Couple held in Mexico admit to 20 murders

MEXICO CITY: A couple detained in Mexico while transporting human body parts in a baby carriage has admitted to killing 20 people, twice the number originally suspected, the chief investigator on the case said.

The man also admitted raping some of his female victims and selling some of their body parts, said state prosecutor Alejandro Gomez of Mexico state on monday.

The couple were arrested last Thursday in Ecatepec, a violencehit suburb northeast of Mexico City, on suspicion of killing 10 women.

The man gave detailed accounts of those 10 murders and said he and his wife had killed 10 other people as well, according to Gomez.

Prosecutors are now trying to establish whether that is true or the boast of a “psychopath” and “serial killer,” he said.

“He described it in a completely natural way ... I would say he actually seemed happy to have done this,” Gomez said in an interview with Mexican radio network Formula.

“He wants people to see his picture, to know his name ... I would obviously classify this person as a murderer, a serial killer.”

The couple also admitted to selling the twomonthold baby of one of their victims to another couple, who was also arrested, according to the El Universal newspaper.

The suspects are being identified only as Juan Carlos “N” and Patricia “N”, in accordance with Mexican law. He has “a mental disturbance consistent with psychosis and a personality disorder”, while she has been “mentally disabled since birth and has also acquired induced delirium,” said Gomez. “But both can distinguish between right and wrong.”

The couple were living with their three children, including a baby.

When authorities searched their two homes, they found human remains in cementfilled buckets and in plastic bags inside a refrigerator, as well as clothing apparently belonging to some of the victims.

The man said he and his wife lured their victims, many of whom were young single mothers, with offers of discount clothing for their babies.