#369: Mom Hunted Down 10 Cartel Members For Killing Daughter - Real Life “Taken”

29:26she got a call from her eldest daughter, Azalea. Miriam shoots up in bed. What's wrong? What happened? Mom, something awful happened. With your husband, Ernesto? No. No. Azalea starts sobbing. Just tell me. Something awful happened to Karen. Miriam was already packing her bags by this point. She scribbles down a note, tosses it on the counter, starts running out the door. She jumps onto a bus from Texas heading into San Fernando. It's going to take at least two hours. That's on top of the time that she already had to wait for the bus. And Miriam is overwhelmed with anxiety right now. What is she supposed to do for the next two hours on this bus?

30:03She sits on the very back row and starts silently sobbing. A few people on the bus, they try to comfort her. One of the older men hands her his handkerchief. Are you all right, ma 'am? My daughter has been kidnapped by the Zeta cartel. The man just nods. because by now most of the locals know the Zeta cartels have been kidnapping innocent people. He looks down and he slowly pulls out a piece of paper from his pocket, grabs a pen and jots a few things down. Call my son. My son is a lieutenant in the Mexican Marines. Miriam thanks him and goes back to sobbing in her seat. She got the call from Azalea about Karen being kidnapped at 4am.

30:41By 8am she's back in San Fernando. Fill me in. Tell me everything that's happened. Azalea is a mess. I heard something near the door in the middle of the night, so I got up from my sleep. I started walking towards the front door, and I saw dad. This isn't the most alarming thing until you realize that Azalea and her dad are somewhat estranged. They haven't spoken to each other in the past two years, and suddenly he's at her doorstep in the middle of the night. She opens the door. He looks very disheveled, and I don't know if it's sister intuition or what, but Azalea just blurts out, Karen, her dad is stepping into the house when his phone starts ringing.

31:17They rush inside, close the door, pick up the phone and put it on speaker. It's a man's voice. Luis, by now you know we have your daughter. I've discussed it with the group and after much consideration, we've decided the ransom to get your daughter Karen back is going to be$77 ,000. USD? USD. Whoa. Before they can respond, they hear Karen's voice. Dad, please, they just want the money. It's not about anything else. If you pay, they'll let me go. If not, I guess this is goodbye. Azalea would later say it felt like something in her sister's voice sounded very unsure. Like she wasn't positive that her dad was willing to pay the money to save her.

31:56And before they can even respond to that, the caller hangs up. $77 ,000. The average salary in Mexico in a year is around $12 ,000 to$15 ,000. They're asking for$77 ,000 by 3 p.m. the next day. In the next 12 hours, they have to come up with$77 ,000. Nobody slept all night. When 8 a.m. rolls around, Louise, their father, is getting ready. He puts on his best clothes. He showers, shaves, slicks back his hair. He needs to look as good as possible for this. He starts practicing in his head what he's going to say when he walks into the bank. Hi, I would like to get a loan for my business. By 10 a.m., the family have combined all of their funds, their entire life savings, the loan from the bank that they just got, any other valuable goods they could sell for cash.

32:51All of it amounted to less than$10 ,000, a seventh of what they're asking for. Louise was to drop off the money at a local health center and Miriam Park so that she could see the handoff, but the cartel couldn't see her. She waits. They wait for two hours. And this man, honestly, boy walks up. He looks like a teenager. He's young. He's skinny. He grabs the bag of cash, but Louise doesn't let go. My daughter, meet her at the cemetery in 20 minutes. And with that, the boy runs off with the bag of cash. He jumps into this cherry red Ford Explorer and they speed off. Okay. That's okay. They're going to be reunited with Karen.

33:27Money is just money. They're going to have Karen and everything's going to be okay. And they drive over to the cemetery and they just wait and wait and wait and nothing. The next morning they get a call. The kidnappers, the cartel, they assure the family everything's fine. We just didn't want to go out in the rain yesterday, which is technically true. The minute that they got to the cemetery, there was a storm as some streets in San Fernando were even briefly flooding. So yeah, I mean, it all tracks, but the whole next day, the family are sitting there anxiously waiting for another drop-off location, but it never comes.

34:00I mean, I think all of them had this small fear in their minds, but everybody held on to the hope. The kidnappers just want the money. We paid the money. There's no reason for them to kill Karen. The next day, the kidnappers break into Miriam's house where she lives with Karen. Obviously, Miriam wasn't there at the time. She was staying with Azalea, her other daughter, but the cartel break into her house, go through Karen's things, which is a good sign, right? I I mean, they're grabbing clothes for her, which means she's coming back. They're just robbing her. Maybe they wanted a little more goods.

34:31But that day, after breaking into the house, they call the family back. We need more money. The family just stare at the phone. How on earth do you think we have more money? Ransoms are very tricky. If you pay too quickly, on one hand, you do that because you want to ensure the safety of your loved one as quickly as possible. but on the other hand if you pay money too quickly the kidnappers might think that they lowballed you and you have way more money than that and if you can easily whip up ten thousand dollars you can easily whip up another ten thousand dollars but they truly the family they do not have more money Miriam ends up borrowing from everybody she can think of and gives the kidnappers another two thousand dollars by this point the hope is still there they had truly given everything the kidnappers surely the cartel know that they're I mean they're organized crime they know how money works they know how much money families in Mexico have or rather don't have in this situation.

