On September 26, 2014, 43 male students were kidnapped from Iguala, Mexico. Now this case is huge and I could spend days going through all the available information. So I’m not going to be able to include everything, but if there is anything that you guys want to share or feel is important to the case I did not mention, please leave it in the comments below. I’m sure everybody reading this would love to hear it.
Case of the missing 43 students in Iguala is one of the most shocking
Now this case is kind of mind-boggling to be honest. Because 43 human beings were taken and have never been seen again. This case affects so many people, especially all of the families of these 43 people, the people at their school. There are a few theories as to what happened, but nobody truly knows what happened to these men.
On the 26th of September 2014, over 100 students from the a rural Teachers College, which happens to be known for its radical political stance and had been involved in some political demonstrations. The school was established to provide free education to young people in the most impoverished regions of Mexico, who then would go on to teach in rural farming type areas.
The students were actually heading to a nearby town called Iguala, where they were going to protest a function which was being held by the mayor of Iguala, Jose Luis Abarca and his wife María de los Ángeles Pineda Villa. They were set to protest the discriminatory hiring processes of teachers. The function was being held in Iguala, which was one of the most dangerous regions in Mexico, due to drug cartels.
The planned on a trip to Mexico City
They were also planning to raise funds for a trip to Mexico City, where they were going to march to commemorate the anniversary of the 1986 Tlatelolco Massacre, where a large number of students were killed by the security forces in the capital.
At around 6:00 p.m., they headed out and they were first going to commandeer some buses so they could actually get to where they wanted to go. This is actually a really common practice. These students would steal buses or “borrow” them. They would take a bus, use it to get where they needed to go and then they would bring it back.
They didn’t actually have government funding, so they weren’t able to charter these buses themselves. They would kind of make a deal with bus drivers, and this was necessary to get to their protest, necessary to their education. And in their funding efforts, the bus companies and authorities also seemed to tolerate this practice. Bus drivers were instructed to stay with the buses so that they could ensure their safe return.
So they loaded up two buses that they had already previously commandeered and one of them went to go sit on a highway across from a restaurant called La Palma and then the other one went to go and sit near a toll booth closer to Iguala. So they spoke to a driver out here, to take them as long as he could make a quick stop at Iguala Central Bus Station, so that he could drop off the passengers that they already had.
When they arrived at the station, the driver left and was speaking to security guards and when the students tried to get out, it turns out that he had actually locked them in.
The students from the other two buses showed up to help them. They broke windows to get the students out of the bus. They then managed to commandeer another three buses, bringing them up to five buses. At 9:30 p.m., they left to go to the protest. Three of the buses went towards the Northern Beltway and two went towards the south.
Police were tracking the students from the very beginning
At the time, what they didn’t know is that police were tracking their movement. State Police, Federal Police, and the Mexican army were all tracking their movements from the very beginning at 6:00 p.m, when they left. Several police cars actually started following the three buses that were heading north. One police truck actually cut the bus off forcing it to a stop.
A few students got out and tried to like physically move this police truck. This is when police started firing warning shots into the sky and students started retaliating by throwing rocks and even smashing windows of the police truck. They then go back into the bus and drove around that police truck. Police were following them and firing shots at the bus. As many as 10 police vehicles were actually chasing them at this point.
Another police truck cut the bus off forcing it to stop again. The students once again got out and tried to physically move the bus, which is when police started actually shooting at the students. Aldo Gutierrez was shot in the head and left brain dead, so the other students ran and hid behind the bus, because the police were still shooting at them. At 9:48 p.m., a call was made to an emergency dispatch number and eventually, an ambulance came and managed to take the three students that had been shot and another student who suffered an asthma attack and rushed them to a nearby hospital.
Police officers forced the students and bus driver out onto the street and made them lie down on the ground with their hands on their heads. They loaded them into six or seven police trucks and put hoods over their heads. They then drove away, and those students were never seen again.
One of the buses heading south was also stopped at 9:40 p.m. when a police truck cut them off. They started throwing tear gas in and shooting bullets into the bus. They then took the students from that bus and loaded them into patrol trucks again. Those students along with the ones from the northern bus that were taken have never been seen again. They make up the 43 missing students.
Officers also intercepted the other bus that was heading south, but they had already heard what was happening to the other four buses, so they were prepared. There was 14 students on the bus they stopped. They were asked to get off the bus while holding a gun at them and a flashlight. As they began to get off the bus, they started running into the woods that were nearby. They managed to find shelter with a nearby resident at 11:15 p.m.
Police also stopped a bus that was carrying a high-school soccer team. They believed it was another one of the student buses. Armed men intercepted the bus causing the driver to lose control, and then they ended up pinned up against the ground.
Police opened fire on high school soccer team
The police were shooting at them as they were yelling out they were just a high school soccer team and that they were unarmed. The police didn’t seem to care, so they kept shooting and they killed the bus driver. They killed one of the high school soccer players who was only 15 years old. They injured eight other players. They also shot and killed a 40-year-old woman who was just riding in a taxi nearby, so she wasn’t even included in this whole fiasco.
