Al Letson From the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX this is Reveal I'm Al Letson It's September 2021 and Omar Gómez Trejo is leading a crowd of reporters down the slope of a steep and stony ravine somewhere in the Southern Mexican state of Guerrero The journalist traveled more than six hours in a caravan of vehicles for a chance to see this site Despite the harsh sun overhead the treacherous path under foot the thorny brush and biting flies the group is eager to visit this place It's been closed to them since investigators found a collection of bone fragments here The reporters cluster around Omar and turn on their microphones In a way all of Mexico is waiting to hear what Omar has to say He's not a politician or big time movie star nothing like that Omar is a 40 something human rights lawyer with a scruffy beard Clark Kent glasses and tattoos up his arms He's at the center of an investigation into one of the most horrific crimes in Mexico's modern history Omar Gómez Trejo We're opening new lines of investigation and identifying more places to search We continue to make inroads Al Letson Maybe you've heard of this case When students from a rural teacher's college were violently attacked by police 43 young men have taken away and never seen again It happened in September of 2014 and it scarred Mexico More than seven years have passed since the disappearance of the students and the parents continue to live without knowing what happened to their sons or why The president of Mexico tapped Omar to solve what's come to be called the Ayotzinapa case named for the teacher's college the students attended Omar Gómez Trejo My team and I want to communicate to the families of the 43 students of Ayotzinapa our deepest commitments with the search of your sons We will not lose hope and we will keep doing whatever is humanly possible to find your children Al Letson On the one hand it makes perfect sense for Omar to be the face of this high profile government investigation He's been involved in it almost since the beginning On the other hand it's the last thing he ever expected given his past experience You see not that long ago the Mexican authorities were doing everything they could to get Omar off the case and out of the country Omar Gómez Trejo I was put in a place where I was actively being targeted I was all over the media being set up Al Letson The case of the missing students has been an odyssey for Omar the families of the missing boys and the people of Mexico It also has a surprising connection to US policy We're going to tell you this story in a way no one else can because for the past year and a half we've been following the investigation into this crime from the inside We've done that with help from Omar himself He's allowed Reveal reporter Anayansi Diaz Cortes and our partner for this story human rights investigator Kate Doyle into his day-to-day life They've been having regular conversations Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Omar Gómez Trejo Spanish Al Letson And Omar's even been keeping an audio diary Omar Gómez Trejo Spanish Al Letson Kate is with the National Security Archive a nonprofit research institute in Washington with no ties to the US government They use freedom of information laws to expose human rights atrocities in Latin America and hold their governments accountable And Anayansi's been following this case since it happened in 2014 Anayansi Diaz-Cortes I was living in Los Angeles when this all went down and LA is very much a Mexican city so it took all of us It was huge news And I was covering Mexico at the time and I just remember wanting to grab my editor by the collar and say Send me there I need to cover this Public radio needs to be there But I was pregnant I was seven months pregnant and it was impossible So instead I remember just following obsessively on my phone as it was unfolding Al Letson Anayansi says the story is especially important to her as a Mexican American Anayansi Diaz-Cortes The Mexican part of me knows that this is a crucial test for Mexico's justice system because it goes beyond these 43 missing students More than 90 000 people are missing in Mexico today And the perpetrators they haven't been brought to justice If you ask the families right now of the disappeared they'd say that the government doesn't care that they have to seek their own justice And then there's the American part of me The American part of me wants people to understand that there is a US connection and that they should care because we bear responsibility on this side too This story connects to the war on drugs because in Ayotzinapa it took a bad situation in Mexico and made it so much worse It actually stoked chaos corruption and violence And Americans don't even think about this while Mexicans have to live with the consequences of the war on drugs every single day Al Letson Reveal is devoting three episodes to the Ayotzinapa case which will take us from the heart of rural Mexico to the suburbs of Chicago When we come back Anayansi introduces us to one of the young men who was there the night of 2014 when it all started Nico And then two or three police cars arrived local police They barricaded us first from the front and then the back Spanish Al Letson This is Reveal's serial investigation After Ayotzinapa Chapter One The Missing 43 Al Letson If you like what we do and you want to help well it's pretty simple Just write us a review on Apple podcast It's easy and only takes a few seconds Just open the Apple podcast app on your phone search for Reveal then scroll down to where you see Write a review And there tell them how much you love the host Your review makes it easier for listeners to find us And well it