfolded with a plastic bag pulled tight over his head about to be electroshocked The man is Carlos Canto He was a middle school teacher in Iguala the town where the students were attacked He also owned a local bar there He was one of dozens of people rounded up in government sweeps in the weeks after the boys went missing Carlos ended up confessing but the video is proof that it was forced When the video was released the new government under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador set him free and helped him and his family start a new life in a different part of Mexico After that he kept a low profile never speaking to the press Over the course of almost two years Kate and I worked to contact him We reached out to the UN Human Rights office in Mexico and they connected us to Carlos's sister After several months she arranges for us to talk to him And eventually we fly to the place where he's resettled to meet him in person Carlos Canto Salgado My name is Carlos Canto Salgado I'm 39 years old and married with two kids This interview is important for me because I want to tell the truth Kate Doyle Carlos is tall looks athletic He sits on a couch in his living room and plunges into his story almost like he's been saving it up for this moment On October 22nd 2014 a little under a month after the students disappeared Carlos Canto Salgado It was about 3 00 AM when we heard sounds at the door Open Hurry He's a federal police the navy And they say they had an arrest order for me I had no idea why They stand me up handcuff me Kate Doyle They make him wait outside while they search his home and take some random things a bag of clothes a wad of plastic grocery bags Carlos Canto Salgado One official turns to me This is for the little trip we are about to take you on Spanish Kate Doyle He says they wrap a shirt around his head so he can't see push him into a car and drive off Carlos Canto Salgado Kate Doyle Spanish Carlos Canto Salgado The marine said to me How difficult do you want to make this And he asked me Where are the students Carlos says they lead him to a deserted place on the outskirts of town and make him sit on the ground A marine sits down next to him and starts interrogating him I don't know where the students are He slaps me across the face Please forgive me I don't know where the students are I'm a teacher You guys are confused You want to do this the hard way He slaps me again So I have no idea where the students are I don't know Kate Doyle This is when he says they take his punishment to a new level Carlos Canto Salgado One official brought out a shopping bag filled up with plastic grocery bags What do they want with the bags They handcuff me with my arms above my head One officer sat on my legs and the other one on my chest Question after question The moment I answer I don't know I felt the first bag go over my head And believe me it's something I can't describe what it feels like to have a bag over your head to be deprived of air I could not move In complete desperation my heart was racing at 1 000 miles per hour I was trying to break the bag Anything to let a bit of air in Kate Doyle Carlos says when it was nearly dawn they stop and give him some clean clothes They put him in a car and drive to Mexico City He was blindfolded almost the whole time he was questioned there but later found out he was on a military base Carlos Canto Salgado Kate Doyle Spanish Carlos Canto Salgado The light hurts my eyes He grabs his cell phone He shows me a photo of my wife on his phone Do you want to see or hear what we are going to do to her We have her right here They start asking me about safe houses firearms drugs money all these things I knew nothing about Because I fear what they do to my wife I told them I know about a house in such and such place I just made it up Kate Doyle He's allowed to clean up And soon some official-looking people show up government bureaucrats He says they hand him a document It's his confession He agrees to sign it even though he's not allowed to read it Carlos spends the next five years of his life in prison He's never given a trial Carlos Canto Salgado I believe in God I think you seek him out in your darkest times I begin to pray to ask God What about me Why did you forget me I think I asked him with such passion that only two or three days passed when I heard someone shout Teacher a video of your torture was leaked and it's on the news And I'm like Nah don't mess around Carlos says he was tortured multiple times and kept on denying the accusations During one session an officer walks up to him and takes off his blindfold Yes Profe a video of your torture came out and we saw a part of it And yes it was true They turned on the TV and during the news break there it was Speaker 15 Spanish Carlos Canto Spanish Carlos Canto Salgado I felt such a sense of relief And I gave thanks to God Here you are Kate Doyle Carlos is set free and put on a bus home He manages to buy a cell phone to call his family And during the bus ride he decides to