35:25This should be enough to get Karen back. Within a month, with Karen still gone, that hope starts dying off. Nobody in the family really says it ever. They all still talk as if Karen's going to walk in through the front door any second now, but nobody actually believes it anymore. Even Miriam, who was the backbone of the entire family, the one that holds faith and hope longer than anybody else, even Miriam is starting to lose hope by the end of the month Karen is still not back and Miriam is falling into a depressive state obviously for her missing daughter which I don't think we can really put into words but even beyond that it's like the whole the whole situation breaks every concept of life that Miriam thought she knew she thought as long as her kids stay out of trouble keep their head down don't go out alone at night they would be untouched by the cartel violence that's how Miriam grew up, the cartels would leave innocent uninvolved.

36:22They would leave them alone. She would tell her kids all day, every day, keep your head down, mind your own business, don't talk back and don't go out at night. Which even just telling them that made her insights so angry. Miriam is the opposite of that. She is never shy to share her thoughts or get into these loud, heated arguments to defend whatever she thinks is the correct answer. And Miriam tricked herself to think that they lived in this bubble. She thought only the rich get kidnapped for ransom. Only the cartel members get killed in turf wars. Only the slightly guilty, somewhat involved go missing.

36:54They don't just take random innocent people. It doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense. It's not the way the world works, right? You're supposed to be a good person. If you abide by the rules, nothing that bad happens to you. I mean, obviously you experience hardships and challenges, but you're not going to get kidnapped by the cartels because what would they want to do with you? Isn't that the unspoken agreement? Everyone could just see Miriam's decline. Miriam was someone who took a lot of care in her makeup and clothing choices. She hadn't put on makeup in the past month. She rarely ever changed out of her pajamas.

37:29She spent all day laying there scrolling on her phone, trying to think of ways to get Karen back, think of possibilities of where she might be. And so for a month, Miriam grieved. She did nothing else but just wallow in fear for Karen, grief for her family and how they're going to handle this and then just self-pity for herself. She is spiraling. Until February 23rd, 2014, one month after Karen has vanished, Miriam gets up, takes a bath, sits down in front of a mirror and brushes her hair out for the first time. She puts on a full face of makeup, walks back downstairs, almost shocking her daughter Azalea.

38:08Mom, are you going somewhere? They're not bringing Karen back to me. I know this in my heart as a mother. Karen is dead. There was no self-pity or grief in her voice, just determination. For the rest of my life, with the time that I have left, I'm going to find the people who did this to my daughter, and I'm going to make them pay. Miriam got into her truck that day and Azalea would say her mom was never the same after that because that was the day she decided Karen is dead and soon her killers will be dead too if Miriam had anything to do with it. But first, she needs to find out what happened to her little girl to find out who needs to pay.

38:53But even that's going to be hard. The Zetas never have a reason for kidnapping someone. It's just what they do now. The city of San Fernando has a curfew. It's not just for teenagers or minors to get home by a certain time or else. It's for every single resident. Get home by 5 p.m. if you know it's good for you. If you have an emergency that you need to go outside after dark, really think, really weigh out the benefits. Is it worth the risk? Even trips to the hospital or pharmacy at night. Will you survive until the morning? Yeah, then maybe you should wait until then. Because as much as the Zetas are violent, they are a deeply paranoid group, which makes sense because their come up is betraying the cartel that they used to work with and creating their own division and taking over the original territory of the original cartel.

39:37Not only are they paranoid that the original cartel, the Gulf cartel, is going to come back and take vengeance on them, they're also concerned that other cartels, the Sinaloa cartel, is going to take their territory. But they're also concerned that other factions are going to break off from the Zetas and start their own cartel. there's a lot of paranoia in San Fernando. So they've created a curfew. Anybody driving at night would likely be stopped by Zeta patrols with assault rifles. They act like they own the town. I mean, they do. More often than not, if you're a young man, they will just assume that you're part of a cartel.

40:08And if you're not someone that they're familiar with, then in their minds, you're part of the other cartels, which means you're the enemy and you need to die. If you're not a young man, they could still be thinking that you're working for the other cartels or you could be up to no good. Maybe you're selling drugs on this side. You're not allowed to do that. This is their territory. Or maybe they just like your car or maybe they think that you'd be a good sex trafficking victim or maybe they think that they should kidnap you and ransom you. There really is no reason on why they kidnap anybody. Zeta just has a habit of kidnapping locals and forcing their families to pay hefty ransoms to get their loved ones back.