Over 60 shell casings were found at the scene, and some of them actually were from high-powered assault rifle. At the time that the high school soccer players bus were being attacked, the surviving students from the other buses were heading north started to gather in the streets around the scene of the crime. Journalists started showing up, they started to cordon off the area to preserve any evidence. It kind of turned into a little press conference.
Around this time, they saw a white utility vehicle and a black car drive past. They were both wearing hoods and bulletproof vests, while taking photos of the entire thing. Some sources also said that there was a police vehilce that drove past 15 minutes later. Those two cars returned and opened fire on everyone at this press conference. They killed two people and injured several others. Two dozen students ran to a nearby clinic to try and get help. The women inside refused to help so there then started begging for an ambulance, but instead the police showed up.
They ordered them to take off their shirts and then checked all of their pockets before they left. In total from these attacks, six people were shot and killed. More than 25 people were at the hospital wounded, and 43 students were kidnapped and never seen again. Five buses, six cars and one motorcycle we’re all wrecked. There were 195 shell casings found including ones from high-powered assault rifles. The next morning a student was found spread out on his back on a patch of dirt. His eyes had been removed and the skin from his face had been removed. His shirt had been pulled up so that you could see all of the bruising and that his skull had been fractured.
It is still unclear and undetermined what happened to these 43 missing students, where they are and why these buses were attacked. Now let’s dive into theories.
Theory #1 – Mayor and Wife Responsible for Kidnapping
The first theory is that the mayor and his wife were behind the whole thing. In 2010, federal authorities were investigating him and his wife for illegal enrichment, but no charges were filed. Iguala residents also say that his 2000 election took intimidation and fear to a new level.
Less than a year into his term, a well known activist Archer Hernandez was killed. The driver said that he was the one who pulled the trigger. The investigation against him came to a halt. Maria is believed to have organized the entire event that the students were going to protest as a way to kick off his election campaign.
Maria herself was actually related or known to be related to well-known cartel members. Two of her brothers were known to be high-level operators of the Sinaloa and Beltran Leyva cartels. The Attorney General also revealed that not only was she related to them but they also had a monetary incentive to be friendly with the gangs.
It was theorized that the mayor got the police to kidnap the students and then hand them over to the Guerreros Unidos gang. In an interview on the 29th of September, the man claimed that he had knowledge of the attacks and didn’t even find out until his assistant told him. He also said that it wasn’t possible that he had anything to do with it, because he was at his event and then he had an after-party.
Abarca requested a 30-day leave of absence, which the Iguala City Council approved. Shortly after when federal agents raided his house, they found that he was nowhere to be found and that he and his family had actually fled but they were still hiding in somewhere in Mexico City. Next month, they were found and arrested, but they actually weren’t arrested for the Iguala mass kidnapping, they were arrested for the murder of the activists.
Theory #2 – Guerreros Unidos Gang
This theory is that the Mexican gang kidnapped the students, thinking they were a rival gang or that these students had angered them in some way by not paying extortion money.
The government claims that police from Iguala and Cocula actually kidnapped the students. They then took them to an area named Loma de Corte, where they hand them over to the Guerreros Unidos. The gang is actually known for kidnapping, extortion and drug .trafficking.
They believed were part of the rival gang were shot to death one by one and then their bodies were thrown into a pit and then set on fire.
Police found a mass grave believed to contain the missing students
In October 2014, a mass grave was found in Iguala with 28 bodies. The number ended up climbing to several more. They believed it contained bodies from the missing 43 students. Police issued a statement that they had tested the remains and none of them belong to the 43 missing students.
On the same day an additional four mass graves were found in the same area
containing an unknown amount of bodies but none of these contained the bodies of the 43 missing students either. There are also reports that point to the federal forces having something to do with the mass kidnapping. They have said that based on unpublished testimony and reports videos and judicial statements that the Federal Police actively contributed to the disappearance some also accused the Mexican army of direct involvement in the kidnapping and murder of the students.
In 2014, 22 officers were arrested in connection with the Madison shootouts and also for their connection in the disappearance they actually brought in and questioned 280 police officers in their investigation all of whom were let go except for the 22 that were arrested the investigations concluded that 16 of these 22 offices hadn’t used firearms against the students these officers
within the prison at the State Penitentiary.
Of course there is so much information that I couldn’t include in this article because it would just go for so long. I tried to include the main findings of the investigation but not the actual investigation itself because there was a lot of information in the investigations. I also just tried to include the main theories and all of the information about what actually happened. So if there is anything that you find important that I’ve missed out then please comment down below I would love to see it. Please let me know your thoughts on what you think happened, any theories you have, maybe some theories that I missed out or didn’t have enough information on.
If you enjoy what you are reading, please consider financially supporting True Crime Never Sleeps, by making a small donation. You can support us through Ko-Fi and Paypal.
 |  |