Google his name This next part is hard to listen to Carlos Canto Salgado I went online to look for the video I said I want to watch it When I finally watch it oof Spanish I felt like everything was closing I struggled to breathe I think I even cry on the bus the first time I saw what they were doing to me Anayansi Diaz-Cortes The leaked video of Carlos and his release are huge news during Omar's early days as prosecutor but it wasn't the only one In his investigation Omar eventually gets ahold of more than 50 videos showing torture by government authorities He wants to keep them confidential but someone leaks a very explosive one It includes Tomás Zerón the lead investigator for the previous government who's accused of stage-managing the cover-up He's the architect of the so-called Spanish the disproved theory that the 43 boys taken away by municipal police and a local gang were shot and incinerated at a garbage dump In the video Zerón's in a long dark coat with his hands in his pockets pacing back and forth in a room with other interrogators He's talking to a half naked man sitting in a chair The man's head is covered his hands cuffed behind his back Tomás Zerón Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Let's get started Zerón tells him tell me everything you know about the students And a moment later Tomás Zerón Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes The first time you BS me I will kill you For Omar indicting Zerón becomes a top priority And he systematically gathers evidence By February 2020 Omar thinks he has what he needs for an indictment He wants Tomás Zerón to face trial on charges that he ordered the torture of suspects to force them to confess then put them in prison for years without trials Finally Omar goes before the judge with his evidence Omar Gómez Trejo Yeah it was a very symbolic day I remember the specific moment in which after almost three hours the judge said I'm granting you the arrest warrant against Tomás Zerón on for the following crimes I went out to lunch with my team and we had baby back ribs and two beers And we had an arrest warrant under one arm Anayansi Diaz-Cortes But when the day came for Omar to serve the arrest warrant Zerón was gone He'd fled the country First it was believed to Canada Omar had Interpol put out a red notice for his arrest And then there was word that Zerón fled again to Israel which Kate started investigating to try and confirm Kate Doyle The reason it made sense that he would be in Israel is that Tomás Zerón is the person from the previous Mexican government who purchased that spyware Pegasus from an Israeli firm That spyware Pegasus was used by Zerón to infect the phones and surveil not just the five international experts but their executive secretary Omar Gómez So Zerón already had an established relationship with powerful Israelis So I called a reporter that I knew from the New York Times named Ronen Bergman who works primarily on national security and intelligence issues from Israel And he said he would try to track Zerón down Within about a week or two I got a WhatsApp text from Ronen He asked me if I was online And when I said Yes all of a sudden a photo appeared on my telephone that was of a guy standing in a very small kitchen in a T-shirt with a scruffy face and a big goofy grin And Ronen asked me Is this him And I really had to stare at this picture for a couple of beats because I've ever seen Thomas sit on with a grin on his face like that But I said Yeah that's him And the photo immediately vanished from my phone And Ronen said He's here Anayansi Diaz-Cortes While Kate was doing her research Omar and his team filed a formal request with the Israeli government to send Zerón back to Mexico so he could face charges of forced disappearance torture and obstruction of justice That was two years ago So far nothing has happened Al Letson As important as Tomás Zerón is to the investigation there are many others More than 50 people have been charged with crimes related to the missing students These include local and state police federal officials and an officer in the military In a moment what Omar and his team are learning about the night of the attack and what was done with the students You're listening to Reveal Commercial break From the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX this is Reveal I'm Al Letson As special prosecutor for the new Ayotzinapa investigation Omar Gómez Trejo has two objectives One is to figure out who was involved in the previous government's cover-up people like Tomás Zerón but more importantly finding out what really happened on September 26th 2014 so families can finally learn where their sons are now In our last episode we heard a theory from a DEA agent who was convinced the students had stumbled onto a drug smuggling operation between Iguala Mexico and a suburb of Chicago Mark Giuffre More than 2 000 kilograms of heroin came to Chicago in a one-year period of time which is a unprecedented mind-boggling amount Al Letson Mark Giuffre was following