Reasonable Doubt: A Tale of Two Kidnappings (2021) s01e01 Episode Script
The Accident
1
[melancholic guitar playing]
STATE PENITENTIARY SYSTEM
PRISON WARD
[guard] Gym time.
Say "Present" on your way out.
Put on your shirts, please.
Juan Luis López García.
Darwin Morales Ortiz.
- [guard] Gonzalo García Hernández.
- [Gonzalo] Present, chief.
- [guard] Héctor Muñoz Muñoz.
- Present.
[guard inaudible]
[Héctor] I started getting scared
because they said it was kidnapping.
It was just a fender bender,
and now I was getting framed.
They were roping in other guys
I didn't even know.
Who would want to go out
when it's like that?
When you go to the store,
they grab you and say,
"You're a kidnapper."
If they find you guilty,
you can get 90 to 120 years.
What am I supposed to do here
for so many years?
I was with my uncle when Héctor showed up.
Now they have three of us.
And then they added another guy.
They said, "That's the guy
who's accusing you."
I didn't even know Juan Luis.
How could he accuse me?
[Juan Luis]
You can't sell two people as kidnappers
but if you have four people,
that's a gang.
[man] You have a common fate
and it's a complex story.
It's been hard for me
to fully understand it.
We have to find the puzzle pieces
and explain everything clearly.
In a matter of seconds,
we were in a police car.
Accused of kidnapping.
A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY SERIES
[theme music playing]
MACUSPANA PRISON, TABASCO
FEBRUARY 5TH, 2016
[metal clanging]
[indistinct chatter]
Who here had an public trial,
according to the new system?
Who was processed under the old system?
[indistinct chattering]
Who here has been sentenced?
We've been sentenced.
Who here has been charged with kidnapping?
- [indistinct male voices]
- [whistles]
Now let me ask you this.
Who among you are innocent?
Quite a few. Was anyone here tortured?
[clapping]
They pulled out your tooth? You?
[indistinct male voices]
How about electric shocks?
Plastic bag over your head?
- [indistinct male voices]
- [laughter]
Water boarding?
[man] The big one. Water boarding.
Mexico had a trial system
that was carried out in writing
RESEARCHER AND DOCUMENTARY MAKER
and out of public view. Almost in secret.
Judges were expected to issue rulings
based on the context of these files.
So, there was great uncertainty
regarding the evidence presented,
as well as the accuracy of the statements.
Testimonies were dictated.
There wasn't a full court transcript.
That's when we released the documentary
Presumed Guilty.
[judge] Who participated in the arrest?
[witness] I don't remember.
- Now
- [judge] Okay, tell me then.
[defendant] He is lying.
When I was arrested,
there were three people.
One of them kept telling me
he was going to beat me up.
I was hit in the chest.
He had me standing there for hours.
[woman dictates] "He had me standing"
- [defendant] For hours.
- [woman] "For hours."
When it seems judges
wouldn't even attend trials,
they just read depositions
and made rulings based on them,
sometimes months or years
after the accused was detained.
LAWYER AND RESEARCHER
The most important evidence
in those files was a confession.
Even if that confession made no sense,
it was considered
the main evidence in the file
and everything else was derived from that.
The main drive behind Presumed Guilty
was the idea that we could
no longer postpone reform,
or keep it on the back burner
like Felipe Calderón did for many years.
[clerk] Five, four
MEXICO CITY
JUNE 18TH, 2016
three, two, one.
[reporter]
A milestone in the national legal history.
Thus, it became effective
for the whole country,
after eight years,
the new criminal justice system.
President Enrique Peña Nieto
stated that this is a historic time,
because it is the biggest change
The new system was meant to prevent
coerced confessions through torture
and holding those coerced confessions
as the main evidence during trial.
So, no statements made to
Prosecutor's Office during interrogation
have any legal evidentiary value
during trial.
[Roberto]
Still, I couldn't help but wonder
whether this new system
was in fact better.
We decided to ask convicts
about their experiences.
About how they were treated
by judges, prosecutors, cops.
As it happens,
one of the first municipalities
to implement this new system
was Macuspana.
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY
STATE OF TABASCO
[Roberto] I was allowed inside
the Macuspana prison,
and we interviewed 450 inmates there
and in Villahermosa.
[indistinct questioning]
[inaudible]
[muffled conversations]
[Roberto] Gonzalo was one of them.
ACCUSED INMATE
He asked me questions about my arrest
and that's when
I started telling him everything.
I recounted my arrest
and how they brought me in
for attempted kidnapping,
how they supposedly let me go free,
only to arrest me again for kidnapping
outside the State General Attorney's.
"This guy stands accused
of attempted kidnapping,
and he has a separate charge
for kidnapping a woman."
"Am I really talking to a kidnapper
who's lying to me or is he innocent?"
It didn't make sense.
Despite the bad feeling I had,
I tore off the last page
of the survey I was filling out,
I wrote down my number,
and told him to call me.
And he did. So did his family.
Around 100 times.
Eventually, after many nights,
he finally answered.
I told him I was the sister
of one of the guys he interviewed.
I let Mr. Roberto know
as soon as I was in Mexico City.
I brought him all the files we had
since Gonzalo's arrest.
I brought pictures.
I knew I had to look into
what was going on there.
[thunder rumbling]
[ominous music playing]
16 HOURS BEFORE HIS ARRES
FRIDAY, JUNE 19TH, 2015
[Héctor] June 19th was a weekday.
It was a Friday.
ACCUSED INMATE
I had just been paid
so I met up with a friend,
and the two of us went to get some beer.
I told him I'd buy a case of beer
if he got a gram of coke for us,
to sober up a little.
We started driving around Ciudad Pemex.
It was 8:00 or 9:00 p.m.
and we were still drinking.
That's when I suggested we pick up my son.
If we were going on a bender,
we might as well have a driver.
So we picked up my son
who was all excited.
I told him to drive slow,
as he was just learning to drive.
A few hours later, in the early morning,
we dropped off my son.
My son handed me the keys
and I told him I was going to work.
He told me not to go.
He said, "You're drunk. Just go to sleep."
I told him I had to go
and that it was close by.
MOMENTS BEFORE HIS ARRES
SATURDAY, JUNE 20TH, 2015
Driving past the gas station,
I felt someone bump my car
on the driver's side, on the back door.
