MEXICO CITY, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Four family members of an activist killed outside of the Chihuahua governor's palace have fled Mexico and are seeking asylum in El Paso, Texas, officials said.
Chihuahua state police escorted relatives of the activist to an international bridge Dec. 18, two days after gunmen shot Marisela Escobedo, 52, as she protested the release of the confessed killer of her daughter, Rubi Frayre Escobedo, the El Paso Times reported Wednesday.
"They were really scared. They were nervous," Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson said. De la Rosa, who witnessed the departure, is the ombudsman for the state human rights commission in Juarez.
The family fled because members "continued to be threatened," said Carlos Gonzalez, a spokesman for Chihuahua's attorney general.
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Besides the shooting death of Escobedo, six men set fire to a lumber yard owned by her in boyfriend, and kidnapped and then killed the boyfriend's brother, the Times reported. Police said they haven't made a connection between the incidents.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Citizenship and Immigration Services did not comment, the Times said.
Carlos Spector, an El Paso attorney who handles asylum cases, said human rights officials from Chihuahua briefed him on the matter.
Police found the burned, dismembered body of Escobedo's daughter June 18, 2009, in Juarez, after she had been missing for nearly a year. Escobedo, concerned that the case wasn't progressing, tracked the main suspect, Sergio Barraza, her daughter's boyfriend, whom police arrested. In May, a state judge absolved Barraza of the crime, citing a lack of evidence. The man said police tortured him to confess that he was the killer.
Escobedo then campaigned to seek the recapture and sentencing of Barraza, now a fugitive. A judge said he would revoke the release and sentence Barraza, and a Mexican supreme court opinion is pending.