the drug traffickers and discovered they were using passenger buses like the ones the students commandeered to smuggle heroin and cash His guess the students had taken a bus filled with hidden drugs Mark Giuffre These students hijacked the wrong bus They hijacked the wrong bus Al Letson Kate Doyle and Reveal's Anayansi Diaz-Cortes wondered what Omar thought of this theory Kate Doyle So you have said the buses Forget about the buses Okay crosstalk All right let me just- Al Letson So on a visit to Omar's home in March 2020 they decide to bring up what Mark Giuffre had told them Kate Doyle He said When we finally got our hands on buses that were in Aurora Illinois carrying the drugs after they had rounded people up after they had informants one of them was the engineer that designed the hiding place He brought out his blueprints and it was in the bumpers And they went back to the buses and opened them up So I just thought it was interesting and important to say to you because Omar Gómez Trejo That was the same way as they send money back to Mexico Kate Doyle Exactly Omar Gómez Trejo The same way okay Kate Doyle All right The same hiding place Omar Gómez Trejo Spanish Al Letson Turn that off Omar says to Anayansi He's intrigued Up to now this idea has been more like a conspiracy theory to him and his team Then Kate and Anayansi remind him about the text messages the DEA had intercepted between the drug smugglers And that as part of their reporting they've been trying to get the US government to release them In fact Reveal is in a lawsuit with the government over this After their meeting Omar follows up on this lead and petitions the DEA from his end for the same information Beyond figuring out who was involved in attacking the buses and why Omar and his team launch a new series of searches looking for the remains of the students Anayansi explains Anayansi Diaz-Cortes In order to do searches Omar has to cultivate sources first people who know what happened to the students He has leads from the enormous case file he read when he was living in Washington And he interviews people with ties to the drug cartel who are in prison In his first year as special prosecutor he goes on a couple dozen searches Kate Doyle It must have been so frustrating to carry out 20 ICO searches with no results Omar Gómez Trejo Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes It can be really frustrating Omar tells Kate You leave in the morning with high hopes Then mid-sentence he switches to English Omar Gómez Trejo Probably today is the day is not day And you're going back to your house to your office to say We'll just keep looking Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Then he tells us about this day in November 2019 It started off like most mornings with Omar waking up before 5 00 AM greeting his bodyguards then sliding into his bulletproof SUV But instead of going to the office they head toward Iguala and pick up one of the sources he's been talking to This man was allegedly involved in the attack Omar Gómez Trejo And the source from there takes us to La Barranca La Carnicería Do you know what Barranca de La Carnicería is in English It's the Butcher's Ravine It gives you chills right It's on the way to the Cocula garbage dump But there's a detour about a kilometer below which is through a ravine So the source guides us there And then he says Hey Fiscal here over here And then the forensic expert and says Yes that's a human bone Anayansi Diaz-Cortes The source says Don't look for graves The remains were just scattered under the trees and bushes A few months later six pieces of bone are carefully packed into a diplomatic briefcase and Omar boards a plane to Innsbruck Austria He hand delivers them to the scientist at the same DNA lab that identified the first student in 2014 Alexander Mora Venancio Omar Gómez Trejo For me it's very hard to take a diplomatic pouch with a bunch of remains that could be the students or could be anybody else They were on the plane with me In a way the trip was encouraging because we could potentially identify more people Anayansi Diaz-Cortes But the results take weeks upon weeks And the waiting is tough on Omar Then after three months Helen Hello Hello Today is Friday June 19th 2020 It's 10 00 PM Omar Gómez Trejo 10 00 PM Helen And we're out here on the back terrace drinking some wine What happened today Spanish Omar Gómez Trejo Today we receive information from the Innsbruck University that one of the DNA profiles match with one of the students I'm very emotional now very touchy because this represents the new era of the investigation of this case Helen Can you talk a little bit about what it means too that you have identified one of the students but Omar Gómez Trejo I'm not ready I can't talk about it and I'm not ready yet Helen We're not ready for that one yet Okay Yeah I'm really proud of you Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Days later Omar's meeting with the family of Christian Alfonso Rodríguez Telumbre He's the student whose