really does make a difference And if you do it you will get a personal thank you for me right now Not him not You Yes you Thank you so much Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you All right Al Letson From the center for investigative reporting and PRX this is Reveal I'm Al Letson What ended up being one of Mexico's most notorious human rights crimes took place late one Friday night in September 2014 Before we move on we should mention that this story does include some graphic details of gun violence Reveal's Anayansi Diaz Cortes walks us through what happened through the eyes of one of the students who was lucky enough to survive Anayansi Diaz-Cortes It's September 26th 2014 and Nico inaudible is resting in his dorm room after band practice The first week of classes kicked his butt but he's happy Nico's studying to become a teacher at a rural college in Southern Mexico He's 21 old to be a freshman After high school he fixed fridges and washing machines for a couple of years but he could barely make ends meet Then his buddy Daniel inaudible told him about this teacher's college You have no other choice if you want to study Daniel told him Come on let's do it together Nico And so this became a light of hope because I wanted to keep studying I didn't want to get stuck just working So I took his advice Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Nico Daniel had just turned 18 Nico felt like his older brother Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Daniel inaudible from Guerrero one of the poorest states in Mexico where there's few opportunities for young men Someone put it to me this way In these parts of Guerrero boys are born Spanish farm workers If that's not what you want to do in life you've got three main choices trek to the US to try your luck there join Spanish as in become a drug trafficker or come to this college Spanish and study to become a teacher That's what Daniel and Nico wanted Anayansi Diaz-Cortes But there's a few things that you should know about the way it works First the school is free funded by the state and it's bare bones There are no dorms Nico and Daniel live with eight to 10 students in a tiny concrete room with no windows A single light bulb hangs from the ceiling They all sleep on the floor We tried to do everything together to always be together I was older and I promised his family I would take care of him and Spanish is rooted in leftist politics and social protest It was founded in 1926 after the Mexican revolution Its mission To create a generation of activist teachers who would fight for the rights of the poor They're known for protesting a lot They speak up against government corruption and police brutality The biggest event of the year is a pilgrimage to Mexico City every October 2nd That's the day in 1968 when leftist students protesting military and police violence were gunned down in a public plaza Man on News The troops have moved in It started off as a peaceful demonstration The army was circling this plaza called the Plaza inaudible They were holding a peaceful rally but now the troops have come and you can hear what it sounds like Anayansi Diaz-Cortes That anniversary is just a few days away when a group of older students show up and tell Nico and other freshman Get ready We have a job to do Nico They just said Let's go this way Anayansi Diaz-Cortes He and 60 other students get on a bus parked on campus One of the older kids says Vamos Spanish We're going to hit the streets and ask for money donations for the school But asking for donations isn't the only thing this trip is about The older students plan to take over buses so kids from other rural schools can make that pilgrimage to Mexico City on October 2nd I know this sounds odd Maybe the word stealing comes to mind but it's more like borrowing Students in Mexico have been commandeering buses for decades It's one of the only ways they can travel because the state doesn't give them the money they need to have buses Most of the time the bus companies and drivers go along with it and help the students out Nico On the road I don't know I felt a kind of heavy vibe Everything was calm but I sensed something strange But we kept going Anayansi Diaz-Cortes They pull into a town called Iguala about halfway between their college and Mexico City Nico We got to the bus station and started to spread out We woke up and some Spanish were already in the station We started to take some buses We grabbed three in total and we had two other buses that we brought from the school so there were five Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Usually when police hear about students taking buses they'll try to bust them But they have to catch them first Nico We started to leave but then we arrived at the point where there is a town square Anayansi Diaz-Cortes They keep driving and so far no cops It feels like they got away Nico Then two or three police cars arrived Local police They barricaded us First from the front and then the back Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Now what typically happens is a shouting match maybe some rock throwing an arrest or two if students get rowdy But tonight Nico They didn't want us at all They just got down and started shooting Shooting to kill Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Nico's account was recorded about a week after the attack by an American reporter covering the story We'll meet him later in the show This is the first time it's being broadcast We should also mention that Nico is not his real name We changed it because he's been threatened and harassed for telling his story Nico One of our Spanish tried to get out and do something to move the police cars and that's when