40:42Innocent civilians that have nothing to do with the cartels. So back then when Miriam was growing up, cartels were just cartels. they smuggle drugs they make obscene amounts of money they drive luxury cars and they host these parties i would say it's safe to say most mexican citizens now definitely hate the cartels but back then even when the cartels were doing their own thing they didn't like the cartels but even if the police and the government can't stop them what are the citizens going to do they can't stop them so they're just trying to coexist it seems the consensus is stay out of their way and they'll stay out of yours.

41:17That's how it used to be. Some people would even say that they actually liked cartel leaders at one point. Pablo Escobar was known for almost having a Robin Hood image in his particular hometown. Not a lot of other towns, but he would fund housing projects and help build soccer fields, which generally earned him a bit of admiration from some of the residents. Other cartel members, not just part of Pablo Escobar's group, but other cartels would have high-ranking officials pay for the bills of every single civilian at a restaurant when they go out to eat just so the community would like them, which made it easier to traffic drugs through their town.

41:54But it's not like that anymore. Times have changed. It's said that cartels used to just target the rich, but now they just do whatever they want. One expert about the Zetas said, the Zetas steal from everyone, not just the rich. They certainly don't give much back to the poor except the corpses of their relatives. They are just known for being a different kind of human being. To give you an idea of what Miriam is up against, one of the most heinous crimes committed by the Zetas was actually all over international news at the time. The Zetas were monitoring a highway. They stopped two trucks that were trafficking migrants to the U.S.

42:30border. There were 70-plus migrants in the trucks. The Zetas pulled them over, forced their trucks to drive to one of their kitchens or ranches in the middle of nowhere. they fed them all tacos and sodas sat them down in a big circle and started talking five hundred dollars a week that's unheard of the type of work you guys are trying to do in the u.s you're not going to get paid five hundred dollars a week if you come work for us five hundred dollars a week the offer is very simple work for us fight the war against the mexican army and the gulf cartel the men you guys will be trained killers and the women will be domestic workers.

43:03What do you guys think? One by one, all of the 70 plus people said no. The Zetas smiled. Yeah. Okay. No problem. Then let's get you guys going. They load everyone back onto the trucks, but instead of leading them back onto the highway, the trucks are led to another ranch. This one is even more isolated. There were about nine Zetas tying up everybody's hands with zip ties. Some were blindfolded and forced into this tiny abandoned single story house. And for the next two hours, almost all of them are brutally murdered. 72 were found dead. For what? It's likely that there have been more massacres like this before, but the Mexican Marines were able to find out about it before the Zetas cleaned up the bodies.

43:47It became international news. And also because a lot of the migrants were not Mexican citizens, it becomes a bit of an international diplomatic nightmare. And this was just pure proof that the violence with the cartels is getting out of hand. Even the president can't ignore it because the whole world is talking about it. These are the types of people that Miriam is going up against. But the whole world isn't talking about Karen. Unfortunately, that's not how the news cycle seems to work. 72 dead, international news. A young girl in Mexico goes missing without a trace. It's not even local news.

44:18It's town conversation, it's gossip, it's a sad family until the next one goes missing. It's up to the family to figure out what happened. Not even the police really care. Karen's family start piecing together the last time that they heard from Karen. Azalea asked Karen if she wanted to go to church reading with her. But Karen said, oh, I can't go. I have to go out with the cousin tonight. So the rest of the night, Azalea periodically tries to either call or text Karen and she doesn't respond. Azalea is a bit panicked considering everything that's going on in the area, but she just assumed Karen forgot to charge her phone and she would just respond tomorrow.

44:54But then her dad shows up at the door. The first person Miriam talks to is the cousin that Karen was eating dinner with, which is the reason that she couldn't go to church with Azalea. The cousin said it was weird. They were sitting down eating and Karen got this call all of a sudden and she tells him, I gotta go. What? Where? Why? I have to go pick up a friend. Which friend? A guy named Ulysses. I gotta go. Love you. Bye. Karen was out the door. He didn't even get a chance to ask, who the hell is Ulysses? I've never heard of him before. Ulysses was a dead-end lead for now, but Miriam heard someone else had been kidnapped with Karen.

45:32Actually, Karen had been kidnapped with a whole group of her friends. Carlos was one of them. Carlos was a close friend of Karen who was there the night she was kidnapped because he was going to fix her car for her. He went missing, and the next morning, Karen's mom gets a call demanding money from the kidnappers, the cartel. She tells the kidnappers, I have no money, and they laugh into the phone before hanging up. they say well then we'll send your son in pieces and they hung up on her but somehow Carlos is home he's back and he's very much alive and he knows exactly what happened to Karen so for months Miriam starts begging Carlos to talk to her but he's terrified likely threatened by the Zetas that if he says anything he's gonna be dead eventually Carlos starts telling Miriam bits and pieces about what happened that night.

46:21The way Carlos describes it, it's like a group of people, violent offenders escape from a mental hospital with guns and chainsaws. That's how it felt being kidnapped by the Zetas. They're a group of unpredictable, unhinged, unstable, terrifying, violent people. Carlos had gone to Miriam's house. So Miriam is in Texas working and Karen lives there alone. Carlos had gone with his cousin to Karen's house since he had already agreed to be there to fix Karen's car. And while they're arriving, before they get to the front door, they are startled. Two men start coming out of the house to greet them. Oh, hey, uh, is Karen home?

