By Calvin Palmer
Mexican police have arrested a Texas man suspected of raping 19 women in Ciudad Juarez.
Jorge Alberto Mendez, 42, was arrested Saturday while trying to cross into Mexico from El Paso, Texas, said regional Deputy Attorney General Alejandro Pariente.
Mendez, a chemical engineer, lives with his wife in El Paso and spent about 11 months crossing the border to Ciudad Juarez to assault women and girls in their homes, usually on a Tuesday or Friday, said Pariente.
Investigations began in April 2008 with the rape of a 15-year-old girl. Similar cases were subsequently reported and one of Mendez’s alleged victims was only 13.
Pariente said Mendez prowled residential neighborhoods during the day and attacked at night, sometimes entering bedrooms through windows. He allegedly threatened his victims, aged 13 to 20, with a gun.
Mendez allegedly persuaded one 18-year-old woman to let him in her home by posing as a neighbor looking for electric cables but he fled when she started screaming.
Another victim managed to write down her assailant’s license plate number, which eventually led to Mendez’s arrest.
Police found pornographic magazines underneath his car seat, along with the clothes he wore – shorts and a dark gray shirt — when he allegedly attacked the women.
Mendez, a naturalized U.S. citizen, is being held in a Mexican prison.
Ciudad Juarez has a history of violence against women.
Last year, a Mexican citizen who allegedly confessed to killing at least 10 women in the city was extradited from the United States to stand trial for aggravated homicide.
In 2007, a New Mexico man was accused of repeatedly crossing into Ciudad Juarez and raping at least 13 women in their homes.
[Based on reports by the Associated Press and Houston Chronicle.]
