I Can’t Imagine

I can’t imagine how it feels. Nor do I ever want to. 

I can’t imagine losing her the way you did. Although, in a way you had already kind of lost her before. She wasn’t there a lot of the time. Sometimes she would be, but it was very inconsistent. She grew up in the barrio and ended up living life on the streets. Given her circumstances, I’d say she did what she had to do to survive. So, you were left to pretty much fend for yourself in that rough place. That dangerous, toxic place. That’s a lot to ask of a child. You had no choice but to follow in her footsteps and do whatever you had to do to survive, too—mostly without her. 

You said you believed she was dead. I remember when you told me over dinner at my place. Your energy changed when I asked you about her and what had happened, and I realize now it was because of the unanswered questions surrounding her ten-year disappearance. There were whispers of familial foul-play, that her father had something to do with it for whatever problems existed between them. Despite the rumors, there was never any evidence of that. Her body was never found and there was nothing linking him to her disappearance. And now, ten years later, it is finally known that the rumors were untrue.

You really never knew what had happened to her. Nobody did. But you knew she was gone. Maybe a drug deal gone wrong. Or maybe an attack by an ill-intentioned client late at night after a session of sexual favors. Maybe a gunshot. Asphyxiation. Maybe she overdosed. Those were all the things you thought may have possibly happened to her, and all you hoped was that whatever happened, happened in such a way that she didn’t suffer during her passing. It wasn’t until May 20th, 2021 that a news story broke out containing all the answers.

You and I were in your room that night, sitting on the bed half-watching Shrek while we talked and joked around, until we heard a knock on your bedroom door. From the sound of the shuffling footsteps, it was your aunt. We looked at each other with an, I wonder what she wants look since you don’t have the best relationship and practically never speak despite living in the same house. We figured it was something about needing to pay the light bill, or washing something you left in the sink. Unfortunately, it was neither.

You got up to open the door, and there she stood with your cousin standing somberly behind her. “No sé si has visto las noticias…” I heard her voice outside the door speaking to you. I wondered what could have possibly been on the news that had to do with you to make her wonder if you’d seen it yet. 

“Dijeron su nombre, pero las detalles todavía están saliendo y no estoy segura si es ella,” she went on explaining how her name was on the news. But was it really her? Or was it someone else with the same name? At that point you came back into your room and asked me if I had heard what was just said. I had. The search for various news articles and videos began, each of us on our phones trying to find some sort of clarification. You got back up and went to the living room, where I heard the three of you comparing articles, trying to confirm if it was true. 

Was she one of them? Was she a victim? I can’t imagine how cold your blood must have turned when the name of the bar she worked at kept coming up in the news articles. The bar that’s just 15 minutes away from your house. The bar where at least two other women also went missing.

You kept coming in and out of the room anxiously. The energy in the air was strange. I was trying to find any information I could to help you piece together the puzzle. Until a few moments later when you walked out of the room again, that’s when I heard you three. I heard your gasps. They were soft. They were quiet. Not the type of loud, overly-shocked gasps, but the type where your breath gets caught for a moment when you inhale.

“Es ella…Sí, es ella,” I heard you say, as your gasp turned into a gentle exhale.

It was her.

Your mother. 

And oh, how my heart hurts for you. You always try to be so tough against the world. It’s not even that you try to be. You just are. There are some parts of you that are so calloused, hard, almost emotionless. After everything you’ve been through in your life, I understand why you are the way you are. But this time, I saw how deep this hurt you. I saw the little you, your inner-child. I saw a memory of your innocence in your eyes. Yet another tragedy in your life to add to the list.

Your mother was a victim of a serial killer. 

Andrés Filemón is his name. My blood boils simply typing it. For the past twenty years, he had kidnapped or lured victims into his home where he murdered them by stabbing them in the heart or neck, dismembered their bodies, skinned their faces and scalps to keep them preserved, and sometimes ate them. All women. All women who rejected wanting to have any romantic affiliation with him. Over the past twenty years, he has been responsible for twenty-nine femicides. 

May 14th, 2021 was the tragic day that led to this discovery. It was the key to finding the twenty-nine missing and murdered women, including your mother. That day, Filemón murdered his final victim. Her name was Reyna. Reyna owned a little phone shop where you could buy different parts and accessories for your phone. Filemón always went to her shop and talked to her, and would offer to help her with anything she needed. 

Being an older man—seventy-two years old at the time of writing this—and living in the same home for forty years, everyone in the neighborhood knew him and trusted him. He was that “genuine,” friendly neighbor and well-respected in the community. Everyone was shocked when they heard the news. Nobody ever noticed anything strange about him. Nobody ever had a reason to think he was a killer.

