JUAREZ, Mexico, July 21 (UPI) -- Three people were arrested in the Mexican border city of Juarez in the slaying of a U.S. court interpreter allegedly kidnapped and killed, authorities said.
Lisbeth "La Liz" Nayeli Rodriguez Alanis, 22; Víctor Alfonso "El Gordo" Cano Molina, 24; and Antonio Tarango Montes, 60, were arrested in the death of Jorge Dieppa, 57, an English-Spanish interpreter for more than seven years and a part-time lecturer at University of Texas at El Paso, authorities said.
The alleged kidnappers originally wanted a $10,000 ransom for Dieppa, but killed him when they found out Dieppa recognized Rodriguez Alanis from a previous relationship, Chihuahua state investigators said in a statement that did not identify Dieppa by name.
The El Paso U.S. District Court and local University of Texas campus confirmed his death, the El Paso Times reported.
Authorities found Dieppa's body July 6 in an abandoned house in Juarez, Mexico's most violent city. The body had multiple cuts on the neck, his face was covered with gray tape and his arms and legs were tied with electric wire and a belt, the investigators' statement said.
Juarez, a city of 1.5 million on the Rio Grande, south of El Paso, is ground zero in Mexico's war on drugs, with some 1,300 homicides so far this year after more than 3,100 homicides last year, officials said.
