Teuchitlán discovery reignites calls for justice in Jalisco’s botched missing film students case

by Madeleine Wattenbarger.

The discovery of an alleged extermination camp at the Izaguirre Ranch in Teuchitlán, Jalisco, brought national attention to the crisis of disappearance in the state. Amidst the media storm, families have come forward to denounce the mismanagement of one of the most memorable recent disappearance cases in Jalisco: the three film students who went missing in March 2018.

Salomón Aceves Gastélum, Marco García Avalos and Daniel Díaz García disappeared after filming a school project in Tonalá, part of the Guadalajara metropolitan area. A month later, the Jalisco prosecutor’s office told the media that the young men were kidnapped by a cartel, tortured and their bodies dissolved in acid. The terrifying account sent a shock through Mexico, but seven years later, there is no evidence to support it. Seven years after the boys’ disappearance, the families are demanding that the authorities continue the investigation and look for their sons alive.

“There is no scientific data that indicates that our sons have died,” said Vicky García, Daniel’s mother. Rather, the official narrative - the “historic truth” - justified the authorities’ unwillingness to look for the boys alive.