Families flock to Mexican murder ranch, hoping for signs of loved ones
TEUCHITLÁN, Mexico — The anguished mother arrived on a motorcycle, the bike kicking up a cloud of dust as it swerved to a halt before strands of red and yellow crime-scene tape. Heavily armed cops blocked access to the place known as Rancho Izaguirre. But even from far off, María Luz Ruiz said she sensed his presence.
“I feel that my son was here,” she said, 12 years after he vanished.
She was among a steady stream of relatives of the missing arriving at the ranch entrance, all hoping to find some trace of vanished loved ones. On a shirtsleeve, Ruiz wore a purple-and-white ribbon — an homage to the disappeared — while a white rose poked out from the top of a bag.
Police in riot gear blocked her and others from proceeding down the unpaved entry road, lined with stands of prickly pear cactus, here in the outskirts of Teuchitlán, a town now tainted with the horrors, real and imagined, of Rancho Izaguirre — a former cartel training camp.
“Teuchitlán: National Shame,” read a banner at an angry rally last weekend in Guadalajara, where protesters chanted, “Narcos out!” and assailed politicians’ complicity with organized crime. For relatives of the missing, the barren site outside Teuchitlán has become a pilgrimage site, a place to pay respects to those lost.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-03-21/shoes-of-the-disappeared-mexicos-growing-symbol-of-loss
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