Ana María Serrano in an image of her wake that was shared on social networks.
The police investigation into the femicide of Ana María Serrano Céspedes, the 18-year-old Mexican woman who was murdered on September 12 in her home in the state of Mexico, allegedly at the hands of her ex-partner of the same age, Alán Gil Romero, begins by solving the first Ambiguities in the case. The young woman’s autopsy showed that she had suffocated, which confirmed that it was a homicide, according to a statement from the public prosecutor’s office published on Monday afternoon. At first, agents considered the case a suicide, but all evidence refuted that hypothesis.
Gil Romero, who is already in preventive detention at the Tlalnepantla Correctional and Social Reintegration Center, visited the victim’s house in Atizapán de Zaragoza at least three times on the day of her murder, according to the Ministry of Public Security. An analysis of security footage surrounding the residence in an affluent area of the community, as well as interviews, revealed that the first incident occurred at 3:55 a.m. The suspected murderer arrived at the house in a gray Kia Forte without a license plate. He was covered with “a black mask and a dark blue cap to conceal his identity,” the statement said.
There is no further information about the first raid, but Gil Romero returned hours later, at 1:00 p.m. He drove the same car, this time with a license plate. She called Serrano Céspedes’ apartment and spoke to the maid, who told her that the young woman was not at home. “The man arrested today stated that he would return later to leave a gift,” prosecutors said. The last visit took place at 6:00 p.m., the time experts estimate the teenager was murdered.
This time Serrano Céspedes was home alone. Gil Romero “allegedly entered the property where he suffocated her to death,” the statement continued. He fled the scene in the Kia, his face covered by a mask. According to prosecutors and the victim’s family, the teenager then tried to cover up the femicide and pass it off as a suicide. He wrote a farewell message to Serrano Céspedes’ mother, Ximena Céspedes, from the young woman’s cell phone.
Both the content of the message and the way it was written aroused her mother’s suspicions. She said she was very alone and didn’t want to live like this anymore, saying goodbye to her father. “It wasn’t a long message and Ana María wasn’t like that, everything was going great for her. All her teachers and classmates adored her, not only did she have her life ahead of her, but she was also passionate about what she was doing,” Céspedes told EL PAÍS by phone this Monday.
The young woman’s parents notified a neighbor who went to the family home and found the body of Serrano Céspedes. He alerted the police, who arrived at the scene. After analyzing the crime scene and the victim’s phone, they ruled out the suicide hypothesis. They found fingerprints, the black mask and the blue cap that Gil Romero had used to hide in the house during his first visit.
In addition to this evidence, a friend of the teenager provided screenshots of a conversation in which Gil Romero displayed “intimidating and aggressive behavior” toward Serrano Céspedes. Police also noted “a history of gender-based violence” and the protocol was applied in the case of femicide. The young man was arrested on Saturday.
International response
The case has attracted international attention because Serrano Céspedes is the niece of Colombia’s former finance and trade minister during the presidency of Iván Duque (2018-2022). Jose Manuel Restrepo. The young woman, the daughter of a Mexican father and a Colombian mother, began studying medicine in July. the Pan American University of Mexico City. “I wanted to be a cardiologist and told my grandfather that she would take care of his heart. We have the photo from the day she came in, she loved what she did, she came every day to tell us what she had learned,” her mother said in an interview with this newspaper.
She and the alleged woman murderer had known each other for years because they studied together at the German Alexander von Humboldt School in Mexico City, an exclusive center for children of wealthy families in the capital. They had a relationship for a year and a half, which the young woman wanted to end in June. Since then, Gil Romero has been harassing her, explains Serrano Céspedes’ mother: “He put a lot of pressure on her, it had become very intense.” He sent gifts every week, begged her to come back, occasionally came by the house, but about it Beyond that we saw no special sign. Last week it seemed to be more severe, it started to bother them a little, the messages were more precise.”
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