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Juana BarrazaMexican professional wrestler and serial killer
Country:
 Mexico |
Content:
- Juana Barraza - a Mexican Professional Wrestler and Serial Killer
- Early Life and Background
- Professional Wrestling Career
- Crimes and Modus Operandi
- The Investigation and Arrest
- Conviction and Media Coverage
Juana Barraza - a Mexican Professional Wrestler and Serial Killer
Juana Barraza, also known as "The Old Lady Killer" (in Spanish, "La Mataviejitas"), is a Mexican professional wrestler and serial killer. She was sentenced to 759 years of imprisonment for the murder of eleven elderly women. The authorities and the media have varying estimates, ranging from 24 to 49, regarding the number of victims attributed to Juana.
Early Life and Background
Juana Barraza was born in 1956 in Hidalgo, Mexico City, a rural area located north of Mexico City. Her mother was an alcoholic who reportedly traded her own daughter for three bottles of beer. Juana was given to a man who repeatedly raped her, resulting in her pregnancy with a boy. She gave birth to four children in total, but her eldest son died from injuries sustained in a group attack.
Professional Wrestling Career
Before her arrest, Barraza was a professional wrestler, performing under the ring name "La Dama del Silencio" (The Silent Lady) or "The Silent Lady." She was passionate about the "lucha libre" style, a form of Mexican professional wrestling where participants conceal their faces with masks.
Crimes and Modus Operandi
All of Juana's victims were women aged 60 and older, most of whom lived alone. She would bludgeon or strangle them before robbing them. According to unconfirmed reports, Barraza also engaged in acts of violence. Bernardo Bátiz, the lead prosecutor in Mexico City, initially described the killer as a person with a "brilliant mind, highly intelligent, and cautious," who gained the victims' trust before striking.
The Investigation and Arrest
The search for Barraza was complicated by conflicting information. At one point, the police suspected that two people were responsible for the murders. A peculiar coincidence led the investigation astray; at least three victims owned works by French artist Jean-Baptiste Greuze from his series of portraits titled "Boy in Red Waistcoat." The authorities faced public criticism in the summer of 2005 for not acknowledging the existence of a serial killer in Mexico City. By November 2005, Mexican authorities, citing witness statements, reported that the killer disguised themselves as a woman to gain access to the victims' apartments. In one instance, a large woman in a red sweater was observed leaving the apartment of a murdered elderly woman.
Two months later, the police began fingerprinting bodies in city morgues, believing that the "Old Lady Killer" might have taken their own life. However, a breakthrough occurred on January 25, 2006, when the suspect was apprehended while attempting to escape from the home of Ana María de los Reyes Alfaro, the last victim. Alfaro, an 82-year-old, had been strangled with a stethoscope. To the surprise of many Mexicans who had assumed the killer was a man, the suspect turned out to be 48-year-old Juana Barraza, known in the wrestling world as "The Silent Lady." Witnesses from previous crime scenes had described the killer as a muscular man resembling a woman, leading the police to search for a transvestite. However, Barraza, with her short white hair and mole on her face, more closely matched the description of a social worker carrying a stethoscope and pension cards.
Conviction and Media Coverage
In the spring of 2008, Barraza was convicted on 16 charges of murder with aggravating circumstances and theft, including 11 separate murders. She received a prison sentence of 759 years, with the possibility of parole after 50 years served. The "Old Lady Killer" became the main subject of one of the six episodes of the documentary series "Instinto Asesino" (Killer Instinct), which aired on Discovery en Español in 2010. This episode was titled "La Mataviejitas" (The Old Lady Killer). Barraza also featured prominently in the show "La Historia Detras Del Mito" (The Story Behind the Myth), in an episode with the same title, "La Mataviejitas."