47:01Is Karen? She's not here. If you want, though, you can come in. You can wait for her. Carlos and his cousin walk in and immediately in the living room, they see Karen laying on the floor crying. Her hands and feet are tied together and her face is completely bloody and swollen. Carlos and his cousin try to beeline it out the door. But the guys point rifles into their faces and one of them laughs. Oh, you're so fucked now. The two gunmen tie Carlos and his cousin up. They're tossed near the back of the house like flower sacks, but they could hear the two men just beating Karen, kicking and punching her all over.

47:35They kept demanding to know what information Karen leaks, but she sounds so confused by this question. What information are you talking about? How can I leak information? I don't know. I think you have me confused with somebody else. I don't know what you're talking about. But with each denial, they just keep torturing her more. We know you work for the Gulf cartel. Karen is frantic. She's screaming. I have nothing to do with any of the cartels, please. They don't care. They keep torturing her, suffocating her, bringing her back. When she passes out and doesn't get back up, they pour buckets of cold water on her.

48:09They're slamming their fists into her face and she keeps telling them you have the wrong person eventually the group karen and her friends that were tied up elsewhere in the house are taken to a separate location including carlos and his cousin they call it the ranch at the ranch they're all lined up inside the group from karen's house but also other strangers that had already been there the zetas are screaming at the group telling them you're gonna get the bag do you know what the bag is it's where they put a plastic bag over your head until you're on the brink of death and then they bring you back.

48:41You'll get the bag if you don't cooperate. Carlos said it sounded like the Zetas were convinced that Karen specifically was working with the Gulf cartel and they kept trying to extract some sort of confession from her but she sounded as confused as everybody else but all the others could just hear Karen screaming no I'm not with them and then there would just be sounds of her being tortured and screaming for mercy. The Zetas come around to one of Karen's friends, shoves a pistol in his mouth and asks him, what do you want to say as your last words? He just said, what did I do? The kidnappers start laughing.

49:18They do this down the line to every single person. One of them is neat. All of them are kneeled and tied up. One of them says, what's your last words? The next guy responds to the kidnappers. May God bless you. And the kidnappers are swinging around their assault rifles pointing them at them unhinged just cackling this motherfucker thinks he's in a movie did you hear that say it again the third man instead of saying something for his last words he complained if he could just untie his boots because they're too tight right now and it's cutting off the blood circulation the male kidnappers start laughing again and they call over a woman she walks over and she laughs in his face starts jumping up and down with all her weight on the man's legs until he's sobbing in pain.

50:09She leans down in his face then. How does that feel now? Do your feet still hurt? And they start laughing. Eventually they load everybody up and move them to another location, another ranch where they're all shoved into another small house, abandoned house, and they're forced to sit on this dirt floor. They were told that their families were going to get ransom calls and if they pay the ransom they'll let them go they went one by one asking for the family phone numbers and it was at this ranch that same woman that was jumping on the man's legs starts focusing on karen carlos said this woman hates karen for no reason she doesn't even seem to know karen other than the fact that karen's pretty that's what this woman hates carlos said the woman straight up grabbed karen by the hair spun her around so that she's laying on her stomach straddled her back and she said this is for being so fucking pretty and starts smashing her head against the floor and using her fist to pummel her.

51:01They were kept overnight making calls to their families for ransom and by the next morning one of the guys pointed at all of the male captives. Put the assholes in the truck. He points at Karen and her friend Barbara, the two women. Take the bitches to the tree. You know what to do. Two guys drag Karen and Barbara over to the tree. They tie a yellow rope around their necks and fling it over the tallest branch of the tree and start pulling the other end of the rope. Karen is fighting back. She's trying to break free. One guy is holding the other end of the rope, keeping her suspended, and another guy comes up to grab a stick so he can beat Karen with it like a pinata.

51:44The ones that survived didn't see the rest, but they were told and they speculate that Karen was killed on the tree and later potentially dissolved in acid cooked as they call it

52:08and I always I mean I think all cases are very devastating but I always find the ones where as kids they they overcome all their obstacles and somehow are almost miracle babies and then their lives get stolen I think it's like an extra level of just betrayal from the world that Miriam is feeling because Karen was able to overcome her heart murmur she was able to overcome all of these obstacles and then they take her and then they kill her Cristiano was Miriam's next target He was rather easy to catch Not the brightest one in the group He was arrested without a fight And immediately he starts confessing to who he is He admits that he was part of the kidnapping unit that took Karen And Miriam stares at the guy that she once gave her sandwich to He looks even younger now He just turned 18 according to records The cops take his shirt off to take photos of him He looks even younger with his shirt off Cristiano gave Miriam a few more names to work with Another guy involved was killed by the Marines at the ranch The main boss that ordered the kill was a guy by the name of El Larry.

