A happily married lesbian couple from El Paso, Texas, visited Mexico on a family vacation, unaware it would be where their lives would be cut short.
Yulizsa Ramírez and Nohemí Medina Martínez were two of four women whose remains were found in trash bags scattered along the Juárez-El Porvenir highway on January 16, KVIA reports. The couple was visiting their hometown of Juarez at the time they were tortured and murdered, according to Mexican officials.
Authorities are investigating whether these four deaths are related to those of seven other women killed in the area since the year began.
Yulizsa Ramírez and Nohemí Medina Martínez were visiting family in the city in Juarez, Mexico. The couple was last seen on Saturday, January 15.
On the morning of January 16, the remains of the two women were found in garbage bags dumped on a highway outside of Juarez, which is just over the border from their El Paso home. Their bodies had been dismembered.
On January 17, another pair of women were found similarly tortured, shot, and discarded. One of those victims was still alive at the time they were discovered, but she later died at an area hospital.
Femicide is common in this area of Mexico, where 11 women have already been murdered since the beginning of 2022, as well as over 50 men. Last year, over 1,000 women were killed because of their gender in Mexico, according to the El Paso Times.
The deaths of Yulisza and Nohemi have also caused organizations to urge the government to speak out against violence against the LGBTQ community. The Chihuahua Committee for Sexual Diversity hopes if the Mexican government thoroughly investigates these murders, it will speak to the government's stance against hate crimes in the country, which often go unsolved.