That’s why Reyna didn’t suspect a thing. She knew him. Reyna’s husband, Bruno, knew him too. That day, she had told Bruno that she had to pass by Filemón’s house for something before coming home. The details of what he said to lure her inside are unclear, but she entered his home. Later that night when Bruno realized his wife still hadn’t made it home, he went to Filemón’s house—the last known place his wife told him she’d be. When he knocked on the door, Filemón’s behavior was strange and he refused to open the door. Bruno left. When the next morning came and his wife was still missing, he decided to march back over to Filemón’s house with other neighbors. He knew something was wrong, and he banged on the door demanding him to open up. Again, Filemón refused. Bruno and the neighbors struggled to pry the door open, but they finally were able to burst through it. What Bruno witnessed next, I would never wish on my worst enemy.

He saw his wife's lifeless body on the kitchen table surrounded by her own blood. Filemón had already begun the dismembering process and had parts of her mutilated body divided into bags.  

Filemón was arrested and is currently in jail. While writing this, Mexican authorities are still excavating his home and discovering the remains of the women. The floor of his home is purely dirt, without any floorboards or tile. So, he would dig deep enough into the floor in his kitchen, bathroom, living room, and basement to bury the bodies, right there in the middle of his house. It terrifies me to imagine walking into that house and not knowing you’re standing on twenty-nine graves. 

There is an army of people working on this case; anthropologists, forensic archaeologists and experts, geneticists, experts in criminalistics, legal medicine and photography, dentistry experts, forensic medicine, investigators, public ministries, and firefighters. Along with at least 1,500 bones they have found (and continue to find), investigators have also found a list of twenty-nine names—the names of each of Filemón’s victims—in a notebook, at least twenty video recordings of the actual murders, women’s clothing and shoes, make-up, some of the victims’ IDs, and their cell phones. Within the notebook, investigators found that beside the name of each victim, he had written down the weight of each of their body parts after dismemberment… 

Filemón has confessed to his crimes. Your mother was one of the first women he confessed to murdering. He remembered her clearly. They even found her photo ID inside his house. He had held onto it for ten years. 

I can’t imagine how you must feel seeing your mother’s picture on the news. Seeing her long, curly black hair fall around her face and having to look into her eyes in that photo now knowing about the horrible things that monster did to her. The more I look at her picture, the more I see her in you. You have her eyes. And her lips. I bet you got your smile from her. 

I can’t imagine what you’re imagining. Imagining her unsuspectingly being stabbed in the chest, right in the heart. Imagining how big the knife was. My heart broke when I saw the fear in your eyes and the tears running down your face when you asked me if I thought she suffered, if I thought she had passed away before he started dismembering her. I can never unhear the pain in your voice when you said you couldn’t stop imagining the look of desperation and helplessness she must have had on her face when she realized that she was going to die. 

I can’t imagine the rage you must feel thinking about that demented devil skinning her face and scalp as a souvenir before burying her in his kitchen. She didn’t deserve to die that way. And it destroys you to think about it. The regret destroys you, too. I see the regret eating at you when you tell me how you wish you called her more and wish you had heard her laugh more. I can’t imagine that level of grief.

I know you and your mother didn’t have the best relationship. You weren’t always that close. But you said despite her life in the streets of drug dealing, prostitution, alcohol, and drug consumption, that she wasn’t a bad person. I believe you. I think she did the best she could given the hand that life dealt her. Despite her mistakes and decisions, in her heart she was a good woman. I know that she loved you and your siblings very much, and I think that’s probably why she wasn’t around you a lot of the time. I think she didn’t want to involve you in the situations that she was caught up in.

I stayed with you that night, that same night you finally found out the truth. You were broken and scared and your head wasn’t right. You couldn’t think straight. You couldn’t sleep at all, but we laid under the covers in the dark. You just wanted me to hold you tight, and I did. I held you so close as you cried for hours until the exhaustion helped you doze off intermittently. I held you so close when the sudden, pounding rain that woke us up at 3 a.m. startled you. I could feel that all you wanted was to see and hug your mother at least one last time. I wish more than anything that I could take away your pain.

My heart breaks for you. Although I can’t imagine or understand it the same way you do, I have had a knot in my chest and stomach ever since the news broke out. When I’m with you I’m staying strong to support you. But when I’m alone, as I write this, I am breaking down, riddled with anxiety and tears. And if I’m even feeling this way, I can’t even begin to imagine your agony. I can’t even begin to imagine your suffering. 

I just can’t imagine.