53:16El Larry was the one that took most of the money El Larry was ruthless according to cristiano He would order kidnappees to be killed and cooked in a giant steel pot His favorite thing was to just make everyone decapitate everyone They would also do this thing where they would get the kidnappees and make them fight to the death gladiator style And last one standing gets to go home But most of the time they don't get to go home with every line of aggressive questioning from the police Christiana would ask for his mom and he would constantly state to the officers that he's hungry Miriam was watching all of this in a separate room she could hear and see them and she would walk into the interrogation room stare at this kid who killed her daughter and hand over her lunch that she brought for herself later the police were so confused by Miriam and they asked her why would you do that?

54:06And she said, he's a child. No matter what he did, when I heard him saying he was hungry, it was like I heard my own child. And I know a lot of people might be confused, but I think this has a lot to do with the context of they all grew up in an area where a lot of the kids didn't have a lot to eat. And so I think it's just this motherly instinct that comes out. i think it also goes back to probably given the circumstances most of these kids would not have joined a cartel that doesn't excuse anything that cartels do but it does seem like most of these people would not have joined the cartels if they had any other options this is like probably the most mother of a story i've ever heard in every aspect yeah and she she is a deeply flawed character later we'll see but yeah but everything is so wow yeah but i mean what can we say when cristiano and the others are responsible for all the other children dying in the area yeah he's a child but so is everybody else at the time miriam's son louise felt like his entire generation his age group was being exterminated that's what it felt like they're being exterminated by the cartels.

55:27Either they join the cartels because they have no choice and they die in a battle that they never had skin in the game for, or more often than not, they just vanish because of the cartels. He would think of a former classmate, remember them, want to reach out to them and realize they had gone missing. That happened way too often. But all the pieces are coming together. With Salma and Cristiano's story, as well as some of the other survivors from that night, Miriam comes out with a longer list, a hit list. El Flacco, The Florist, El Mario, El Chapra, El Kike is the young man that allegedly pulled the rope that killed Karen.

56:01Soto, a former sex worker that is now dating El Kike and a woman named La Machora. That's her nickname. Most of these are nicknames because they don't use their real names. She is the woman that beat Karen for being pretty. They're all on Miriam's list and they're all involved in killing her daughter. And one by one, Miriam is going to take them down because to her, she said, fear is just another word. If there is someone you don't want chasing you, it would probably be Miriam. The running joke in their family was Miriam wanted to be a cop, but she wasn't corrupt enough for it. She didn't qualify for the job.

56:37This wasn't even the first time someone in their family was kidnapped or almost kidnapped. What? Azalea, Miriam's eldest daughter, Karen's older sister, is married to a man named Ernesto. One day the couple get home and they see this letter near their front door and they rush inside to open it up. There's no signature on the front or back, but it was however, weighted tied to a weight. So whoever left this for them wanted to make sure that they got it and they knew it was for them and it didn't get swept away in the wind. They open up the letter and it's like a stalker's confession, a very long list of every coming and going out of the house.

57:09What time Ernesto goes to work, what he ate at the local coffee shop, where he likes to grab lunch after work, every little detail about his every little day was broken down and logged. Clearly someone is watching him very intently. And at the very bottom of the letter, it reads, if you wish not to be kidnapped, call this number. Before the couple called the number, they call Miriam. That seems like the best person who would know what to do. She tells them over the phone, I have a plan. I will drop off the money to the kidnappers. What are you insane, mom? What do you think they want an old woman for?

57:41They'll take the money and they'll let me go the negotiations begin between miriam and the zetas miriam haggled on getting the ransom down so they're trying to get a ransom before they even kidnap him because they're like less work what that's yeah crazy they're like if you don't pay it we're gonna kidnap you you're gonna have to pay it anyway if you want to live so just pay it now but that doesn't even mean that they're not gonna kidnap you miriam haggles on getting the ransom down she argued that there's no way that they could afford the initial request. Eventually they settle on a number or well Zeta threatened the family and showed more information about Ernesto.

58:17They're on the phone and Zetas are going off and on about how much information they have about Ernesto and where he is and where he works and about his own family. And Miriam starts getting impatient. She snaps at them. Well, if you know so much about us, then you know that we don't have that kind of money. Don't be such an asshole. She's saying this to the Zetas. And just like that, it's settled. Miriam is going to drop off the money and hopefully she'll come back. The fear they have is they're going to take the money and kill Miriam for the hell of it or kidnap her and then ask for more ransom.

58:45But they clearly don't have more money. So then she's going to get killed anyway. Azalea tries to stop her mom. Please, mom, this isn't even concerning you. This is our responsibility. It's him they want. What do they want with an old woman like me? And besides, if they try to take me, I'm not going to let them. She flashes her little pistol in her jacket pocket. And before Miriam heads out, she turns to her eldest daughter and tells her, if I'm not back in 15 minutes, pack your things, take Karen and go to the US. Miriam drives to the abandoned gas station. There's three SUVs waiting for her.

