Mexican cartel forces student to decapitate his childhood friend

Newly-released images show final distressing hours of five Mexican college students as cartel thugs forced one of the victims to decapitate his childhood friend

• Charred human remains of four people were located in an abandoned home in Jalisco, Mexico, on Wednesday
• Authorities are investigating if the remains belong to four of the five university students who were missing since Friday
• Roberto Olmeda; Diego Lara; Uriel Galván; Dante Cedillo; and Jaime Martínez mysteriously disappeared after attending a fair 

Charred human remains have been found in an abandoned property in the western Mexico state of Jalisco.

Investigators searched the property in the municipality of Lagos de Moreno on Wednesday and found four burned human skulls. They also spotted blood stains on the ground and sneakers.

Authorities are now looking into whether the place is the same one where five kidnapped college students were held.

‘As a result of the work carried out, ministerial agents and the Investigative Police located a house in the Orilla del Agua neighborhood in the aforementioned municipality (Lagos de Moreno), where evidence was found, including blood stains and footwear, which suggest that the five young people were in said (property),’ the Lagos de Moreno prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

Video footage released by the cartel members Tuesday shows childhood friends Roberto Olmeda, 20; Diego Lara, 20; Uriel Galván, 19; Dante Cedillo, 22; and Jaime Martínez, 21, kneeling next to each other in order.

The victims all have their faces bruised with tape over their mouths and their hands tied behind their backs.

A brick wall behind the five young men has the logo of a Jalisco New Generation Cartel enforcement unit’s painted over it.

Investigators search an abandoned property in Jalisco, Mexico, where human remains were recovered Wednesday. Authorities are now looking into whether four charred skulls belong to four of the five university students who disappeared Friday and may have been filmed by cartel members in the home before one of them was forced to beat, stab and decapitate his own childhood friend

Roberto Olmeda (left); Diego Lara (second from left); Uriel Galván (center); Dante Cedillo (second from right); and Jaime Martínez, (right) seen kneeling next to each other while they were held by their captors, allegedly members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, at an abandoned property after they were kidnapped last Friday

Mexican authorities found Roberto Olmeda’s (left) charred vehicle on Tuesday with a dead body in it. He and Dante Cedillo (right) are among the five university students who went missing last Friday in Lagos de Moreno, a municipality in the western state of Jalisco

In the video, three of the victims are lying face down next to each other. Another is lying down in the background as his friend is forced to beat, stab and decapitate him.

Blanca Trujillo, the state’s special prosecutor for missing person’s said that the families ‘consider there is a high probability that the young people who appear in the photograph are their relatives.’

The gruesome discovery comes after police found a vehicle in flames with a body inside Tuesday. Investigators confirmed that the car belongs to Olmeda. Galván’s vehicle was located Sunday.

The Jalisco state medical examiner’s office had yet to identify the remains as of Thursday.

The five friends gathered Friday to attend a fair in Lagos de Moreno and were on their way home when they mysteriously disappeared. They were last seen at a viewpoint by the side of a road in the neighborhood of San Miguel.

Investigators with the Jalisco state Attorney General’s Office located human remains inside an abandoned property on Wednesday while searching for five college students who have been missing since last Friday. The property could be the same one seen in a video that shows the students in captivity 

Uriel Galván’s vehicle was found by authorities on Sunday in Lagos de Moreno, Mexico. He is one of five university students who remain missing after they mysteriously disappeared last Friday and were seen on a video held captive by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel

Diego Lara  (left) was the last student who was heard from after he texted his family he was on his way home last Friday at 11:00 pm. He, Jaime Martínez (right) and three other childhood friends are still missing 

Lara is said to be the last one who was in contact with his family when he sent a text message at 11:00 pm to say he would be home shortly.

Jalisco state Attorney General Luis Méndez said earlier this week that investigators have been analyzing street surveillance and searching for witnesses.

Governor Enrique Alfaro has linked drug cartels to the disappearance and demanded that federal prosecutors take over the case.

‘What we are seeing here is an act clearly linked to organized crime,’ Alfaro wrote in his social media accounts.

He called the killings – and an attack in July, in which a drug cartel set off a coordinated series of roadway bombs in western Mexico killing four police officers and two civilians – acts that threaten the state’s stability.

‘These are irrational, violent and direct attacks against the stability of Jalisco state, and they demand a reaction from the (federal) government,’ Alfaro wrote.

The Jalisco State Attorney General’s Office seized an abandoned property that may be the same place where five missing college students were filmed by members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. While searching the home Wednesday, investigators located human remains, including four charred skulls 

Authorities on Tuesday located Roberto Olmeda’s vehicle on fire and discovered a dead body in it as well

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador gave no indication that his government will intervene anytime soon. Asked about the video Wednesday at his daily news briefing, the president jokingly pretended he had not heard the question.

On Thursday, the leftists leader said he did not have to apologize for not hearing the question because he was being wrongly accused by the media.

‘All a lie and an infamy, we are not the same, I have principles and ideals,’ López Obrador said. ‘I am a man of feelings, I cannot mock pain.’ 

If authorities confirm that the students in the video were killed in the abandoned property, it would revive memories of the most horrifying instances of drug cartel brutality, in which kidnapping victims were forced to kill each other.

In 2010, one Mexican cartel abducted men from passenger buses and forced them to fight each other to death with sledgehammers.

That tragedy came to light in 2011, when authorities found 48 clandestine graves containing the bodies of 193 people in the northern border state of Tamaulipas. Most had their skulls crushed with sledgehammers, and many were Central American migrants.

It was later revealed the victims had been pulled off passing buses by the old Zetas drug cartel, and forced to fight each other with hammers or be killed, if they refused to work for the cartel.

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