the first one of us was shot Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Nico Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Nico throws himself on the floor dodging shards of glass and bullets He inches toward the back of the bus Nico I was taking cover near a broken window It was totally busted but I could peek through I saw two cops pointing at us and then I saw a bunch of Spanish They had already been arrested but they continued to shoot and all of us continued to shout Anayansi Diaz-Cortes We are students We are not armed On another bus Lalo Lopez is up for the fight with the cops Again we changed his name because he's been harassed for speaking out Lalo Lopez I was up in the front with the bus driver He gave me the fire extinguisher and he said Here throw this at them It'll explode and then all you guys could escape and then so can I But right when I threw it they shot me And that's when we realized we were done and we gave up Anayansi Diaz-Cortes The bullet went right through his arm blood everywhere They tell the driver We can't keep fighting We're going to surrender Lalo Lopez When we got off the bus the police stood on the side of the door and started to pull us out and put our hands behind our heads My arm was hurting me and then they started to throw us down on the ground I saw my Spanish on the ground lying in a pool of blood convulsing and that the police just never stopped shooting Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Lalo Lopez And then one student a junior stands up to the cops Anayansi Diaz-Cortes The next thing Lalo feels is a gun barrel on the side of his head Then a cop says Lalo Lopez What if I kill him And I thought Well this is it And then just seconds later he moves the rifle away from my forehead and that same guy calls an ambulance Anayansi Diaz-Cortes The ambulance arrives a few later and Lalo is taken to the hospital As they're driving away he's able to glance back Lalo Lopez That was when they started to put my Spanish in different police vehicles I could see it My Spanish were just crying None of them said a word Anayansi Diaz-Cortes From inside his bus Nico sees this too Police push the students towards some pickup trucks and make them climb in the back One leg over the tailgate and then the other they force them to lie down The trucks move out the cops ride in the back and on the sides resting their feet on the students' backs Nico Those of us inside the first bus were still just waiting for it to be our turn But then the police all started leaving Then we didn't hear anything Everything went quiet The street was calm silent And that was when we started to get off the bus Anayansi Diaz-Cortes It's around 10 30 11 and the students gather outside the buses Nico hugs his friend Daniel He can't believe they made it out alive They check who's injured who's okay who's missing They see bullet holes casing huge pools of blood Despite their shock their instinct is to secure what is now a crime scene Nico We agreed not to move a single shell The Spanish were taking photos and filming Some people started to arrive including parents but they started to walk all over the evidence so we made a human chain to protect the area Anayansi Diaz-Cortes The students called their teachers and local reporters and soon they show up The gathering turns into an impromptu press conference with students giving statements trying to describe what just happened But there's so much they can't explain why the police opened fire where they took their buddies When suddenly Nico sees a suspicious car Inside a man with a machine gun Nico He started shooting in the air then shooting at us The bullets hitting the pavement It was like Christmas like firecrackers So what we did then was run They grabbed and beat him in the stomach with the butt of the rifle They knocked him to the ground and started to beat him in the face If you're such bad asses then show it now you damn Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes The next few minutes are chaos Nico finds themself with about eight other students crouching behind cars Then they make a run for it and jump over a fence into a lot Up ahead are two small houses The owners come out and students ask to stay in their patio which was hidden from view Nico And yes they let us stay there to hide there and wait We were all bunched up together in the patio trying to hide as best we could Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Nico One of the students gets a call Anayansi Diaz-Cortes El Chino as in curly because of Daniel's curly hair It was Daniel Spanish Nico's buddy Nico I didn't want to believe that it was Daniel I wanted to believe that he had been able to run and get to safety Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Around this time Nico feels a drop of rain and soon it's pouring The boys huddled together in the downpour Nico One Spanish told me that he had been standing next to Daniel and was able to see him where he was lying in the street crying for help He said he wanted to go back but those assholes were still shooting He said he saw Daniel with blood on his neck I was very upset with that Spanish Wow why didn't you tell me If I had known and if I had seen I wouldn't have cared if they shot me I would've gone back for him Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Nico And finally just as dawn is breaking the downpour becomes a drizzle Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Al Letson They walk out onto the puddled streets soaking wet Omar Gómez Trejo Wow No I had never seen a protest that big in Mexico Al Letson Anayansi is back with that part of the story in a minute You're listening to Reveal From