- [car accelerates]
- [crash]
I looked around and saw a truck,
pulling over in front of me.
I pulled over to take a look
at the scrape on my car.
I left the car door open
where I keep some pliers.
So I grab the black pliers
and went to confront the guy.
I walked over to the passenger's side,
and told him, "Hey, asshole!"
"Look what you did to my car."
That's when I saw the driver lean forward
holding a gun.
- [gunshot]
- [glass shatters]
[Héctor] He fired a shot, hitting my hand.
I ran back to my car.
I couldn't turn the ignition all the way
because of my hand, just the switch.
My arm got caught in the seat belt
so I only managed to activate the wipers.
I was staring at the truck
that bumped into me,
when I saw the passenger
getting out of the truck
as the driver yelled, "Finish him off!"
So I ran to the gas station,
looking for help.
No one was coming to help.
And then I saw the truck
turning into the gas station.
I found a path behind the wall,
and took off running.
I lost my shoe in a ditch,
but I kept running.
I got all tangled up in some vines.
I found some tall grass and sat down,
thinking, "God, what's going on?"
Maybe ten, fifteen minutes later,
I saw a police car
and started waving my arms,
trying to flag it down.
[sirens wailing]
But the cops handcuffed me,
and put me in the police car.
I told them I was in an accident,
and that I'd just been shot.
But he said
I'd been accused of kidnapping.
I mean, "Really?!"
[intriguing music playing]
JUAN LUIS AND GONZALO
9 HOURS BEFORE THEIR ARRES
FRIDAY, JUNE 19TH, 2015
We left a town called Apatzingan.
It's a border town,
right next to Guatemala.
We were transporting people.
Transporting immigrants.
There are a lot of checkpoints
along the Apatzingan-Jonuta route.
CHECKPOIN
[Juan Luis] We headed
to the drop-off point.
Right next to the river,
where a boat would take them across.
We were supposed to meet the boat
at a certain point.
We arrived at the spot
but there was no boat.
ACCUSED INMATE
Juan Luis wanted to keep looking upriver.
I wanted to go back
since they weren't there,
and I told him, "The truck's overheating."
I kept driving and I said,
"We can't go back,"
because we'd run out of gas.
We kept going until we reached a place
called Ciudad Pemex.
[Juan Luis]
The truck couldn't go any further
without damaging the engine.
Since we were both tired,
we just fell asleep.
ONE HOUR BEFORE THEIR ARRES
SATURDAY, JUNE 20TH, 2015
I woke up to someone tapping on the door.
I looked around, and next to the window,
there was a cop standing right outside.
He asked what we were doing there.
I told him the truck was overheating,
so I was waiting for it to cool off.
He told us to get out
so they could search the truck.
They searched the truck
and didn't find anything.
So the cop told us to move the truck
since it was obstructing traffic.
I started the engine
and it actually worked.
It's not that it wouldn't start before,
but the truck was overheating.
[ominous music playing]
[Gonzalo] We got to the gas station
and waited our turn.
That's when I saw a truck pull over
in front of a little green car.
The guy in the green car got out
and approached the gray truck.
Then I heard a gunshot. Boom!
He said,
"Hey, did you hear that? A gunshot."
I didn't believe him.
But he was sure.
The guy who was shot ran away,
straight through the gas station.
I think he tried to go
into the convenience store.
The man who shot him was chasing him.
You could see the gun at his waist.
I asked the attendant, "What's going on?"
The attendant didn't know.
He figured it was a botched mugging.
I didn't know what was going on so I said,
"He should have shot him twice."
I asked if he had any hydraulic oil.
But Juan told me to park outside the store
since he had found some extra oil
in the back of the truck.
[Juan Luis] But as we pulled up,
the gray truck
was looking around for the guy.
SHOOTER - COPILO
The guys in the gray truck
were looking for the guy who ran away.
But we weren't paying attention.
It wasn't any of our business.
[police siren wailing]
Police cars started pulling up.
The same police car from before.
Number 027.
They searched us again
and didn't find anything.
The same cops from before were back again,
so I said to Juan
that we should leave to avoid trouble.
He told me to relax
because we hadn't done anything wrong.
The police car drove off,
following the guy
who was shot and ran away.
We kept pouring oil into the truck.
The police car was coming back.
They had caught the guy who was shot.
Up to that point, everything was normal.
They come back again,
but they were angrier this time.
They pulled their guns on us and said,
"Get in! You're done, fuckers."
They wouldn't tell us why.
They said we'd find out soon enough.
They wouldn't tell us anything.
They said we'd find out later.
"They'll deal with you," they said.
And we said, "Who?"
[woman] The guys they're taking
aren't kidnappers, they're customers.
Those men always come here to get gas.
They are taking them.
[police sirens wailing]
The cops told these guys
that I said we were in on it together.
I didn't understand.
We didn't know this guy.
Juan Luis asked him why he lied
but he claimed he didn't say anything.
I explained the fender bender
but they said
the other guys were implicating me.
The cops told us
that Héctor said we were together,
and that we tried to kidnap Mr. ACP.
But they told Héctor the same thing,
that we had implicated him.
JUAN LUIS, GONZALO AND HÉCTOR
ON PATROL CAR 027
[Héctor] I wanted to know who they were,
and they wanted to know who I was,
because it all happened so fast.
In a matter of seconds.
JUAN LUIS AND GONZALO'S VEHICLE
[ominous music continues]
From what I understand,
it was merely a car accident.
Héctor had the misfortune
of bumping into a man
whose sister had been kidnapped
a few days earlier.
Also, by chance, Juan Luis and Gonzalo
fell asleep in their truck,
roughly 250 feet from ACP's business.
ACP was deemed
a confidential victim in a court ruling,
which is a protective, optional measure
granted to kidnapping victims.
We live in a country where people
take justice into their own hands.
Still, ACP had a weapon
on the day in question,
and he fired a gunshot
that pierced Héctor's hand.
- [gunshot]
- [glass shatters]
[pulsing music playing]
STATE OF TABASCO, MACUSPANA
I was extremely thirsty.
I was begging them for water.
There was a bucket of dirty water.
I begged them to let me drink it.
One guy said it was too dirty.
But I was too thirsty to care.
