One day, for no reason at all, Claudia brought her a cookie. A small gesture. Another day, when she told her that her coffee had spilled, Claudia brought her a new one. The first time they had lunch together, Claudia said, ‘you order and I’ll eat’. They ordered green enchiladas and Claudia loved them. “And the hibiscus, the hibiscus water! She loved that too,” says her friend. They walked here together, met here, and became friends, their safe place, the university campus in Cuernavaca, Mexico, surrounded by mountains. Here Ximena remembers her now, invoking a memory that also seems like a barrier against tears. Remembering helps, it’s a kind of spell, as if the past hadn’t quite become real. Because certainty overwhelms: her friend, Claudia Tacoronte, is no longer here. She was killed.
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Claudia Tacoronte was the new girl, from Granada, Spain. Ximena Becerril, her first desk mate. On August 17, life brought them together in an education philosophy class. “At first she didn’t really understand much, but I told her: ‘Don’t worry, I’ll explain it to you.’ And I explained it.” The friend smiles, as if that had really just been a play, the nervous probing of future accomplices. “She liked to move, hiking, she was very excited because this Tuesday she was going to participate in a performance for Independence Day, she was always excited!… She said she was at her best moment, I saw her as free,” she says, talking and talking, because if she stays silent and looks at the flower wreaths and candles…
Once, Becerril gave her friend advice. A very serious one, unrelated to youthful energy or optimism. She said: “If you’re in danger, just run!” That’s what she told her. Her friend wants to believe that Claudia ran, that she tried to escape her killer, a tall man with short hair, who on the night he attacked the young woman, Saturday, wore a white t-shirt and light shorts, with a small black backpack on his back. But it’s unknown, because Claudia was on her cell phone, separated from the group, and there wasn’t a single security camera covering that area, the entrance to the Casa de la Cultura in Cuautla, a medium-sized town two hours from Mexico City, one from Cuernavaca. No camera, no guard at the door, nothing.
The neighbors of the Casa de la Cultura have been furious since Saturday, because a simple guard, they say, could have prevented the attack. It’s possible. But the neighbors also say that Cuautla, one of the most important cities in the State of Morelos, governed by Morena, is an absolute disaster and that murders happen all the time, that extortion is the law, that businesses close all the time because of it, and that corruption and collusion between the political class and crime is the landscape of their days… They are not wrong. In May, the federal government, also in the hands of Morena, arrested the mayor, the treasurer, the chief officer, and the municipal secretary. The accusation? Collaborating in the activities of the local branch of the Sinaloa Cartel.
That’s why, because of the violence, because of that rot, Ximena Becerril gave her friend that advice, that if something happened, she should run. Because she, at 24 years old, knows that in Morelos – in Mexico in general – violence is a major problem, that there are murders every day, dozens every day. The federal government, led by Claudia Sheinbaum, claims they have dropped by more than 50% since coming to power in October 2024. It seems true, the data supports it. Before there were up to 100 daily, now 40, 30. Still a high enough number for the Autonomous State University of Morelos (UAEM), the great regional university Claudia Tacoronte attended, to count three other student murders in the last seven months.
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But the crime did not happen there, at UAEM, but in Cuautla. The victim went to the municipality to spend the weekend, to participate in the “XLII National Medicinal Plant Festival,” organized by private entities. Ximena Becerril says she doesn’t know if she went alone or with someone. She does say, however, that she lived alone in an apartment near the university. She also says the last time they spoke was Thursday. She says Claudia was very excited because the festival organizers had offered her lodging at the Casa de la Cultura, where the events were held. “She loved everything about indigenous peoples. The previous weekend, she had gone to the National Museum of Anthropology,” in Mexico City, with two friends.
Cuautla, a place that 10 years ago reached prime time news because the Prosecutor’s Office buried untagged bodies in the common grave, bodies, in some cases, of missing persons, people their families were looking for. Claudia Tacoronte went there and spent Friday and Saturday there, as a video of the festival attests. The young woman was there, a city that three days ago was a town and that in its demographic adolescence suffers severe malnutrition in the outskirts, with pockets of poverty and despair on every side. “The problem is no longer cocaine or marijuana, it’s crystal,” says a veteran local politician. Crystal, methamphetamine. It’s unknown if Claudia Tacoronte was aware of the context. For example: that 11 months ago, Mexico dismantled a lab nearby that produced 300 million pesos a month of that drug, 15 million euros.
The neighbors are upset because there was no police at the medicinal plant festival, because after the attack they took a long time to arrive, because nothing guarantees that what happened will mean a change, something that brightens the future a little. Meanwhile, they recall Saturday night. A woman who lives right across says the first thing she heard were three screams: help, help, help! “At first I thought maybe it was from a play, since it’s a cultural center… But then I said: ‘No, it’s something else.’” She and some others went out. Another neighbor entered the venue and approached the victim. A woman was with her. She was, she said later, the one who had screamed. “Other neighbors ran after the killer,” she says. The two stayed with Claudia. She held her hand. She was still alive. “I told her ‘slow your breathing, or the blood will come out faster.’” She begged her to do it. It was 8:52 p.m. on Saturday. The ambulance took about 15 minutes to arrive.
Why? Why did that man attack a woman who, barring a major surprise, he didn’t know? It’s unknown. The Morelos Prosecutor’s Office, in charge of the investigation, points to a robbery. The federal Security Cabinet, which massively deployed in Cuautla after the municipal government team was arrested this summer, says it will arrest those responsible. Cuautla is plastered these days with banners announcing its present, the authorities’ operation against crime, extortion, murder, violence, the “Cuautla plan.” It’s an invitation from Sheinbaum’s government to trust the authorities, to report criminals, to try to rebuild the social fabric. The veteran local politician concludes: “There is tremendous social decay here.”