59:18There's nobody else out. There's curfew. Nobody's driving around. Miriam parks her car near one of the cars, rolls down her window, and a masked man is sitting in the seat. Leave the cash over there on top of one of the empty pumps. Miriam glances over. They want her to get out of the car. They want her to place the cash at the empty pump Miriam tosses the bag of cash out the window throws it chucks it and just drives off she's like I'm not freaking getting out the car are you crazy just throws it out the window and drives off when Miriam gets back Azalea and her whole family are in the kitchen with a bag packed waiting nervously and Azalea starts crying when she sees her mom walk in the door and she tells her mom what you did that's not something we can ever repay you for Miriam just has this tenacity that a lot of people don't It's very rare Wait, so did he come back?

1:00:09Yeah, they never took Ernesto Oh, that's right They're fine Never got kidnapped Wow And Azalea said when Karen was four Miriam found out that she was pregnant again So this was going to be another baby But when they went to the hospital The doctor said Not only are you not going to deliver the baby But you have cancer azalea remembers looking at her mom's face looking for any sort of sign that she's gonna break down or that she's what's going on but miriam just shakes her head at the doctors well i can't die i got i got a young kid karen's four louise is barely 13 there's nobody else that's gonna take care of them so it wasn't pleading it wasn't desperate it wasn't like no i can't die it was just yeah well I can't really die I'm kind of busy right now I know cancer has no association with how the person approaches cancer or cancer treatment but to just look at a cancer diagnosis like that and have that kind of response is just very intense Miriam went through weeks of radiation and chemotherapy until she was finally cancer free then the doctors told her that her health was declining due in part because of her weight.

1:01:19She's 5 '6 and weighed more than 350 pounds for most of her life, which there's nothing wrong with that. But specifically in Miriam's case, her doctors said that she was not healthy. Miriam ends up getting a gastric bypass procedure, which limits the amount of food your stomach can hold. To give you a comparison, a regular adult stomach can hold about six cups of liquid and food when it's full. A gastric sleeve can only hold about one cup when it's full. Now, it's not a very dangerous procedure, but Azalea was so nervous for her mom she asked her are you not scared her mom just said i feel like i answered that with a cancer diagnosis if that didn't kill me you think this is going to kill me now she weighs 135 pounds and she is very grateful for that surgery because it helps her hunt some of her days consist of hiking through abandoned ranches staking out safe houses she would have to chase down and tackle zeta cartel members so she is very conscious about her health so she's hunting down these members yeah and none of them are coming back to her like or kidnapping her or doing something to her no i think the leadership and zeta as of right now are not scared of her they think she's annoying probably or maybe they haven't even heard of what she's doing so they lose a few members they're like okay yeah whatever they don't even know what's going on with these low-ranking members that killed karen but i think these low-ranking members i think they're a little scared of miriam at least one by one and it seems like most of them have split up so some of them died by the marines some of them are in prison i think if they were collectively still in a group setting maybe they would have kidnapped miriam but yeah in mexico you don't go missing you are part of the disappeared that's what they call you The word means something else completely.

1:03:11It means your presence has basically been deleted. Nobody knows what happened to you. They can guess and they're probably right, but nobody will help find you. And if you know someone who's disappeared, then your life is in this perpetual limbo, this torture of not knowing what happened to them and not knowing if there's anything you could have done to prevent it. It's said to be a very devastating experience. And up until Miriam, there was not even a support group or a community for those who suffered from having a loved one vanish. Miriam starts her own vanishing collective. That's what it was called.

1:03:42Family members of Lost Ones would come together to hear each other out, to support each other, and to write letters and call and demand answers from the government. This was unheard of. This is during a time where you were told, hey, your loved one who was taken by the cartels, if you report it to the police, most likely the police work with the cartels, and once the cartels know that you've reported it, another one of your family members is going to go missing just because you pissed them off. But now Miriam is gathering up all of the families and helping them get compensation from the government.

1:04:12Most of them don't even know that they qualify for compensation. The government didn't like to tell them that they did. And even when they find out the government is like, you got to jump through all these hoops. Miriam would study the law. Miriam was here. She spent all day making calls, pulling favors, threatening people. Miriam was a threatener. Okay, she would threaten to expose politicians, to call the Marines on the police, to call the police on the Marines. She was doing a lot. but Miriam was here and she was going to help them and try and get answers just something Miriam starts her journey as one of the better known advocates in that area she was known for getting shit done which means she's very aggressive she was notorious for harassing and threatening officials that was her thing she told the collective in numbers they have power as a group they have power they can make people listen she told them not even the government knows how many of us are out here but still she's out here making a difference right and that's when her kids azalea and louise start asking her isn't that enough most of karen's killers are slowly coming down she's tracked down el flaco who it said he skipped town quit the criminal world and was now working at a factory she tracked him down had him arrested then she tracked down the florist el mario was taken down the girl from the meat shop was arrested el kike the one that pulled the rope was ironically arrested at church the minister asked miriam whether she had mercy or not which is a wild thing to ask she looked the minister in the eye and said and where was el kike's mercy when he killed my daughter miriam got el kike's girlfriend arrested and now the main one at large is the woman who beat karen for pleasure the rest have been arrested or killed by the marines the top guy was arrested too el larry was still on the run for a little bit yes but she didn't have as much hatred for l larry for some reason i think l larry wasn't the one that wanted karen killed he just seems to be the one that's like okay guys go kidnap people but she really hates the girl that beat karen for no reason yeah because that's so sadistic so they're left and miriam could do that maybe leisurely or hand over her files to the police that's what her kids are arguing have them handle it find closure miriam promised her kids she would stop when she laid her baby to rest, authorities had found a few of Karen's rib bones in the mass grave at the ranch.

