Forensic Case Study Enrique Camarena the Abduction

Forensic Case Study

Enrique Camarena

The abduction of Enrique Camarena

The abduction of Enrique Camarena presents numerous interesting and unusual features regarding the gathering of forensic evidence. Many of obstacles that arose over the course of the investigation can be traced to the fact that the DEA Special Agent was apprehended in Mexico, where U.S. laws about preserving evidence did not apply. The Mexican police force (at least at the time of the abduction in 1984) was much more prone to corruption and bribery by persons engaged in illegal drug trafficking than U.S. law enforcement. Rather than seeing to assist the DEA in bringing the murderers of Camarena to justice, the Mexican police often acted as obstacles, not assistants.

The real perpetrators of the murder of Camarena concocted a scheme with certain select members of the Mexican policy whereby Camarena's body (and the body of Capt. Alfredo Zavala, a Mexican DEA source) would be buried at the ranch of the Bravo drug ring: a false letter was sent to the Mexican police 'tipping them off' on this false lead that would hopefully result in law enforcement scapegoating the Bravo gang. Thus, the perpetrators of the crime would accomplish two objectives in one: they would divert attention away from themselves and they would also successfully eliminate one of their chief rivals.

In the subsequent raid by the DEA and Mexican Federal Judicial Police (MFJP) the Bravo gang was indeed decimated according to plan. However, the persons contracted to bury the bodies did not fulfill their assigned mission and merely sloppily left the corpses by the side of the road. Certain Mexican police were bribed to 'hush up' any questions. Eventually the bodies were found and with U.S. pressure, one of the decomposing bodies was identified by fingerprint records to be Camarena; the other body was identified as Zavala's by dental records. But U.S. DEA personnel were not permitted to take the bodies back to the United States: only 'trace' evidence of hair and soil samples were allowed to be removed from the country (Gaensslen, & Larsen 2013). An Armed Forces Institute of Pathology expert examined the body and determined that Camarena had been killed by blunt trauma to the head: there was also a rod-shaped hole in the dead man's skull.

Examination of the supposed burial site lead the U.S. DEA to discover that there were no fluids at the Bravo ranch consistent with burying a body. The soil samples on the bodies were different than the soil at the site, indicating the corpses had been buried elsewhere then exhumed and 'relocated.' Eventually, a Mercury Grand Marquis was discovered which the DEA believed had been used to transport the body. Gradually, the chain of events seemed to become evident. The MFJP notified the DEA that they found the residence where they believed Camarena had been held, but American authorities were not allowed to come to the location until the MFJP removed all of the evidence. Since the abduction, all the walls had been painted, the house had been cleaned and MFJP personnel were living in the structure, thus contaminating much of the remaining evidence.

When the DEA were allowed on-premises, the most likely holding area was determined to be a small guest house and "the entire room and bathroom were processed for hairs, fibers and latent fingerprints" (Malone 1984: 4). The door was covered with steel bars, and eventually it was discovered that Camarena had been held and tortured in these premises, confirming the DEA's reconstruction of the crime. A locked bedroom and bed linens were also assessed for evidence, along with carpet fibers on the floor. The DEA did the best they could to focus upon non-contaminated areas of the house likely to be implicated in the abduction. A beige VW Atlantic "which fit the general description of the smaller vehicle noted by the person who witnessed SA Camarena's abduction" was nearby (Malone 1984: 4). Throughout the search the (corrupt) Mexican police seemed agitated and tried to prevent the gathering of evidence, including a bent license plate found on the premises -- the DEA was able to secure five bags of evidence from the house, no thanks to the MFJP.

The soil samples originally gathered from the bodies matched the soil samples found on the bodies of other Americans killed and buried by Mexican drug lords. Eventually, the U.S. obtained permission from Mexico to process the evidence it had gathered, although the MFJP Crime Laboratory had destroyed much of it, citing 'health reasons' (Malone 1984: 5). Hair samples from Camarena's primary interrogator Sergio Espino- Verdin and rug samples from the 'guest house' matched the evidence found on the bodies (Malone 1984: 5).

While eventually the perpetrators were identified and justice was served, the features of this case that made the gathering of the evidence so unusual pertained to both the location of the crime and the nature of Mexican law enforcement. The DEA did not possess unlimited jurisdiction in terms of how the evidence was obtained and preserved. It could also not be assured that all facets of the Mexican forces with which it was dealing with were not corrupt and actively involved in preventing evidence from being gathered.

This meant that the evidence was not gathered in line with the standard, accepted protocols that would be typical in a U.S. law enforcement setting. For example, in the U.S. A police at a likely crime scene would bar entry to unauthorized personnel and kept the premises pristine. Evidence must usually be stored in plastic bags with tamper-resistant seals, and labeled with identifying information, including the officer who obtained it (Collecting evidence from human bodies, 2001, CA Department of Justice). Also, evidence cannot be destroyed without explicit permission -- evidence regarding an already-open case would certainly never be destroyed under the pretext of 'health reasons.' Evidence would have been gathered immediately at the Bravo ranch and tested to see if it was a likely crime scene; the entirety of the decomposed bodies would have been examined and tested for various samples connecting them to the missing persons without delay or a bureaucratic wrangling.