Guadalajara: The daughter of a gas station owner disappeared at a quinceanera party. Six years later, this was found… – BN
Roberto Alejandro Vázquez Hernández closed the register at his gas station on López Mateos Avenue. Six years had passed since his daughter Valentina disappeared during a quinceañera party, and every night, as he closed the shop, he remembered that she had never returned home on the night of April 15, 2017.
Janitor Rodrigo Pérez Villanueva had been working at the gas station for two years. That afternoon, while cleaning the service area, he noticed that one of the floor tiles near the rear storage area had come loose. When he lifted it to repair it, he found a plastic bag buried just underneath.
“Mr. Vázquez, you need to see this!” Esteban shouted from the back parking lot.
Roberto approached his employee. Esteban was holding a clear bag containing a pink cell phone with butterfly stickers, several documents, and a silver bracelet with the name Valentina engraved in cursive.
“Where did this come from?” Roberto asked, feeling his legs tremble.
“It was buried here, under this tile. Looks like someone hid it years ago,” Esteban replied, handing her the bag.
Roberto recognized the phone instantly. It was the same one he had given Valentina for her 15th birthday, just two months before her disappearance. The bracelet was also hers; she had worn it on her friend Sofía Beatriz Mendoza Jiménez’s quinceanera party. Inside the bag were also Valentina’s school ID, a pharmacy receipt dated April 14, 2017, and a handwritten note that read: “Everything is planned for tomorrow, no one will suspect a thing. DCR.”
Roberto immediately called Inspector Joaquín Gabriel Torres Santa María, who led the original investigation into Valentina’s disappearance. Torres arrived at the gas station 30 minutes later with a team of forensic technicians.
“Don Roberto, in six years this is the first real lead we’ve had,” Torres said, examining the evidence.
Do you have any idea who might have buried this here?
“My business is open day and night. Many people have access to the back: employees, suppliers, even customers using the bathroom,” Roberto explained. “But no one but us knew that Valentina had lost her phone the night she disappeared.”
Inspector Torres photographed each item. The pharmacy receipt showed the purchase of sleeping pills and bandages. The buyer had paid in cash at 6:00 p.m. on April 14, 2017, the day before Valentina disappeared.
“Do the initials ‘DCR’ in the note mean anything to you?” Torres asked.
Roberto shook his head, but Esteban interrupted him:
I remember that on the night of the party, while they were still searching for the girl, a young man came asking if they’d found anything. He was tall, dark-haired, about 18 years old. He said he was a friend of Valentina’s.
“Do you remember his name?”
“No. But Mrs. Carmen spoke to him; she thought it was strange that he came so often,” Esteban replied.
At that moment, Carmen Esperanza Morales de Vázquez, Valentina’s mother, arrived after Roberto’s call. Seeing the evidence, she collapsed.
“I gave him that phone for his birthday. He treated it like gold,” Carmen exclaimed. “How did it get here? We looked everywhere for it that night.”
Torres ordered an immediate forensic analysis. The phone was sent to a lab to recover digital data, fingerprints were taken from each object, and the note was photographed to analyze its handwriting.
“Don Roberto, I’ll need a complete list of everyone who’s worked here since 2017. And I’ll need the names of all of Valentina’s friends, especially those who were at the party that night,” Torres instructed.
Roberto complied. The list included 12 former employees, six regular suppliers, and about 20 of Valentina’s friends and classmates who had attended Sofía’s quinceañera. Carmen recalled details of that night:
Valentina went to the party with Sofia. They were very happy. Sofia’s mother told me that Valentina left the party around 11:00 p.m., but Sofia thought she had just gone to the bathroom.
“Did Valentina have a boyfriend at the time?” Torres asked.
“No. She was very studious. Her friends had boyfriends, but she always said she wanted to finish school first,” Carmen replied.