1:06:36Azalea and Louise thought, this is confirmation. That's putting Karen to rest, or at least the parts left of Karen, right? Is it not? Miriam's friends and family thought, isn't this enough? Can't she stop now? When does revenge stop being about justice and start becoming all-consuming? When does revenge start doing more harm than good? One day, a woman walks into Miriam's store. Do you run the Vanishing Collective? Yes, I do. My sister Margarita, the raven-haired kidnapper. Remember her? The raven-haired kidnapper that led them to the ranch that was killed by the Marines. All because of Miriam's tip.

1:07:17Her sister walks in. My sister was killed by the Mexican Marines and they told me that I can't file a complaint related to her death. But I would like to, I just don't know how. Could you help? No way. It made Miriam sick to think a victimizer would be next to a list of victims. But Margarita was dead. And Miriam thought maybe her family were also victims of the cartels. They did, in a sense, lose their sister to the cartels. Margarita became a mom at 16, continued to have babies with other men, and she couldn't really find footing in her life. There wasn't a lot of opportunities for her. and when she came across a member of the Zetas who was offering her money and not stability but some financial stability she took it and her whole family told her it's him or it's us because her dad is a pastor they margarita and her new boyfriend from the Zetas try to convince her dad no it's love it's love look he's even going to give you cash for a car he throws the cash back at them and said, I don't want your blood money.

1:08:23Get out of here. To Margarita's dad, she was no longer his daughter. And the more time that she spent with these people, the more she was becoming like them. And the family just felt like they lost Margarita. Margarita's family eventually enrolled in the state system for victims with Miriam's help to receive compensation. At the burial for Karen's bones, the few that were found at least, Azalea asked her mom, when is this going to end when is what gonna end this this all of this miriam flips open the coffin lid pulls out a bag of bones this is what i have left of my daughter you think i'm gonna stop now how long was she on the hunt two and a half years they warned her she had to stop before it was too late it was gonna consume her march 22nd 2017 three years after karen goes missing and was killed 29 inmates dig their way out of the prison they dig tunnels and dig their way to freedom 29 killers are now free and many of them are Zetas and many of them are the ones that Miriam had put in prison Miriam is rightfully terrified they're going to come after her she can feel it but for once everybody around her is a bit more relaxed than she is they agree safety needs to be at the highest right now which technically the police are required to protect her in situations like this by law according to the victim's laws but of course they don't they don't even pick up her phone calls honestly everybody had the same thought process on this one Miriam at this point you are way too big of an advocate the Zetas are slowly losing their power they're not dumb enough to go and kill Miriam the stir that it would cause on a national level because at this point the Zetas were slowly losing power the Mexican government the president at the time very aggressive very aggressive about the war on drugs so all the cartels were kind of laying low because once you once you do something big it becomes national news everybody freaks out the president puts the target on that cartel's back they're like all the forces after this cartel so it wouldn't make sense for the zetas to kill miriam right now because they would make national news and then people would be like you got to do something then the president would do something it would just be more military guns pointed directly at them and on top of that these guys just got out of prison the last thing they want to do is get back into prison they want to disappear commit crimes in secret it would be dumb for them to come after Miriam but she's terrified for the first time in her life people said Miriam looked genuinely scared for her own life prior to this when she was chasing everyone down it's almost like she had this superhero effect she did not believe that she was capable of dying that's what it felt like a lot of people think it's because she was getting closer to her revenge she only had a few more people left and i think as she was taking these people down i think that she was getting closure slowly i think in the beginning she didn't have the fear of dying because she was so consumed by vengeance nothing mattered but now it's she's almost there closure like she's about to be free she's about to move on yes no don't tell me l kk the one that pulled the rope, was out.

1:11:38He dug out of the tunnel. She told her kids, I can only hope if those bastards come after me, they give me a chance to shoot back. May 10th, 2017, Azalea had plans to meet with her mom for coffee and cake later in the evening, but when she didn't show up, her dad starts calling. Azalea doesn't like it when her dad starts calling. azalea just had this feeling in her gut something is very very wrong and she picks up the phone your mother has been shot miriam had been getting out of her car in front of her ex-husband's house she had her back turned towards the street walking towards his house when a car drove by and fired multiple rounds into her body they fired 13 rounds miriam was hit eight times louise found her with her hand in her purse reaching for her pistol.

