The Durango District Attorney’s Office has reported that a judge has sentenced Iram Uranga Armendáriz to 66 years in prison for the murder and injuries caused to the Peña family on December 27. The three adults, American citizens, traveled with the 14-year-old from Chicago to spend the holidays with the family on the other side of the border, but their bodies were found riddled with bullets in the town of Ciénaga de San José, in the municipality of Santiago Papasquiaro. The boy survived and had to be transferred to a Texas hospital with head wounds from the gunshots. The investigators’ theory is that Uranga had an argument with Antonio Fernández, one of the family members, over money he had lent him for a piece of land, according to a statement issued on Monday.
The Prosecutor’s main hypothesis is that on the night of December 27, Uranga arrived with his girlfriend in a Jeep at the house where the Peña family was, gathered for a celebration. He greeted the members of the house and stayed talking with Antonio Fernández and Vicente Peña, Jason’s uncle and father, respectively. The topic of conversation was the money that Uranga claims he lent Antonio, $250,000, for the down payment on the purchase of a forest and mining property in the mountains in the Altares community. Uranga says he no longer wanted to buy the land because the agreed price was $400,000.
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Finally, the couple left the house in their Jeep, but they were followed in a black truck by Vicente, Antonio, another man named Jorge Eduardo Vargas Aguirre and Jason, who in two days was going to turn 14 and had traveled with his family on the road to celebrate his anniversary with his grandfather in Durango. Both vehicles left the family home and after 40 minutes they stopped at the entrance to the Las Palmas municipality. It was around 10:00 p.m. Antonio got out of the car and continued the argument with Iram Uranga. Uranga pulled out a 9-millimeter caliber pistol and shot him several times in the head. He did the same with Vicente, while Jorge and Jason watched the scene. The latter two tried to escape, but Uranga opened fire and hit them. When they were wounded on the ground, he approached to finish them off with shots to the head. Uranga fled with his girlfriend to the city of Durango and abandoned the bodies next to the black truck that the Peña family had brought from Illinois.
The three adults died at the scene. Jason managed to survive, but was seriously injured by a gunshot to the head. The Durango District Attorney’s Office admitted last week that the teenager was in poor health. Julie Contreras, a Chicago lawyer and spokesperson for the family, detailed that the minor was between life and death and had been transferred to a Texas hospital to receive “appropriate treatment” for his injuries.
Uranga was arrested on January 4, just eight days after the massacre. He agreed to an abbreviated judicial procedure and the next day he was sentenced to 66 years, seven months and nine days in prison on charges of aggravated homicide and aggravated injuries. He must also pay a fine of 520,810 pesos and compensation for damages of 3.7 million pesos. “It is reiterated that there will be no impunity for the crimes that most harm society and the commitment of the State and Federal Governments to keep Durango a safe and peaceful place, with the coordinated work of the three levels of government,” the State peace and dialogue table states in its statement.
The crime, which has been resolved with unusual speed, raised several blisters in the debate on security for foreign travelers in Mexico. Contreras, who has concluded her accompaniment of the Peña family, now has another case on her hands: the murder on New Year’s Day of another US citizen in Zacatecas who did not stop at a roadblock of an armed group and was gunned down in front of his family. “President Claudia Sheinbaum announced in October 2024 that she was implementing a security plan that would focus on violence… Well, that plan failed to protect the lives of Jesús Macías and many other US citizens who visit Mexico,” the lawyer said.
Source: elpais
