The Mictlan Murders

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

MY FIRST ROUND OF STUDENT interviews was stale at best. Lots of typical first time away from home hijinks. Kids struggling with the sudden freedoms of dorm life and not having mom and dad around to tell them “no.” There was only one item that each interviewee had in common, they dared not step foot in Juarez. But that was expected. UTEP it seems is one of the safer and drug free campuses in the States. I suppose I should have appreciated this fact; however, I was hoping for a little more. Ground zero for the US/Mexico border drug war is only a mere half mile south. This fact didn’t seem to make any difference.

As I wrapped day two with not much of a story, I noticed a young man that had been hanging around my meeting space. He was with campus police and would periodically drop in for short periods of time. I introduced myself and asked him if he had a*********s he’d like to share. He declined a formal interview as an official campus representative but took down my contact information anyway and said he would be in touch off the record. I had a suspicion there may be something he wanted attention brought to but was hesitant because of campus politics.

I sat that night in my hotel room discouraged. I was half way done with my trip and had nothing of interest to write about. I was thinking of some way to create an intriguing angle with the interviews thus far. Perhaps this drug business isn’t the story I came here for and I just needed to change the nature of my questions. But the cold hard reality was, I had nothing. I threw around the idea of calling Art, if for nothing more than pure entertainment purposes. Then my cell phone rang.

The number was one I didn’t recognize but the area code was from here in El Paso. It was the campus police officer I’d met earlier in the day —we’ll call him Jeff. He was a well-spoken man in his early thirties and demonstrated all of the qualities a person in his line of work would require, inquisitive and very matter of fact. Jeff enrolled in the police academy after his service in the Air Force to which he enlisted right out of high school. After a few years working the streets of El Paso he took up residence in the UTEP police force —at least this was the story I recall him telling me. He asked about what my interviews were all about. After I explained to him what I was doing, he told me I wouldn’t have much of a story with students currently enrolled. But he had something I might be interested in.

It was an interview. I asked him what this was about exactly and who the interview was with. It was an inmate that had been locked up in the county jail for the last few months, a young woman and former student. Jeff asked that I keep it off record and separate from my piece on the university. As I didn’t have much of anything, of course I agreed.

Her name was Cyndi. She was picked up as part of a special tactical unit within the police department specializing in the local and state-wide drug trade. Through an anonymous tip Cynthia “Cyndi” Rodgers was picked up squatting in an abandoned house commonly frequented by local drug addicts. What’s unique about this, as Jeff explained, are the conditions by which she was found. The house was frigid inside despite the eighty-degree weather outside, and it took five officers to take her into custody (she weighed eighty-six pounds at the time of her arrest). In addition to the unusual house temperature and her physical strength she was also unaware of her surroundings along with the fact that she was engaging in illegal activity. Behind the house in a shallow grave lay the decomposing remains of her roommate (and friend) Sarah Meyers. To my surprise, Cyndi was also a friend of Jeff’s sister who had gone missing almost three years prior.

At first, I found nothing unusual about the state in which Cyndi was found and arrested. As my previous research would suggest, a drug addict is most unpredictable and capable of anything including loss of short-term memory. It’s par for the course when an addict begins to sober up in a halfway house or jail cell that they suddenly realize what they were doing or have done. I thought it odd however that Jeff would mention the house temperature, as if I already knew what he was talking about. But it was the mention of his missing sister that grabbed my immediate attention. We made arrangements to meet at the station the next morning, 8 AM sharp.

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