He started drinking. He seemed desperate.
Juan Luis kept yelling at him
for implicating us.
I didn't know what was going on.
But in my mind,
I was sure they'd let us go eventually.
They took us
to a municipal police precinct.
Right away, the beating started.
They were beating me up.
They hit me in the head,
in the pit of my stomach.
They asked why I tried to kidnap that guy.
I explained I only got out
to complain about the car accident.
They said we tried to kidnap ACP,
but I didn't even know the guy.
They kept beating us,
insisting we were kidnappers.
MUNICIPAL POLICE, MACUSPANA
The cops kept telling us
they'd release us soon. [scoffs]
We had no idea what was coming.
[melancholic music playing]
[Roberto] At the same time,
five miles from Ciudad Pemex,
in a village called San Carlos,
they arrested Darwin and Guillermo,
who sell pork in the local market.
10 HOURS BEFORE HIS ARRES
SATURDAY, JUNE 20TH, 2015
[Darwin] That morning,
I slaughtered two or three pigs,
I loaded the pigs into the truck
and went to the butcher shop.
I was running the stall
ACCUSED INMATE
I was busy frying pork rinds
until about 1:00 p.m.
Ms. Yazmín asked me to get her a gas tank,
so I went with her husband, Guillermo.
We were driving along the highway
when I saw police cars behind us.
As a joke, I told Guillermo,
"They're coming for us."
[sirens wailing]
Then, six or seven police cars
surrounded us.
They dragged me out
and made me stand there.
Later, they told us our car
was supposedly stolen.
They said they got a call
reporting the car as stolen.
DARWIN'S BOSS
"His car was stolen?"
"Yes, we had to check it out."
I told them to check away.
The car was mine.
SOCIAL PROXIMITY
[Darwin] They sat Guillermo
in a police car
and forced me into the same car.
They took us to the 2-20.
[horns honking]
[Héctor] They took us to a warehouse
in Villahermosa.
It was supposedly a prosecutor's office.
MAJOR CRIMES - SECRET OFFICES
[tense music playing]
[lights clicking]
They dragged us out by our hair
and took me away.
They cuffed me to a motorcycle,
my wounded hand on the floor.
I was sure I was going to die.
I thought they were going to kill us.
One of the cops told me
they'd take us away soon.
Said the State General Attorney's office
would send someone in.
The cops handed us over.
Men in plain clothes,
we didn't know who they were.
I told them about the fender bender.
I said, "I tried to talk to the driver
but he shot me."
The prosecutor replied,
"We'll get you to talk, motherfucker."
They came back with a bucket
and started dunking plastic bags.
They put one over my head,
and I tried to take it off.
There were two cops,
one sitting and one standing.
The one who was standing
started punching me in the head.
They were squeezing the bag,
no oxygen was coming in.
I couldn't breathe.
There was nothing I could do.
When I tried to inhale, they punched me,
knocking the wind out of me again.
This beating went on for some time.
[dripping]
They took me in and started beating me.
"Tell me what happened
at the gas station and don't lie to me!"
"If you lie to me,
I'll beat the shit out of you."
"I watched the security footage
so if you lie, you're screwed."
I told him the security footage
would prove I was innocent.
"I had no contact with the guy
so why am I being held?"
[suspenseful music playing]
That night, they drove us away.
I wanted to jump out of the police car
because I didn't know
where they were taking us.
The cops were wearing hoods.
They said they'd kill us.
They led us to a three-story building.
They made us keep our heads down,
and there were a bunch of motorcycles.
When they handcuffed me,
they hit me with a gun. Here.
It still hurts to this day.
They wanted us to confess,
but the car was Guillermo's.
They asked to see the registration
which we showed them.
Then they dropped the car theft story
and made one about some gun casings.
They said it was about
some .45 caliber casings.
"What casings?"
They wanted to take our prints
to see if there was a match.
"Okay."
They took our fingerprints
and they didn't match.
They tried to beat me into confessing
but I didn't know anything about that.
My torso was all bruised up
after one of the cops kneed me.
[dramatic sting]
[indistinct raised voices]
- [slap]
- [man cries out]
- [officer 1] You don't know?
- [detainee] No!
[officer 1] How many were there?
- [muffled] We wer [thuds]
- [officer 2] Easy now.
[detainee] They met us there.
[officer 2] How many of you?
[detainee] No, we weren't
[anguished cries]
[shouting fades]
We've demonized the police as abusive,
authoritarian, repressive, arbitrary.
But put yourself in the cop's shoes.
What can you work with?
What are your technical tools
in order to intervene, respond,
set up surveillance and transport.
Well, you don't have any.
Cops are therefore forced to use
certain techniques and crutches
that may, at times, border on illegality.
Still, you can't make an omelet
without breaking some eggs.
[suspenseful music playing]
[guard] Attention!
[Roberto] I'd like to talk about torture.
Raise your hand if you think
there's no torture in Tabasco.
[audience mumbling]
Not a single person
in this room raised their hand.
We all know that torture
is prevalent in this state.
The higher-ups can threaten to fire you
unless you beat up a suspect.
And you can't say, "No, this is illegal."
"Torture is illegal in Mexico,
so I'm not doing it."
When you are an authority
at the highest or mid-levels,
you need your staff to trust you.
To do that, you can't wash your hands
or cross yourself.
You need to adopt the measures
that they're accustomed to.
You need to get results,
even if your methods aren't lawful,
strictly speaking.
Watching from the sidelines
and denying responsibility
prevents you from gaining their trust.
If you don't know the beast,
the beast will eat you alive.
We surveyed 450 random prisoners
in CRESET and Macuspana.
And slapped on the chest, 71%.
Kicked, blindfolded,
punched,
cigarette burns, 10%.
Face covered with a plastic bag? 58%.
[Roberto] As a result
of our project in Macuspana,
INEGI, the government agency
in charge of surveys and statistics,
decided to conduct
the first national prison survey.
PEOPLE INTERVIEWED
[Roberto] Based on this survey,
we estimate that 79% of the inmates
currently in Mexican prisons,
were tortured or abused.
Also, kidnapping suspects
are tortured even more.
So if you stand accused of kidnapping,
the reported frequency of torture
was around 97.5%.
Statistically, in Tabasco,
kidnapping suspects
are guaranteed to be tortured.