remains were just identified Luz María's Christian's mother Luz María And they started to tell us that they found a bone fragment Well two little pieces of bone Omar Gómez Trejo You're notifying the family of about this little bone saying it was found in such and such a place with so-and-so characteristics And all this work was done Luz María It was part of his right foot I was out of it in a bad bad bad place And then I snapped out of it and said It's a very small fragment A human being can live without a foot And he tells me that's true It's like they were telling me that he was dead Omar Gómez Trejo What do you say to that Nothing Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Eventually over 100 pieces of bone are found at the Butcher's Ravine And another student is identified Jhosivani Guerrero de la Cruz That brings the total number of students identified to three Parents tell us they have faith in Omar's investigation but they're frustrated too It's all taking too long And at the end of the day most of them still don't have answers All this time I can't help but think about Doña Cristi who lost her son Benjamín We talk on the phone from time to time And last year she invited us to visit her Kate and I rent a van and drive eight hours from Mexico City to her village Kate Doyle I've got a tiny bit of signal here Speaker 19 Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Spanish We're so deep in the mountains there's no GPS signal You feel like you're driving into the clouds The dirt road ends at Alpuyecancingo de las Montañas Spanish Doña Cristi Cristi Bautista Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes We arrive as Doña Cristi's in the kitchen talking to her mother in her native Nahuatl a language spoken across Mexico Cristi Bautista crosstalk Anayansi Diaz-Cortes This week is Spanish all Souls' known as Spanish or Day of the Dead In these parts it's a deeply spiritual and sacred celebration Speaker 20 Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Doña Cristi's daughters Laura and Mairani are preparing the altar They're hanging sugar reds in the shape of donkeys deer and angels on the altar They explain to me that they're for their Spanish they're dead And they'll carry the Spanish or offering back to the other side Meanwhile Doña Cristi is shelling corn to make atole a corn-based drink We talk about the family I learned that Laura helped raise her little brother Benjamín when her mom went to the US to work for a few years The family needed the money for basic things like firewood and grain Laura Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Laura It was hell Laura says Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Laura Benja cried a lot as a baby and she had to console him Anayansi Diaz-Cortes As he grew up he was different from most boys in the village He was self-confident and fashionable Mairani Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Mairani says he was the only kid in town who dared to wear pink And he was a super talented dancer When Laura got married Benja walked her to the church Speaker 23 Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes In this video you see them dancing together Benja in a pink buttoned-down shirt Laura Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes He always hugged me Laura tells us Even though she's not a hugger and never hugged him back Spanish Spanish Laura Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Laura Now she wishes she could hug him Anayansi Diaz-Cortes The altar is ready It's time to put on it the food and photos of loved ones who have passed away Cristi Bautista Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Doña Cristi is directing her daughters telling them where the food and drinks should go She begins to move a nearby photo of Benjamín toward the altar Cristi Bautista Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Laura's eyes pierce Doña Cristi with rage and pain And barely audible she responds Laura Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Cristi Bautista Are you saying my brother is dead Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Cristi pulls back apologetically No I was just saying I thought he should be there to remember him But she pulls the photo away Later Laura tells us Laura Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Laura He's alive He's going to return Anayansi Diaz-Cortes I can tell her younger sister Mairani doesn't see things that way but she doesn't say anything crosstalk It's midnight when the dead are supposed to come to feast The dogs know Cristi and her daughters tell me Cristi Bautista Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Cristi Bautista They can see the spirits and they're welcoming them Anayansi Diaz-Cortes The next day before we leave Kate and I sit down with Doña Cristi in Benjamín's room and struggle to pose our questions How do you ask a mother about her missing child If I learned anything from the families in these two Spanish Spanish Spanish Spanish years it's