Atizapán Man, 72, Held in Reyna González's Death as Prosecutors Suspect Other Victims
Bone fragments, women's clothing and voter IDs were found in Andrés Mendoza's house, and a State of Mexico prosecutor said he could be a serial femicide perpetrator.
Published
Reyna González Amador was 34 when she went missing in Atizapán de Zaragoza, in the State of Mexico, on Friday, May 14, 2021. A search alert put her last sighting in San Juan Ixtacala Plano Norte. By the next day, the investigation had led to the house of a 72-year-old man in the Lomas de San Miguel neighborhood, and on Tuesday, May 18, the State of Mexico's prosecutor for gender crimes said what had been found there suggested he might have killed other women too.
The man, identified in early reports as Andrés "N" and later as Andrés Mendoza, was detained by Atizapán municipal police at his home on May 15, Infobae reported. Reyna González's dismembered remains were in the house. According to the State of Mexico prosecutor's office, the search that followed also turned up bone fragments, women's clothing, shoes and handbags, voter ID cards, notebooks with several names written in them, videocassettes and makeup. Bone remains found buried in one of the rooms were taken to the prosecutor's office for forensic tests aimed at identifying them.
"In the search being carried out at the house of the accused, we have unfortunately found various human traces: bone remains, women's clothing, voter credentials and other items that lead us to suppose that he could be a serial femicide perpetrator," said Dilcya García, the gender-crimes prosecutor.
The prosecutor's office said the nature of the findings did not rule out the remains of several victims, and that the work would continue because parts of the house had not yet been examined. Forensic experts, investigative police and prosecutors from the femicide unit took part in the search, with firefighters and municipal police dog teams. A judge granted an arrest warrant, and Mendoza was taken to the state prison in Tlalnepantla, where a court would decide whether he would stand trial.
According to early police reports cited by adn40, Reyna González went into Mendoza's house at about noon on May 14 and told him she did not want anything more to do with him, and he attacked her with a knife. Neighbors described him to reporters as a quiet man who had lived on the property for more than twenty years and rented out rooms there.
What the record does and does not say. On May 18, 2021, Mendoza was accused in the death of Reyna González and under investigation for others; he had not been charged with any other killing, and none of the other remains had been identified. Several outlets also published claims that came from unofficial sources, including a set of videotapes said to record killings and his supposed statement that he ate his victims. The prosecutor's office did not confirm those claims, and they are not reported here as fact.
Sources
- Cayó Andrés "N", el hombre que destazó a una mujer en Atizapán, y que podría ser un asesino serial (Andrés N, who dismembered a woman in Atizapán and could be a serial killer, is caught), Infobae
- Cae presunto feminicida serial en Atizapán, destazaba a sus víctimas (Suspected serial femicide perpetrator caught in Atizapán), adn40
- La casa del terror: así era la guarida del presunto feminicida de Atizapán (The house of terror), Infobae