This is only a partial list.
There are other forms of abuse.
Those of you about
to start a career in the force,
are you willing to let them force you
to do this to another person?
[scattered voices] No!
How will you prevent it?
How can we prevent them
from forcing you to do this?
Unfortunately, some innocent people
get swept up with the guilty.
But without first world strategies
for police investigation
and without the technology
to conduct proper investigations,
we'll have to resort
to these old crutches.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Héctor] When they moved me,
I asked where they were taking me.
STATE GENERAL ATTORNEY
[Gonzalo] At some point,
they took us to a Gesell chamber,
for a police lineup.
[Héctor] They made me wear a blue gown,
and I could see a large mirror.
They made some cops wear the same gowns
but they had combat boots on
and military haircuts.
The cops stood out,
so the guy without a uniform
was easy to identify as the criminal.
[suspenseful music builds]
[music fades]
[Héctor] That's when they took me
to the Rovirosa hospital.
I woke up surrounded by patients.
My feet were in restraints.
I asked a kid to call my family
and tell them where I was.
I finally got word to my family
who didn't know where I was.
Fortunately, I had my phone hidden,
and I was able to call Eva.
I told Gonzalo that neither my brother
nor my father were picking up.
Nobody was picking up.
So he told me to call his sister.
I told him not to mess around.
My sister was in the hospital.
He swore it was true
and said they feared for their lives.
I asked who was with him
and he said he was with Gonzalo.
I started asking around,
trying to find my brother.
First, I went to the Prosecutor's office.
I asked and they said they didn't have
anyone there by that name.
I didn't know what to do,
so I went back in.
One of the security guards there
told me to go somewhere else.
I think it was a Prosecutor's office.
[recorded message] Hello.
You have reached
the State General Attorney's office.
To arrange release and transport
of the deceased, press one.
For the status
of suspects being held, press two.
STATE GENERAL ATTORNEY
To report official misconduct
by a civil servant, press three.
I told the officer
he wasn't being held where he said.
He said that if I didn't know the charges,
I should ask.
He said it was called
the Major Crimes division.
I asked them and they described someone
like my brother.
I wanted to see him
but they wouldn't let me.
The attorney came and introduced himself.
He said he was there to represent Gonzalo.
They told him that Gonzalo already
had a lawyer, that he didn't need another.
So they closed the door on him.
They told me that they found Héctor's car
but there was no sign of him.
ACP'S VEHICLE - HÉCTOR'S VEHICLE
I thought he might have left
in a friend's car.
I thought he was drunk
and left his car somewhere.
That he didn't care.
Later on Monday,
my sister-in-law called me.
She said Héctor was accused
of attempted kidnapping.
The thought of him
kidnapping someone was absurd.
I thought something was going on.
Later, his brother called me
and told me he'd been arrested.
[Marina] The first thing I thought was
that he was caught
with the people he transported.
They transported illegal immigrants,
or "Pollos," as they call them.
But then his brother told me
it was much more serious.
"Attempted kidnapping," he said.
I was like, "Kidnapping who?"
48 HOURS AFTER THEIR ARRES
MONDAY, JUNE 22ND, 2015
[Gonzalo] Someone
in the State General Attorney's office
told us to get ready to leave.
We were like, "What?"
He said, "Yeah, you're leaving."
DISTRICT ATTORNEY
Prosecutor Delfín came in with a document.
She said we were leaving because
there was no evidence implicating us.
AGREEMENT OF FREEDOM
We were so happy to hear we were leaving.
I felt such peace. I thanked God
they had realized their mistake.
I figured the security footage
proved we were innocent.
EVIDENCE IS INSUFFICIEN
TO PROVE INVOLVEMEN
[Gonzalo] We were being released
for lack of sufficient evidence.
We sign the papers.
Guillermo paid bail, 18,000 pesos.
They give me a release to sign.
"This is your release. Sign here,"
and then gave one to Darwin.
Guillermo was released early.
They kept me all afternoon.
Then between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m.,
they said I was free to go.
Our families were so happy.
They were waiting outside.
But then she told the cops
not to remove our handcuffs.
"If they signed the release form,
why are they in handcuffs?"
Mockingly they told us they weren't free.
They said they had another
bigger problem to face.
I walked through a group of men,
and they arrested me again.
They put us in a police truck,
and there was a guy there.
They said we were accomplices,
and that's when I meet
Juan Luis López García
and Gonzalo García Hernández.
Later I understood
they'd set the whole thing up.
They wanted to paint us out
to be a gang to make it more believable.
But none of that was true.
[Héctor] In the same release order,
just a bit further down,
it said they have an active warrant
in Macuspana, Tabasco.
We were being accused by Mrs. GLP.
AGGRAVATED KIDNAPPING
[Héctor] I took a look at the last name
and realized they were related.
She was the sister of the man
from the gas station, Mr. ACP.
I was sure he called his sister
and told her to press charges.
Since he shot me in the hand,
he was trying to clear himself.
[melancholic music playing]
[Darwin] Early in the morning,
they transferred us
to Macuspana penitentiary,
where they put me
in a cell like a dungeon.
Well, I was afraid of going to jail.
I'd never been to prison before.
[Darwin] They said
we had another accomplice.
Héctor Muñoz Muñoz.
I'd never met him before.
I met him in prison.
[Héctor] Now there were four of us.
This was no longer
about the gas station incident
with ACP.
Now we were there because of Mrs. GLP.
[metal clanging]
[woman] Hello, Honorable Court.
Mrs. María del Rosario Delfín Rosales,
district attorney
for the Prosecutor's office
appointed to Major Crimes,
with information
and ways of notification established
in the administration of this court.
The prosecution will prove
beyond a reasonable doubt
that Mrs. GLP,
victim of undisclosed identity,
was deprived of her freedom
on May 26, 2015.
Violently,
the victim was forced
into a green Jetta vehicle,
and was told that her family and herself
would be deprived of life.
For this, all evidence
must be examined closely
to confirm the participation
of the accused:
Juan Luis López García,
Gonzalo García Hernández,
Darwin Morales Ortiz,
and Héctor Muñoz Muñoz.
I request that these subjects
receive the full rigor of the law
and the sentence
that the prosecution suggests.
