Claudia Tacoronte’s sister is demanding answers after a third female student was murdered at their Mexican university.
The University of Granada, 21, had been in south-central Mexico only since August when she was stabbed to death at a medicinal plants festival in Cuautla. The early-childhood education major from Spain became the third woman affiliated with the Autonomous University of the State of Morelos, or UAEM, to be killed in seven months.
Her alleged killer, Francisco Meléndez, 37, was arrested Thursday after residents spotted him with a shaved head. The Morelos State Attorney General’s Office had issued a wanted poster for him Wednesday. Authorities say Meléndez tried to steal Tacoronte’s cell phone and stabbed her to death in the process.
“Do we really have to normalize the fact that… Women have been murdered at the same university… Over the last year — and that no one is doing anything? To those of you living there, studying at that place: why is no one doing anything?” Lara Tacoronte told The Post.
The killing has been classified as a femicide, one of 21 such cases in Morelos between January and July. Sixty-nine females total have been murdered in the state during that period.
Tacoronte’s death prompted swift international fallout. The University of Granada suspended its transfer program with UAEM and recalled its 17 other students from the public university, where about 40,000 students study.
Alberto Guerrero, a Mexican security policy strategist, questioned whether the arrest came quickly to avoid international scrutiny.
“She was a foreign student and the visibility the case received” was high, Guerrero said. “There is no security policy clearly focused on preventing this type of crime. It gained visibility now because she was a foreign student, but what about other Mexican students?”
Fear had already spread across UAEM’s largest campus in Cuernavaca before Tacoronte arrived. Kimberly Ramos, 18, was last seen near the Chamilpa campus on Feb. 20. Her body turned up in an industrial area on the outskirts of town on March 3.
Mexican authorities arrested Ramos’ ex-boyfriend and schoolmate on March 5 after her bag and ID were allegedly found in his home. They identified him only as Jared Alejandro ‘N’. A Morelos state official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he is accused of strangling her in a fit of jealousy.
On that same day, Karol Toledo, 18, went missing about 25 miles away in Mazatepec. Her body was found hours later just three miles from where she disappeared. Police said they are looking for two suspects who fled the state, and the motive remains unclear.
“I think one of the big questions in Mexico is: the killer is caught – OK – but how far will this go?” the Morelos official said. “What protection measures can be offered to women?”
The violence has touched even younger students connected to the university. Michelle Fuentes, 15, a high school student whose mother is a UAEM academic, disappeared in Yautepec on May 24 after going out to buy art supplies. Her body was found June 2 in Tepoztlán, a tourist town 30 miles away. Her cause of death has not been released, according to her mother’s account to El Pais.
UAEM did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The three university students’ murders involved different killers and motives, but the pattern has intensified alarm about femicide in Morelos, a state just south of Mexico City.