1:12:34Louise calls the kids and both of them make it to the hospital but it's too late. Miriam was dead. Killed. The mother who went after the cartel, the mother who would not stop at anything for justice for her baby, was killed on Mother's Day. Louise, Miriam's son, didn't think about any sort of inheritance when his mom died. She spent every last penny she had on hunting down the cartel members who killed her baby. If there was anything to inherit, it would have been debt, but thankfully it doesn't work that way. Instead, Louise got a surprise inheritance at his mother's funeral. Louise was the one, the son, was the one planning everything.

1:13:14The funeral, he was slowly, without plan, just naturally taking over his mother's collective even. It was never that he wanted to do that, just the members started calling, asking him when the next meeting was. And knowing his mom, she would have been so angry at him if she found out that he canceled it and let the collective fall apart. It was almost pushed onto him. He inherited it by default. But at the funeral, he inherits something a little bit more. Something strange happens. Luisa is grieving when this old childhood friend of his comes up to him and motions for him to come outside. Okay, clearly this could be a setup.

1:13:48He could walk out of the house and be shot too, but for some reason he really trusts this childhood friend. He walks out and there's this car parked on the side of the road. A criminal. Not a good person. He knows him for committing crimes. I don't think he's cartel, but criminal. He rolls down the window. Do you know a guy named El Luce? I've heard of him. When you start looking into what happened to your mom, you look into El Luce. Then the truck dries off. Nothing else was said. A vague tip. who's el luce exactly a vague tip that's gonna keep louise up all night if he doesn't look into it that is how louise inherits his mom's vengeance he would need to avenge his mother's death first then finish his sister's revenge find the people who killed his mom first then find the woman who beat karen for being too pretty louise didn't want to but he could feel himself falling deeper into the investigation every single day.

1:14:48He was becoming more and more like his mother every single day, talking to the same Marines, the same politicians, the same officers, threatening them the same way, hunting down cartel members the same way that Miriam did, learning how to extract information from witnesses, just like his mom. And it made sense. All that grief that he feels had to go somewhere. Azalea, she was married. She had children of her own, Louise just had grief. He didn't have anybody. He was putting all of it, focusing all of it on getting vengeance. So with Louise's help, mainly just like Miriam, the authorities were able to get El Luce, the man who was hired by the Zetas to kill Miriam.

1:15:26So at this point, when the Zetas, they break out of prison, the higher ups of the Zetas are pissed at Miriam. They think that she's causing too much trouble even with the collective it's preventing them from getting ransom when they kidnap people every kidnapping is becoming a thing now and they don't like it so they hire another random zeta to go kill her it's actually not the same people that killed karen he was killed before the officers could take him into custody and from there it spiraled into hunting down the cartel members that were involved in miriam's hit none of them were involved in karen's death so two very separate groups and they genuinely just wanted miriam out the way she was just causing too much trouble they take down el luce they take down cheese foot who did the transfer of funds that's his nickname and another man named el hugo and then finally through louise's investigations they take down the woman that beat karen right before the murder oh just they just found her yeah he was able to track her down and get her arrested but unlike his mother louise is trying his best to stop now he wants to focus on trying to get other victims families help rather than getting swept up and tracking down more okay how many people are semi-involved in all of this he just wants to protect what he has left of a family and that is the story of miriam the real life story of the taken movie as of right now it does appear that the zetas are still operating but not in the way that they used to they fragmented off mainly into new groups the gulf cartel seems to be a lot more fragmented as well with cells operating semi-independently almost like franchisees of a drug restaurant it's hard to estimate the current state of the cartel's influence and operations because there's so many different groups the zetas have also fragmented into cdn zve which are acronyms for their new groups but overall the zetas have diminished over the years and that does not mean that the reign of terror is over there seems to be a new even more violent cartel that has taken a lot of the control in mexico they're known as the jalisco new generation cartel or cjng they are considered currently one of the most powerful and most violent groups in mexico they were founded in 2010 and as of right now their estimated assets are worth over 20 billion dollars and just like the zetas they are known for extreme public violence they're responsible for a lot of the decapitation there are some skinning videos of cartel members skinning rivals face skin off and decapitating them some of them are decapitated and their heads are used as basketballs and those videos are uploaded onto the internet as almost psychological warfare there have been rumors that some of the cartel members will participate in acts of cannibalism again not because i think that they're cannibals i don't think but more so again for psychological warfare as a fear tactic they're also very paramilitary vibes they use drones strapped with grenades to attack people and they're just wreaking havoc so that is where we are with today's case what are your thoughts on this i i don't think i've ever covered a case where a mom went after her daughter's killers with so much i mean i i feel like she was a detective in a past life or something she's like one of the bravest person that's ever heard about yeah and the crazy thing is azalea and louise said it's sad to watch their mom go down this route but at the same time they knew that she would do this for all of them and they said not once during her quest for revenge did they ever feel neglected if they had a problem she would drop everything so that is the story of miriam what are your thoughts please stay safe and i will see you guys in the next one.

1:19:45Bye!