[melancholic guitar playing]
Subtitle translation by Julieta Gazzaniga
[melancholic guitar playing]
STATE PENITENTIARY SYSTEM
PRISON WARD
[guard] Gym time.
Say "Present" on your way out.
Put on your shirts, please.
Juan Luis López García.
Darwin Morales Ortiz.
- [guard] Gonzalo García Hernández.
- [Gonzalo] Present, chief.
- [guard] Héctor Muñoz Muñoz.
- Present.
[guard inaudible]
[Héctor] I started getting scared
because they said it was kidnapping.
It was just a fender bender,
and now I was getting framed.
They were roping in other guys
I didn't even know.
Who would want to go out
when it's like that?
When you go to the store,
they grab you and say,
"You're a kidnapper."
If they find you guilty,
you can get 90 to 120 years.
What am I supposed to do here
for so many years?
I was with my uncle when Héctor showed up.
Now they have three of us.
And then they added another guy.
They said, "That's the guy
who's accusing you."
I didn't even know Juan Luis.
How could he accuse me?
[Juan Luis]
You can't sell two people as kidnappers
but if you have four people,
that's a gang.
[man] You have a common fate
and it's a complex story.
It's been hard for me
to fully understand it.
We have to find the puzzle pieces
and explain everything clearly.
In a matter of seconds,
we were in a police car.
Accused of kidnapping.
A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY SERIES
[theme music playing]
MACUSPANA PRISON, TABASCO
FEBRUARY 5TH, 2016
[metal clanging]
[indistinct chatter]
Who here had an public trial,
according to the new system?
Who was processed under the old system?
[indistinct chattering]
Who here has been sentenced?
We've been sentenced.
Who here has been charged with kidnapping?
- [indistinct male voices]
- [whistles]
Now let me ask you this.
Who among you are innocent?
Quite a few. Was anyone here tortured?
[clapping]
They pulled out your tooth? You?
[indistinct male voices]
How about electric shocks?
Plastic bag over your head?
- [indistinct male voices]
- [laughter]
Water boarding?
[man] The big one. Water boarding.
Mexico had a trial system
that was carried out in writing
RESEARCHER AND DOCUMENTARY MAKER
and out of public view. Almost in secret.
Judges were expected to issue rulings
based on the context of these files.
So, there was great uncertainty
regarding the evidence presented,
as well as the accuracy of the statements.
Testimonies were dictated.
There wasn't a full court transcript.
That's when we released the documentary
Presumed Guilty.
[judge] Who participated in the arrest?
[witness] I don't remember.
- Now
- [judge] Okay, tell me then.
[defendant] He is lying.
When I was arrested,
there were three people.
One of them kept telling me
he was going to beat me up.
I was hit in the chest.
He had me standing there for hours.
[woman dictates] "He had me standing"
- [defendant] For hours.
- [woman] "For hours."
When it seems judges
wouldn't even attend trials,
they just read depositions
and made rulings based on them,
sometimes months or years
after the accused was detained.
LAWYER AND RESEARCHER
The most important evidence
in those files was a confession.
Even if that confession made no sense,
it was considered
the main evidence in the file
and everything else was derived from that.
The main drive behind Presumed Guilty
was the idea that we could
no longer postpone reform,
or keep it on the back burner
like Felipe Calderón did for many years.
[clerk] Five, four
MEXICO CITY
JUNE 18TH, 2016
three, two, one.
[reporter]
A milestone in the national legal history.
Thus, it became effective
for the whole country,
after eight years,
the new criminal justice system.
President Enrique Peña Nieto
stated that this is a historic time,
because it is the biggest change
The new system was meant to prevent
coerced confessions through torture
and holding those coerced confessions
as the main evidence during trial.
So, no statements made to
Prosecutor's Office during interrogation
have any legal evidentiary value
during trial.
[Roberto]
Still, I couldn't help but wonder
whether this new system
was in fact better.
We decided to ask convicts
about their experiences.
About how they were treated
by judges, prosecutors, cops.
As it happens,
one of the first municipalities
to implement this new system
was Macuspana.
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY
STATE OF TABASCO
[Roberto] I was allowed inside
the Macuspana prison,
and we interviewed 450 inmates there
and in Villahermosa.
[indistinct questioning]
[inaudible]
[muffled conversations]
[Roberto] Gonzalo was one of them.
ACCUSED INMATE
He asked me questions about my arrest
and that's when
I started telling him everything.
I recounted my arrest
and how they brought me in
for attempted kidnapping,
how they supposedly let me go free,
only to arrest me again for kidnapping
outside the State General Attorney's.
"This guy stands accused
of attempted kidnapping,
and he has a separate charge
for kidnapping a woman."
"Am I really talking to a kidnapper
who's lying to me or is he innocent?"
It didn't make sense.
Despite the bad feeling I had,
I tore off the last page
of the survey I was filling out,
I wrote down my number,
and told him to call me.
And he did. So did his family.
Around 100 times.
Eventually, after many nights,
he finally answered.
I told him I was the sister
of one of the guys he interviewed.
I let Mr. Roberto know
as soon as I was in Mexico City.
I brought him all the files we had
since Gonzalo's arrest.
I brought pictures.
I knew I had to look into
what was going on there.
[thunder rumbling]
[ominous music playing]
16 HOURS BEFORE HIS ARRES
FRIDAY, JUNE 19TH, 2015
[Héctor] June 19th was a weekday.
It was a Friday.
ACCUSED INMATE
I had just been paid
so I met up with a friend,
and the two of us went to get some beer.
I told him I'd buy a case of beer
if he got a gram of coke for us,
to sober up a little.
We started driving around Ciudad Pemex.
It was 8:00 or 9:00 p.m.
and we were still drinking.
That's when I suggested we pick up my son.
If we were going on a bender,
we might as well have a driver.
So we picked up my son
who was all excited.
I told him to drive slow,
as he was just learning to drive.
A few hours later, in the early morning,
we dropped off my son.
My son handed me the keys
and I told him I was going to work.
He told me not to go.
He said, "You're drunk. Just go to sleep."
I told him I had to go
and that it was close by.
MOMENTS BEFORE HIS ARRES
SATURDAY, JUNE 20TH, 2015
Driving past the gas station,
I felt someone bump my car
on the driver's side, on the back door.