the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX this is Reveal I'm Al Letson As the sun breaks through the clouds over Iguala the rain stops and Nico decides to make his way back to the school That was when someone told us that two students had been hit One of them was Chino It was around six in the morning when we got a call from a Spanish He asked where we were and told us that it was all over He told us to come out of hiding that it was okay now News of the attack on Nico and the other students would soon spread throughout Mexico sparking a movement This is when Omar the young human rights lawyer gets involved Nico The minutes felt eternal and then once we arrived at Spanish we felt a sense of relief Al Letson By the time he gets there word has spread about the attack on the students and the murder of Daniel and others And when Nico goes to the dorms Daniel's parents are there Nico And his mother broke down crying And all I could do was hug her and ask for her forgiveness for not taking care of him like I wanted to Al Letson Back in Iguala where the shooting took place things are in chaos Some students are still hiding in houses too scared to come out Others are on the hillsides miles away Some of the guys regroup in Iguala Center and try to tally who's missing They figure out that three students are dead Three bystanders were killed too But they can't find the dozens of other students who were arrested and taken away by police in pick-up trucks The survivors assume those boys are in custody so they make their way to the courthouse and find the town's prosecutor We want to bail out our Spanish and go in peace they tell them But there's no one to bail out The missing students aren't in jail or in custody and the police say they have no idea where they are And to this day we still don't know what happened to them Reveal's Anayansi Diaz Cortes got to spend time with the mother of one of the missing boys and has her story Anayansi Diaz-Cortes It's been more than seven years since Nico and the other students were pulled out of those buses Spanish sleeps in her son's room every single night It's better this way she tells me Cristi Bautista This is his room A long time had passed I would see his room and I felt like I couldn't go in It made me sad and everything And one day I made the decision to sleep in his room to feel closer to him Anayansi Diaz-Cortes So every night she slips into his bed imposing her loneliness onto his space And every morning she leaves it Clothes shoes hair gel exactly how he left it when he went to college in 2014 Spanish was one of the dozens of boys taken away by police that Friday night Spanish who everyone calls Spanish lives in a village deep in the mountains of Southern Mexico so she didn't get the news until days after the incident Her brother read her the newspaper headline over the phone Cristi Bautista And I began to just feel this pressure in my chest Then I called him and nothing It went to voicemail voicemail voicemail and I began to worry Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Spanish can't get a hold of Benjamin so she gets on a bus and heads to the school Cristi Bautista I cried whole way I don't know I just felt Why What happened to my son Why doesn't he answer me I would try to think positive Maybe they stole his phone I kept thinking this I just started crying Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Once at the school she stands under the Archway at the entrance hoping praying that her son would be there and run up to her Cristi Bautista And so I went up to one of the boys and I said I came to visit my son And he said Ah Spanish What's your son's name And he said to me Spanish your son disappeared with the other Spanish Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Cristi Bautista Spanish can't find the words to respond Anayansi Diaz-Cortes But the students were not found that day or the next or the next Spanish And that's when their martyrdom began Spanish and all the other parents go to the state capital with photos and birth certificates They file missing persons claims and demand their boys be found What did they tell you Cristi Bautista Nothing I kept asking what how what happened Because the survivors saw everything How their Spanish were taken away in police cars Anayansi Diaz-Cortes It was like they were disregarding what Nico and the others had lived through that night All the authorities did was swab the parents for DNA and take blood samples But that wasn't enough for the mothers and fathers Cristi Bautista We went to march We went to Mexico City to march Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Within days the families take to the streets Hundreds of people join them because even in those early days the families fear they're being lied to that the government isn't doing enough to find their children So instead of waiting for the authorities to just tell them what happened the families decide to get outside help With their lawyers they get a renowned Argentine forensic team to work on the case on their behalf Slowly the news of what happened in Iguala starts to spread John Gibbler remembers seeing the first headline John Gibler September 27th is my birthday An initial headline read something like Police and students from Ayotzinapa clash in Iguala Six people dead and 57 students disappeared Anayansi Diaz-Cortes John is a journalist in Mexico City He's from the US from Texas but he's been in Mexico a really long time John Gibler And the initial impact was just shock and disbelief But don't worry We're looking for them We're going to find them Anayansi Diaz-Cortes So a few days later on October 2nd he heads to the same march that Nico and the other students had been planning to