Torres reviewed the original case file. In 2017, authorities questioned everyone at the party, reviewed surveillance cameras, and conducted extensive searches within a 50-kilometer radius of Guadalajara. They never found a trace of Valentina.
“The problem is that we didn’t have this evidence in 2017. Now we can start a completely new investigation,” Torres explained.
He personally went to the pharmacy mentioned on the receipt. It was still operating. Although there was no surveillance footage from 2017, the pharmacist confirmed that a cash purchase of sleeping pills and bandages had been made at 6:30 p.m. on April 14. Probably, he said, by “a young man.”
Back at the prosecutor’s office, Torres compared the names. “DCR” matched exactly one person: Diego Armando Castillo Ruiz , Sofía’s boyfriend in 2017.
Step by step, contradictions emerged. Witnesses had seen Valentina speaking with Diego at the party, though he claimed not to know her well. Phone records recovered from Valentina’s device revealed her final message at 10:43 p.m.: “I’m leaving now, where do we meet?”—sent to Diego’s number.
The new evidence dismantled Diego’s 2017 testimony. Forensics from the bag, the recovered phone, and later searches at Diego’s apartment revealed photographs of Valentina taken without her knowledge, notes tracking her movements, and communication with accomplices—including Mauricio Guzmán and Fernando Moreno, known petty criminals.
The investigation snowballed.
Forensic teams located a hidden SUV in Mauricio’s property, containing fabric fibers matching Valentina’s dress from that night, and blood traces in the trunk. Under questioning, Mauricio cracked:
“Inspector, I only helped transport her. I didn’t kill anyone,” he admitted.
Soon after, Sofía too confessed:
“Diego told me he liked Valentina. He asked me to share her schedules. He said he just wanted to meet her. I didn’t know he was going to hurt her… He threatened me after she disappeared.”
The circle tightened. Finally, when confronted with evidence—including Valentina’s last text—Diego confessed.
“I never wanted her to die. I just wanted her to be with me,” he told Torres.
But Diego described how Fernando Moreno strangled Valentina in June 2017, after keeping her captive in a hidden house in Tlajomulco for 45 days. Moreno later forced Diego and Mauricio to bury her body and scatter her belongings—including the phone and bracelet—beneath tiles at her father’s gas station, “as a cruel joke.”
Six years later, forensic teams exhumed remains from a shallow grave at that Tlajomulco house. DNA confirmed it was Valentina. The autopsy revealed prolonged captivity, abuse, and torture.
The case cracked wide open.
Through confessions, phone records, and financial trails, Inspector Torres uncovered a full human-trafficking network operating in Guadalajara between 2015 and 2020. At its head was businessman Javier Mendoza Salinas—ironically the uncle of Sofía. Former police commander Ricardo Emilio Salinas Medina had protected the ring, sabotaging investigations. At least 32 young women had been abducted, eight murdered, the rest sold into trafficking networks across Mexico.
Valentina was their youngest victim.
The arrests shook Jalisco: businessmen, politicians, judges, and police officers were implicated. Dozens were charged. Torres’ team dismantled the network completely, exposing systemic corruption.
For Roberto and Carmen Vázquez, the truth was devastating but finally gave closure.
“My daughter cannot return, but her case will help other families find their daughters,” Roberto said at the public memorial.
By 2023, reforms had been implemented: a specialized anti-trafficking unit, cross-checking protocols to prevent sabotage, compensation funds for victims’ families, and increased witness protection.
On April 15, 2024, seven years after Valentina’s disappearance, Inspector Torres visited the monument Roberto had built at the gas station. He now had photographs of all the victims.
“Inspector, have you found the girls sold to other states?” Roberto asked.
Torres nodded. “Twelve have been located and rescued. Eight returned home. Four decided to start a new life elsewhere. And for those who are still missing, we continue searching.”
Valentina’s case had become a national reference. The new investigative methodologies developed based on it were adopted throughout Mexico.
Her name, once whispered in pain, is now a symbol of justice, reform, and the fight against human trafficking.