- [car accelerates]
- [crash]
I looked around and saw a truck,
pulling over in front of me.
I pulled over to take a look
at the scrape on my car.
I left the car door open
where I keep some pliers.
So I grab the black pliers
and went to confront the guy.
I walked over to the passenger's side,
and told him, "Hey, asshole!"
"Look what you did to my car."
That's when I saw the driver lean forward
holding a gun.
- [gunshot]
- [glass shatters]
[Héctor] He fired a shot, hitting my hand.
I ran back to my car.
I couldn't turn the ignition all the way
because of my hand, just the switch.
My arm got caught in the seat belt
so I only managed to activate the wipers.
I was staring at the truck
that bumped into me,
when I saw the passenger
getting out of the truck
as the driver yelled, "Finish him off!"
So I ran to the gas station,
looking for help.
No one was coming to help.
And then I saw the truck
turning into the gas station.
I found a path behind the wall,
and took off running.
I lost my shoe in a ditch,
but I kept running.
I got all tangled up in some vines.
I found some tall grass and sat down,
thinking, "God, what's going on?"
Maybe ten, fifteen minutes later,
I saw a police car
and started waving my arms,
trying to flag it down.
[sirens wailing]
But the cops handcuffed me,
and put me in the police car.
I told them I was in an accident,
and that I'd just been shot.
But he said
I'd been accused of kidnapping.
I mean, "Really?!"
[intriguing music playing]
JUAN LUIS AND GONZALO
9 HOURS BEFORE THEIR ARRES
FRIDAY, JUNE 19TH, 2015
We left a town called Apatzingan.
It's a border town,
right next to Guatemala.
We were transporting people.
Transporting immigrants.
There are a lot of checkpoints
along the Apatzingan-Jonuta route.
CHECKPOIN
[Juan Luis] We headed
to the drop-off point.
Right next to the river,
where a boat would take them across.
We were supposed to meet the boat
at a certain point.
We arrived at the spot
but there was no boat.
ACCUSED INMATE
Juan Luis wanted to keep looking upriver.
I wanted to go back
since they weren't there,
and I told him, "The truck's overheating."
I kept driving and I said,
"We can't go back,"
because we'd run out of gas.
We kept going until we reached a place
called Ciudad Pemex.
[Juan Luis]
The truck couldn't go any further
without damaging the engine.
Since we were both tired,
we just fell asleep.
ONE HOUR BEFORE THEIR ARRES
SATURDAY, JUNE 20TH, 2015
I woke up to someone tapping on the door.
I looked around, and next to the window,
there was a cop standing right outside.
He asked what we were doing there.
I told him the truck was overheating,
so I was waiting for it to cool off.
He told us to get out
so they could search the truck.
They searched the truck
and didn't find anything.
So the cop told us to move the truck
since it was obstructing traffic.
I started the engine
and it actually worked.
It's not that it wouldn't start before,
but the truck was overheating.
[ominous music playing]
[Gonzalo] We got to the gas station
and waited our turn.
That's when I saw a truck pull over
in front of a little green car.
The guy in the green car got out
and approached the gray truck.
Then I heard a gunshot. Boom!
He said,
"Hey, did you hear that? A gunshot."
I didn't believe him.
But he was sure.
The guy who was shot ran away,
straight through the gas station.
I think he tried to go
into the convenience store.
The man who shot him was chasing him.
You could see the gun at his waist.
I asked the attendant, "What's going on?"
The attendant didn't know.
He figured it was a botched mugging.
I didn't know what was going on so I said,
"He should have shot him twice."
I asked if he had any hydraulic oil.
But Juan told me to park outside the store
since he had found some extra oil
in the back of the truck.
[Juan Luis] But as we pulled up,
the gray truck
was looking around for the guy.
SHOOTER - COPILO
The guys in the gray truck
were looking for the guy who ran away.
But we weren't paying attention.
It wasn't any of our business.
[police siren wailing]
Police cars started pulling up.
The same police car from before.
Number 027.
They searched us again
and didn't find anything.
The same cops from before were back again,
so I said to Juan
that we should leave to avoid trouble.
He told me to relax
because we hadn't done anything wrong.
The police car drove off,
following the guy
who was shot and ran away.
We kept pouring oil into the truck.
The police car was coming back.
They had caught the guy who was shot.
Up to that point, everything was normal.
They come back again,
but they were angrier this time.
They pulled their guns on us and said,
"Get in! You're done, fuckers."
They wouldn't tell us why.
They said we'd find out soon enough.
They wouldn't tell us anything.
They said we'd find out later.
"They'll deal with you," they said.
And we said, "Who?"
[woman] The guys they're taking
aren't kidnappers, they're customers.
Those men always come here to get gas.
They are taking them.
[police sirens wailing]
The cops told these guys
that I said we were in on it together.
I didn't understand.
We didn't know this guy.
Juan Luis asked him why he lied
but he claimed he didn't say anything.
I explained the fender bender
but they said
the other guys were implicating me.
The cops told us
that Héctor said we were together,
and that we tried to kidnap Mr. ACP.
But they told Héctor the same thing,
that we had implicated him.
JUAN LUIS, GONZALO AND HÉCTOR
ON PATROL CAR 027
[Héctor] I wanted to know who they were,
and they wanted to know who I was,
because it all happened so fast.
In a matter of seconds.
JUAN LUIS AND GONZALO'S VEHICLE
[ominous music continues]
From what I understand,
it was merely a car accident.
Héctor had the misfortune
of bumping into a man
whose sister had been kidnapped
a few days earlier.
Also, by chance, Juan Luis and Gonzalo
fell asleep in their truck,
roughly 250 feet from ACP's business.
ACP was deemed
a confidential victim in a court ruling,
which is a protective, optional measure
granted to kidnapping victims.
We live in a country where people
take justice into their own hands.
Still, ACP had a weapon
on the day in question,
and he fired a gunshot
that pierced Héctor's hand.
- [gunshot]
- [glass shatters]
[pulsing music playing]
STATE OF TABASCO, MACUSPANA
I was extremely thirsty.
I was begging them for water.
There was a bucket of dirty water.
I begged them to let me drink it.
One guy said it was too dirty.
But I was too thirsty to care.
He started drinking. He seemed desperate.