go to with those buses the march that commemorates the 1968 student massacre in Mexico City John Gibler And the march just seemed totally deflated Of course nobody had come from Guerrero because people in Guerrero were desperately looking for 43 disappeared students at that moment There was no presence of this mass force disappearance in this march That is actually what shocked me And that was the moment that was when I decided We need to go We collectively many reporters need to move quickly because something really really big is happening Anayansi Diaz-Cortes That same night John goes home and packs a change of clothes two notebooks and a tiny old Sony handheld recorder The next morning John shows up at the school and starts piecing together what happened the week before He gets to work interviewing every survivor including Nico and Lalo who you heard from earlier in the show He figures out that the actual number of students taken by the police is 43 His interviews end up becoming crucial to understanding that night in Iguala The very first recorded accounts from survivors and eyewitnesses While he was doing those interviews John Gibler News came out that the police in Iguala had located a series of mass graves in the hillside outside of town Anayansi Diaz-Cortes John Gibler And with this news Anayansi Diaz-Cortes John Gibler The last turn is a few miles from town on a hillside Anayansi Diaz-Cortes One soldier even shoots off his gun to scare photographers inching too close to the site John recognizes the police commander and walks up to him John Gibler Do you know how they found this these graves And that was the official who told me that the body and the graves belong to the students and that the rest of the students had gone home Of course I said That's impossible We just came from the school We were just with the parents And he's like No no no look You don't have good cell service here You'll see when you get back down into town that the rest of the students are back home which is that level of Spanish There's just shamelessness A group of us all went in a small caravan to Iguala two cars We were trailed probably starting about five miles before getting into the city by men on motorcycles who at every red light would pull up right next to us and just look in and listen to our conversation and then keep following us until the last turn we took So we get there There's an army blockade The Marines are there The state police are there And they wouldn't let reporters get close to the grave sites Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Cristi Bautista Back at the school the parents are getting the news about the graves Anayansi Diaz-Cortes By this time the team of independent forensics experts has arrived from Argentina and they begin taking their own swabs from the families of the 43 missing students Cristi Bautista They said With this DNA test they will not be able to fool you They said We're going to help you The government won't be able to give you a body that isn't your son and then tell you to go home They told us We don't know if it's them so please calm down But how are we going to calm down We couldn't control it We were just weeping Anayansi Diaz-Cortes The government gave the team from Argentina access to the bodies found in the mass graves and they spent days collecting DNA and comparing it to the families In the end there were 28 bodies in the graves but they weren't the students They were other people a mother and a child older men women It was a different group of disappeared people Anayansi Diaz-Cortes This is where the story of the 43 missing students becomes part of something much bigger See for years people had gone missing all across Mexico tens of thousands of them Family of the missing people suspected gangs or cartels but they didn't go to the cops They couldn't They believed the police were involved or too afraid to investigate Discovering the mass graves changed everything in Mexico If these were not the students who were they Who buried them there Many other graves could there be Just like that mexico woke up to the reality of the tens of thousands of people who had simply vanished It propelled a movement and it swept up people like Omar Gomez Trejo Omar Gómez Trejo It was a watershed moment in Mexico The feeling in Mexico was outrage It was like Are they or are they not the students And this question over and over again well it begins to create a cloud of doubt Tell us the truth about what happened and how it happened and especially about what the government was doing in that moment Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Omar is the man we met at the top of the show At this point he's working for the United Nations in Mexico City And along with thousands of others he takes to the streets Omar Gómez Trejo Our job was to go and accompany the protest with our UN vests going along with them to make sure that it was a peaceful demonstration that there was no violence by the authorities Meaning we were also sharing in that sentiment I remember the feeling of outrage fear despair They found the bodies very burned very tortured They're the students That was such a heavy blow Maybe my son is there The chills I got I lost all my strength I remember saying Oh God give me strength I don't want to faint here I just grabbed hold of myself until the shock passed Anayansi Diaz-Cortes And now though protests represent the heartbreak of tens of thousands of families whose loved ones have disappeared The 43 students exposed a national crisis Omar Gómez Trejo Wow no I had never seen a protest that big in Mexico Never How is it possible that 43 students are uncovering the mass grave that is Guerrero Anayansi Diaz-Cortes