A Forensic Nightmare
Shepherd Leach
CRJ311
Dawn George
March 25, 2013

The Enrique Camarena case was one of many mistakes on the part of the corrupt Mexican government. Evidence was improperly collected, scenes were contaminated and much evidence was lost or destroyed. The United States did what they could do and collected what they were able to collect to try and solve his murder and the murder of another agent. This paper will discuss the evidence that was collected, the steps that the investigators followed the many mistakes that were made and what was done well and what could have been done better. In the end the case was tried and the right people were convicted and the mystery solved. The case begins in February of 1985 with a man being shoved into the backseat of a small car from in front of a restaurant where Mr. Camarena was to meet his wife for lunch. This is also when the first of the mistakes in this case were made. A couple of well known drug traffickers were detained as suspects and then allowed to go, only to have it come out later that the Primer Comandante of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police was paid a six figure bribe for allowing the drug traffickers to go. The forensic evidence found in the case of Enrique Camarena was that of a small piece of burial sheet, a piece of rope, a portion of a pillowcase, lab reports, hair, fingerprint and soil samples and some fibers from a nylon rug or carpet. Most if not all the evidence was collected by the MFJP and small samples were given to the DEA upon request. This was another mistake in a series of mistakes committed on the part of the MFJP. Had the DEA been allowed to handle the case from the start things would have been much different. But one must respect the customs of another country when dealing with outside agencies. The steps that were followed by the crime scene investigators begin with the identification at the morgue of the bodies and to collect any evidence. A request for permission to examine evidence was submitted and denied to examine evidence. Small samples were allowed to be cut of “known” samples of clothing, cordage and the burial sheet. The DEA was also allowed to collect small samples of hair and soil from the bodies. The next step was to examine the body where it was found that Camarena had died from blunt-force injuries to the head including a small round hole in his skull. There was a limited crime scene search at the ranch where the bodies were dumped and small samples of soil were collected there for comparison. The next step was locating the black Mercury Grand Marquis and processing it for hair, fiber, blood and fingerprints. Then the DEA was notified that the residence where Camarena was held had been located, but that the house had been painted and cleaned and several members of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police were living there, another one of many mistakes on the part of the Mexican government. The DEA was allowed to conduct a crime scene search of the residence and surrounding grounds. They began with a small outbuilding later called a guest house, where they processed the room and bathroom. Once again hairs, fibers and latent fingerprints were collected as evidence. At the time of this search a locked second floor bedroom in the main house was also searched and bed linens were collected. The next step was the discovery of a beige VW Atlantic which was discovered in the backyard and also matched the witness description of the car that abducted Mr. Camarena from in front of the Camelot restaurant. This car was also processed for fingerprints, hairs and fibers. An extensive ground search was the next step in the crime scene investigation and it was during this search that a folded license plate was found in a drain near the tennis courts. The Mexican police came and collected the license plate and would not allow it to be handled by the DEA any further. All in all 5 bags of evidence were recovered and placed in the DEQA truck and then transported to the DEA vault at the United States Consulate. It was then after much negation between the US and Mexican government that a second search of the house was allowed. In this search the last four bedrooms were processed. It was during this time that two more bodies were found in a park and the DEA collected soil samples for comparison and then returned to take deeper soil samples where it was discovered that this was the original burial site of Enrique Camarena, as the soil samples were nearly identical in every composition. And the last step was processing the evidence that the Mexican police had originally collected except for the evidence that had gone bad and thrown away. Another one of the mistakes made on the part of the Mexican police. The United States collected evidence and followed the rules that they were subjected too it was the Mexican government that made mistake after mistake, several of which have already been discussed. One of the biggest mistakes was the fabricated plan of the drug traffickers and Mexican law enforcement officials. According to the write up in the textbook the plan consisted of the MFJP and the drug traffickers receiving an anonymous letter indicating that SA Enrique Camarena and Captain Zavala were being held at the drug trafficker’s ranch. The MFJP would raid the ranch, eliminate the gang and eventually discover the bodies of Camarena and Zavala buried on the ranch. The DEA would then be notified and the case would then be closed, and the drug gang would be scapegoats. This did not work out as planned and the bodies ended up being dumped on the side of the road near the ranch where some passerby saw them. “It was later learned that that certain Mexican law enforcement officials were paid a large sum of money to formulate and carry out this plan in order to obstruct and prematurely conclude the investigation” (Saferstein, 51). Other mistakes that were made were the tampering of evidence, the lack of chain of command, the refusal to turn over evidence and the destroying of evidence before it could be processed. In my opinion the United States did an excellent job in doing what they were allowed to do. They were pretty much stonewalled from the beginning with one lie after another, at least some of the parties involved were arrested and tried. The whole case could have gone much smoother if there had been complete cooperation from the Mexican government from the beginning. Had the crime scene not been tampered with at all evidence could have been properly conducted and a chain of command could have been used. The Mexican government did everything in their power to not cooperate and destroy as much evidence as possible so that the drug traffickers could stay free. In conclusion the United States government had to follow the laws even though they were corrupt of a foreign country. Much of the case was lies and fabrications and destroyed evidence from the beginning. Had there been mutual respect between the nations maybe the outcome could have be better. Evidence was found, suspects were proven guilty and tried in a court of law, steps were followed to collect the evidence the best way they could and mistakes were uncovered and brought to light.

References
Saferstein, Richard M.. Criminalistics: An Introduction to Forensic Science for Ashford University, 10th Edition. Pearson Learning Solutions.