A Baja California Sur court sentenced a man known as “El Berrendo” to 50 years in prison for the aggravated kidnapping and death of a victim in Santa Rosalía, the Mulegé municipality seat located roughly 350 miles north of Los Cabos. The verdict was handed down on June 6 following an oral trial.
Gabriel “N,” identified by his alias “El Berrendo,” was convicted in connection with an incident dating to May 2018. Prosecutors said the victim was lured into a Ford Mustang and driven to kilometer 5 on the highway toward the community of Santa Águeda, just outside Santa Rosalía. There, the victim was beaten and tied to a tree.
Body Found in Clandestine Burial Nearly Two Years Later
The victim’s body was not discovered until January 2020, when investigators located a clandestine burial site at the same location along the Santa Águeda highway. The nearly two-year gap between the kidnapping and the discovery of remains made the case a cold file for much of that period.
Specialized prosecutors from the state’s unit for disappeared persons built the case through the oral trial system, Mexico’s adversarial court process that replaced the old written-file model. The court found the prosecution presented enough evidence to overcome the presumption of innocence.
Sentence Among the Stiffest in BCS Law
The 50-year prison term is among the harshest available under Baja California Sur state law for aggravated kidnapping. On top of the prison sentence, the court ordered Gabriel “N” to pay a fine equivalent to 4,000 days of the daily minimum wage. At the current general minimum wage of 278.80 pesos per day, that fine would total approximately 1,115,200 pesos (about $55,000 USD). The judge also ordered the defendant to pay court-determined damages to the victim’s family.
Santa Rosalía, a small mining town of roughly 14,000 people on the Sea of Cortez coast, is not typically associated with high-profile violent crime. The town is best known among travelers as a ferry port connecting Baja California Sur to the mainland Mexican state of Sonora via Guaymas. The case is a reminder that forced disappearances have reached relatively quiet rural communities across the peninsula.
The conviction closes one of the older open kidnapping cases in the Mulegé region. The case was first reported by Colectivo Pericú.