That was in the city In the countryside people take to the hillsides with sticks and flash slides to poke the ground and look for remains And they find more mass graves that month Many more containing dozens of bodies The bodies in those graves aren't the students either Back at his office Omar follows the news and slowly becomes obsessed with the case He'd been telling his boss to let him work on it more closely and one day his boss pulls him into his office You've been wanting to be a part of this Well there's been a breakthrough The government thinks they found the students and the attorney general needs someone from the UN to go You're it The government said they had a lead The next thing Omar knows he's in a helicopter with another UN observer on their way to a garbage dump in a place called Spanish about half an hour south of the town where the students were taken Omar Gómez Trejo We flew to a soccer field in Spanish near the dump and suddenly we see many trucks drive by and a person with a baseball cap comes up to us Hi I'm Tomas inaudible Good afternoon Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Tomas Zerón a trusted aid of President Peña Nieto and head of the government's investigation into the case He orders a car and an SUV pulls up in front of them Omar and his colleague Spanish slide in Omar Gómez Trejo Pelar and I we're sitting in the middle and all of a sudden these two guys get in with their huge guns Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Omar Gómez Trejo The whole time Omar is thinking Anayansi Diaz-Cortes It's all very confusing They bounce along a rocky road until they get to the dump From a distance he can see forensic people sifting through dirt and garbage Omar Gómez Trejo You couldn't really tell who was who because they had their hazmat suits but we knew the Argentinian team was working there Mimi Doretti We're in this gigantic hole full of garbage which is very weird There was an entire wall of 40 meters all full of garbage We're thinking Are they arresting us or what And then all of a sudden the SUV speeds off and takes us directly to the dump Anayansi Diaz-Cortes That's Mercedes Doretti leader of the Argentine forensic team working for the parents of missing students Everyone calls her Mimi Like Omar the government called Mimi to come to the dump Mimi's team sets up a perimeter and a grid to analyze the entire scene for evidence of the students Mimi Doretti There were bones We couldn't tell yet if they were human or not but we could see there were bones and that all that area was burned Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Mimi and her team work hard for the next day or so They're examining the bones they turn up in the charred remains of garbage Then they get an urgent message from government officials Mimi Doretti One of the two federal prosecutors came to the garbage dump and said You have to come to another place to another site And I said But we're working here We don't have a lot of people You have to come Anayansi Diaz-Cortes She climbs up the wall of garbage with the prosecutor pressing her to hurry We must go now And she gets into an official car and speeds away It's a dizzying turn Just as urgently as the government wanted them to rush to the dump a few days ago they're now switching gears and sending them to a different place Mimi Doretti And that's when they took us to the Rio San Juan where there was another completely different scene Anayansi Diaz-Cortes This time it's at a small river And near the riverbank there's already a Mexican forensics team well into their work They were brought there by Tomas Zerón They were cleaning and laying out burnt remains on the ground The remains were in a plastic garbage bag that had been pulled from the water Mimi Doretti They were coming out with fragments of bones a lot of different fragments maybe I don't know how many There could have been a hundred or more something like that Anayansi Diaz-Cortes To her eye the bones all seem charred almost cremated She looks for a fragment that could be a good candidate for testing Mimi Doretti I remember very distinctly I saw this fragment of bone that was very different from the rest because it was way bigger and it was almost not burned It immediately caught my attention because I thought it was very different from the rest and because I thought If in this bag there is more like this we're going to be able to get DNA and so we are going to know if these remains belong or not to the students Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Mimi Doretti And was there more like that No That was the only one Anayansi Diaz-Cortes And so Mimi sets that bone aside feeling reassured Even if it was the only bone in the bag it would be tested and the world would know if the students died here or not Then she sees Tomas Zerón’s agents approaching Mimi Doretti They brought these two guys to the scene Spanish that they were holding from the neck like that Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Mimi grabs the scruff of her own neck to show me how they were holding the men She remembers one in particular one of his eyes was black and swollen Mimi Doretti The face of the guy I always remember that he seemed absolutely terrorized Looks like a kid It was very very young very very scared Anayansi Diaz-Cortes And there in front of dozens of people this man who looks like a kid starts shaking and in a barely audible voice he begins to confess to the crime Mimi Doretti He starts saying Well we were in different cars We brought the students up there to the garbage dump We killed them We burned them the whole night Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Mimi Doretti Mimi is aghast by this play