Juan Luis kept yelling at him
for implicating us.
I didn't know what was going on.
But in my mind,
I was sure they'd let us go eventually.
They took us
to a municipal police precinct.
Right away, the beating started.
They were beating me up.
They hit me in the head,
in the pit of my stomach.
They asked why I tried to kidnap that guy.
I explained I only got out
to complain about the car accident.
They said we tried to kidnap ACP,
but I didn't even know the guy.
They kept beating us,
insisting we were kidnappers.
MUNICIPAL POLICE, MACUSPANA
The cops kept telling us
they'd release us soon. [scoffs]
We had no idea what was coming.
[melancholic music playing]
[Roberto] At the same time,
five miles from Ciudad Pemex,
in a village called San Carlos,
they arrested Darwin and Guillermo,
who sell pork in the local market.
10 HOURS BEFORE HIS ARRES
SATURDAY, JUNE 20TH, 2015
[Darwin] That morning,
I slaughtered two or three pigs,
I loaded the pigs into the truck
and went to the butcher shop.
I was running the stall
ACCUSED INMATE
I was busy frying pork rinds
until about 1:00 p.m.
Ms. Yazmín asked me to get her a gas tank,
so I went with her husband, Guillermo.
We were driving along the highway
when I saw police cars behind us.
As a joke, I told Guillermo,
"They're coming for us."
[sirens wailing]
Then, six or seven police cars
surrounded us.
They dragged me out
and made me stand there.
Later, they told us our car
was supposedly stolen.
They said they got a call
reporting the car as stolen.
DARWIN'S BOSS
"His car was stolen?"
"Yes, we had to check it out."
I told them to check away.
The car was mine.
SOCIAL PROXIMITY
[Darwin] They sat Guillermo
in a police car
and forced me into the same car.
They took us to the 2-20.
[horns honking]
[Héctor] They took us to a warehouse
in Villahermosa.
It was supposedly a prosecutor's office.
MAJOR CRIMES - SECRET OFFICES
[tense music playing]
[lights clicking]
They dragged us out by our hair
and took me away.
They cuffed me to a motorcycle,
my wounded hand on the floor.
I was sure I was going to die.
I thought they were going to kill us.
One of the cops told me
they'd take us away soon.
Said the State General Attorney's office
would send someone in.
The cops handed us over.
Men in plain clothes,
we didn't know who they were.
I told them about the fender bender.
I said, "I tried to talk to the driver
but he shot me."
The prosecutor replied,
"We'll get you to talk, motherfucker."
They came back with a bucket
and started dunking plastic bags.
They put one over my head,
and I tried to take it off.
There were two cops,
one sitting and one standing.
The one who was standing
started punching me in the head.
They were squeezing the bag,
no oxygen was coming in.
I couldn't breathe.
There was nothing I could do.
When I tried to inhale, they punched me,
knocking the wind out of me again.
This beating went on for some time.
[dripping]
They took me in and started beating me.
"Tell me what happened
at the gas station and don't lie to me!"
"If you lie to me,
I'll beat the shit out of you."
"I watched the security footage
so if you lie, you're screwed."
I told him the security footage
would prove I was innocent.
"I had no contact with the guy
so why am I being held?"
[suspenseful music playing]
That night, they drove us away.
I wanted to jump out of the police car
because I didn't know
where they were taking us.
The cops were wearing hoods.
They said they'd kill us.
They led us to a three-story building.
They made us keep our heads down,
and there were a bunch of motorcycles.
When they handcuffed me,
they hit me with a gun. Here.
It still hurts to this day.
They wanted us to confess,
but the car was Guillermo's.
They asked to see the registration
which we showed them.
Then they dropped the car theft story
and made one about some gun casings.
They said it was about
some .45 caliber casings.
"What casings?"
They wanted to take our prints
to see if there was a match.
"Okay."
They took our fingerprints
and they didn't match.
They tried to beat me into confessing
but I didn't know anything about that.
My torso was all bruised up
after one of the cops kneed me.
[dramatic sting]
[indistinct raised voices]
- [slap]
- [man cries out]
- [officer 1] You don't know?
- [detainee] No!
[officer 1] How many were there?
- [muffled] We wer [thuds]
- [officer 2] Easy now.
[detainee] They met us there.
[officer 2] How many of you?
[detainee] No, we weren't
[anguished cries]
[shouting fades]
We've demonized the police as abusive,
authoritarian, repressive, arbitrary.
But put yourself in the cop's shoes.
What can you work with?
What are your technical tools
in order to intervene, respond,
set up surveillance and transport.
Well, you don't have any.
Cops are therefore forced to use
certain techniques and crutches
that may, at times, border on illegality.
Still, you can't make an omelet
without breaking some eggs.
[suspenseful music playing]
[guard] Attention!
[Roberto] I'd like to talk about torture.
Raise your hand if you think
there's no torture in Tabasco.
[audience mumbling]
Not a single person
in this room raised their hand.
We all know that torture
is prevalent in this state.
The higher-ups can threaten to fire you
unless you beat up a suspect.
And you can't say, "No, this is illegal."
"Torture is illegal in Mexico,
so I'm not doing it."
When you are an authority
at the highest or mid-levels,
you need your staff to trust you.
To do that, you can't wash your hands
or cross yourself.
You need to adopt the measures
that they're accustomed to.
You need to get results,
even if your methods aren't lawful,
strictly speaking.
Watching from the sidelines
and denying responsibility
prevents you from gaining their trust.
If you don't know the beast,
the beast will eat you alive.
We surveyed 450 random prisoners
in CRESET and Macuspana.
And slapped on the chest, 71%.
Kicked, blindfolded,
punched,
cigarette burns, 10%.
Face covered with a plastic bag? 58%.
[Roberto] As a result
of our project in Macuspana,
INEGI, the government agency
in charge of surveys and statistics,
decided to conduct
the first national prison survey.
PEOPLE INTERVIEWED
[Roberto] Based on this survey,
we estimate that 79% of the inmates
currently in Mexican prisons,
were tortured or abused.
Also, kidnapping suspects
are tortured even more.
So if you stand accused of kidnapping,
the reported frequency of torture
was around 97.5%.
Statistically, in Tabasco,
kidnapping suspects
are guaranteed to be tortured.
This is only a partial list.