that waiting for a loved one who has vanished can feel like dying slowly Cristi Bautista Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes I try to ask without hurting her after all these years how do you go on Spanish Cristi Bautista Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Whatever happens I need the truth Despite all this time she's going to keep looking for him She tells me Cristi Bautista Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Still like other mothers I've spoken to she finds ways to keep the memory of Benjamín alive She tells Kate and me about a dream she had Cristi Bautista Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes In a grand city there's this house with an open door And she walks in A woman in a Spanish a shawl greets her Cristi Bautista Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes I want to ask you for a favor In the middle of the room there's someone sleeping who's covered with a blanket She tells me They left me to take care of him Cristi Bautista Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Cristi Bautista He lost his memory Can you watch him Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Cristi Bautista Yes Who is it Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Cristi Bautista Then he gets up My son Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Cristi Bautista You found me look at how they hit me Spanish Spanish Spanish Then he say Mommy Spanish Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Cristi Bautista That's why I'm pretending I can't remember Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Cristi Bautista But I heard your voice Mommy And I just hugged him Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Cristi Bautista And I tell him Benja let's go But when I turn back to him Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Cristi Bautista I woke up and didn't see him But for a moment I felt joy I got to see my son Al Letson This coming year Omar Gómez Trejo's investigation could reveal new information about who was behind the attack and what happened to the missing boys Trials are set to begin for some of the people accused of taking part in the ambush disappearances and government cover-up The case for sending Tomás Zerón back to Mexico is now in the hands of Israeli prosecutors Spanish Spanish Spanish Spanish Meanwhile Vice President Kamala Harris has publicly pledged to help Omar's team get new information about the drug smugglers who are hiding heroin on buses between Iguala and the US As for the remains of the students searches are happening every two weeks To see cell phone videos of the attack and documents related to the investigation visit revealnews org disappeared Our partners at Adonde Media are developing a Spanish language version of the series To hear a trailer and sign up to receive episodes in your inbox visit adondemedia com ayotzinapa or search Después de Ayotzinapa on your podcast app Our lead producer is Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Kate Doyle with the National Security Archive is our partner and co-producer for this series Taki Telonidis edited the show We have production help from Reveal's David Rodriguez and Bruce Gil Thanks to Tom Blanton Megan DeTura and Claire Dorfman from the National Security Archive and to Laura Starecheski Lisa Pollak John Gibler and Ariana Rosas Special thanks to Santiago Aguirre Maria Luisa Aguilar from Centro Prodh and Maureen Meyer from the Washington Office on Latin America Victoria Baranetsky is our general counsel Our production manager is Amy Mostafa Original score and sound design by the dynamic duo Jay Breezy Mr Jim Briggs and Fernando my man yo Arruda They had help from Claire C Note Mullen Kathryn Styer Martinez Steven Rascón and Jess Alvarenga Our digital producer is Sarah Mirk Our CEO is Kaizar Campwala Sumi Aggarwal is our editor in chief Our executive producer is Kevin Sullivan Our theme music is by Camerado Lightning Support for Reveal is provided by the Reva and David Logan Foundation the John D and Catherine T McArthur Foundation the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation the Ford Foundation the Heising-Simons Foundation the Hellman Foundation the Democracy Fund and the Inasmuch Foundation Reveal is a co-production of the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX I’m Al Letson and remember there is always more to the story Speaker 12 Spanish Al Letson If you like what we do and you want to help well it's pretty simple Just write us a review on Apple Podcasts It's easy and only takes a few seconds Just open the Apple Podcasts app on your phone search for Reveal then scroll down to where you see Write a review And there tell them how much you love the host Your review makes it easier for listeners to find us and well it really does make a difference And if you do it you will get a personal thank you from me right now Thank Not him You Yes you Thank you so much Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you All right Speaker 40 From PRX