by play Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Mimi Doretti Then one of Zerón’s men turns to Mimi Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Almost as if sensing her concern the police start talking about how well they're treating the detainees Mimi Doretti And the fact that they call my name and the fact that they said several times See how we treat them well see how we treat them well My mind was exactly the opposite And that's when I thought Is this torture here For me it was a red flag there Anayansi Diaz-Cortes But as far as the Mexican authorities are concerned they're on their way to solving the case And just over a month after the attack on the students they hold a press conference That's Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam For the next hour the Attorney General shares photos videotaped confessions and maps He says that after police attacked the buses and killed three students they took the 43 others away He says these cops were working in cahoots with a local gang called Guerreros Unidos led by Spanish known as Spanish orders them killed Spanish is now on the run he says There's 50 people here This guy is incriminating himself Their lawyer is walking around not really actively giving them advice Ask questions Am I authorized to interrogate someone I'm just one anthropologist just doing the work And I was like No no no I'm not going to Because I felt I'm not sure this is legal Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Then the Attorney General shows a video of the same guy who Mimi saw at the river He's confessing to killing the boys We took them in the largest truck he says to the garbage dump at Spanish By the time they are arrive he says 15 of the boys are already dead smothered under the weight of their classmates After showing the video the Attorney General continues He says the rest of the boys were taken to the garbage dumps and shot dead one by one The gang members threw the bodies down a steep hill of garbage then covered them with tires wood plastic and finally gasoline and burned them for 16 hours They put the remains into plastic garbage bags and took them to a nearby river There he says they dumped out all the remains except for one bag which they threw into the shallow water That's the bag that had the bone laid out when Mimi arrived at the river Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Thank you enough I'm tired now This is how the Attorney General ends the hour long press conference And that one line Spanish becomes a rallying cry for the parents I am tired The parents do not believe the government's story They have the same suspicions as Mimi Doretti It just doesn't seem plausible Here's Spanish who lost her son Benjamin What do you think the truth is I ask her Cristi Bautista Whatever it is I need to know I need the truth I want my son to return to achieve his dreams of being someone in this life Anayansi Diaz-Cortes Within weeks of the Attorney General's press conference they travel to Mexico City and gather in front of President Peña Nieto’s residence But he doesn't come out He won't face them Al Letson In a matter of weeks the lives of Doña Cristi and the other parents have been turned upside down First came the news of the attack on their sons Three killed and 43 taken away by police Now the government was telling them the police were mixed up with a local gang and their sons were dead Investigators seemed anxious to close the case and tell the families to move on But the parents knew there was more to the story They had a lot of questions like Why were the students attacked in the first place Next week we meet an American DEA agent who's convinced that the answer has a lot to do with an illegal drug operation right here in the US Mark Giuffre These students hijacked the wrong bus They hijacked the wrong bus To me it was just so crystal clear at that if not for that being the bus they hijacked my hypothesis is they might all very well be alive today Al Letson And we'll learn how Omar Gomez Trejo found himself at the center of a new investigation one that put in question everything the Mexican authorities were saying about that bloody night in Iguala To see cell phone video of the attack and documents related to the investigation visit revealnews org disappeared Our lead producer is Anayansi Diaz Cortes Kate Doyle with the National Security Archive is our partner and co-producer for this series Taki Telonidis edited the show We have production help from Reveal's David Rodriguez and Bruce Heel Thanks to Tom Blanton Megan deTura and Claire Dorfman from the National Security Archive and to Laura Sarcheski Lisa Pollock John Gibler and Ariana Rosas Special thanks to Santiago Aguirre Maria Luisa Aguilar from Central Pro and Maureen Meyer from the Washington Office on Latin America Al Letson Victoria Baranetsky is our general counsel Our production manager is Amy Mostafa Original score and sound design by the dynamic duo Jay Breezy Mr Jim Briggs and Fernando my man Arruda They had help from Claire Mullen Kathryn Steyer Martinez and Steven Rascon Our digital producer is Sarah Merck Our CEO is Kaizar Campwala Sumi Aggarwal is our editor in chief and our executive producer is Kevin Sullivan Our theme music is by inaudible Lightning Support for Reveal is provided by the Reva and David Logan Foundation the John D and Catherine T McArthur Foundation the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation the Ford Foundation the Heising-Simons Foundation the Hellman Foundation the Democracy Fund and the In As Much Foundation Reveal is a co-production of the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX I'm Al Letson And remember there is always more to the story