There are other forms of abuse.
Those of you about
to start a career in the force,
are you willing to let them force you
to do this to another person?
[scattered voices] No!
How will you prevent it?
How can we prevent them
from forcing you to do this?
Unfortunately, some innocent people
get swept up with the guilty.
But without first world strategies
for police investigation
and without the technology
to conduct proper investigations,
we'll have to resort
to these old crutches.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Héctor] When they moved me,
I asked where they were taking me.
STATE GENERAL ATTORNEY
[Gonzalo] At some point,
they took us to a Gesell chamber,
for a police lineup.
[Héctor] They made me wear a blue gown,
and I could see a large mirror.
They made some cops wear the same gowns
but they had combat boots on
and military haircuts.
The cops stood out,
so the guy without a uniform
was easy to identify as the criminal.
[suspenseful music builds]
[music fades]
[Héctor] That's when they took me
to the Rovirosa hospital.
I woke up surrounded by patients.
My feet were in restraints.
I asked a kid to call my family
and tell them where I was.
I finally got word to my family
who didn't know where I was.
Fortunately, I had my phone hidden,
and I was able to call Eva.
I told Gonzalo that neither my brother
nor my father were picking up.
Nobody was picking up.
So he told me to call his sister.
I told him not to mess around.
My sister was in the hospital.
He swore it was true
and said they feared for their lives.
I asked who was with him
and he said he was with Gonzalo.
I started asking around,
trying to find my brother.
First, I went to the Prosecutor's office.
I asked and they said they didn't have
anyone there by that name.
I didn't know what to do,
so I went back in.
One of the security guards there
told me to go somewhere else.
I think it was a Prosecutor's office.
[recorded message] Hello.
You have reached
the State General Attorney's office.
To arrange release and transport
of the deceased, press one.
For the status
of suspects being held, press two.
STATE GENERAL ATTORNEY
To report official misconduct
by a civil servant, press three.
I told the officer
he wasn't being held where he said.
He said that if I didn't know the charges,
I should ask.
He said it was called
the Major Crimes division.
I asked them and they described someone
like my brother.
I wanted to see him
but they wouldn't let me.
The attorney came and introduced himself.
He said he was there to represent Gonzalo.
They told him that Gonzalo already
had a lawyer, that he didn't need another.
So they closed the door on him.
They told me that they found Héctor's car
but there was no sign of him.
ACP'S VEHICLE - HÉCTOR'S VEHICLE
I thought he might have left
in a friend's car.
I thought he was drunk
and left his car somewhere.
That he didn't care.
Later on Monday,
my sister-in-law called me.
She said Héctor was accused
of attempted kidnapping.
The thought of him
kidnapping someone was absurd.
I thought something was going on.
Later, his brother called me
and told me he'd been arrested.
[Marina] The first thing I thought was
that he was caught
with the people he transported.
They transported illegal immigrants,
or "Pollos," as they call them.
But then his brother told me
it was much more serious.
"Attempted kidnapping," he said.
I was like, "Kidnapping who?"
48 HOURS AFTER THEIR ARRES
MONDAY, JUNE 22ND, 2015
[Gonzalo] Someone
in the State General Attorney's office
told us to get ready to leave.
We were like, "What?"
He said, "Yeah, you're leaving."
DISTRICT ATTORNEY
Prosecutor Delfín came in with a document.
She said we were leaving because
there was no evidence implicating us.
AGREEMENT OF FREEDOM
We were so happy to hear we were leaving.
I felt such peace. I thanked God
they had realized their mistake.
I figured the security footage
proved we were innocent.
EVIDENCE IS INSUFFICIEN
TO PROVE INVOLVEMEN
[Gonzalo] We were being released
for lack of sufficient evidence.
We sign the papers.
Guillermo paid bail, 18,000 pesos.
They give me a release to sign.
"This is your release. Sign here,"
and then gave one to Darwin.
Guillermo was released early.
They kept me all afternoon.
Then between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m.,
they said I was free to go.
Our families were so happy.
They were waiting outside.
But then she told the cops
not to remove our handcuffs.
"If they signed the release form,
why are they in handcuffs?"
Mockingly they told us they weren't free.
They said they had another
bigger problem to face.
I walked through a group of men,
and they arrested me again.
They put us in a police truck,
and there was a guy there.
They said we were accomplices,
and that's when I meet
Juan Luis López García
and Gonzalo García Hernández.
Later I understood
they'd set the whole thing up.
They wanted to paint us out
to be a gang to make it more believable.
But none of that was true.
[Héctor] In the same release order,
just a bit further down,
it said they have an active warrant
in Macuspana, Tabasco.
We were being accused by Mrs. GLP.
AGGRAVATED KIDNAPPING
[Héctor] I took a look at the last name
and realized they were related.
She was the sister of the man
from the gas station, Mr. ACP.
I was sure he called his sister
and told her to press charges.
Since he shot me in the hand,
he was trying to clear himself.
[melancholic music playing]
[Darwin] Early in the morning,
they transferred us
to Macuspana penitentiary,
where they put me
in a cell like a dungeon.
Well, I was afraid of going to jail.
I'd never been to prison before.
[Darwin] They said
we had another accomplice.
Héctor Muñoz Muñoz.
I'd never met him before.
I met him in prison.
[Héctor] Now there were four of us.
This was no longer
about the gas station incident
with ACP.
Now we were there because of Mrs. GLP.
[metal clanging]
[woman] Hello, Honorable Court.
Mrs. María del Rosario Delfín Rosales,
district attorney
for the Prosecutor's office
appointed to Major Crimes,
with information
and ways of notification established
in the administration of this court.
The prosecution will prove
beyond a reasonable doubt
that Mrs. GLP,
victim of undisclosed identity,
was deprived of her freedom
on May 26, 2015.
Violently,
the victim was forced
into a green Jetta vehicle,
and was told that her family and herself
would be deprived of life.
For this, all evidence
must be examined closely
to confirm the participation
of the accused:
Juan Luis López García,
Gonzalo García Hernández,
Darwin Morales Ortiz,
and Héctor Muñoz Muñoz.
I request that these subjects
receive the full rigor of the law
and the sentence
that the prosecution suggests.
[melancholic guitar playing]
Subtitle translation by Julieta Gazzaniga