EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Mexican authorities say they have arrested a Tucson, Arizona, man in connection with a March 25 murder in front of a religious shrine in Nogales, Sonora.
The Sonora Criminal Investigations Agency arrested Mario Alberto N., 25, on the Mexican side of the Nogales-Mariposa Port of Entry last Wednesday and charged him with premeditated murder.
The suspect and another man allegedly kidnapped Gerardo Esteban N. took drove him in a white Lexus to the San Judas Tadeo shrine along the Nogales-Imuris highway. There, they told him to run and shot him in the back, the Sonora Attorney General’s Office said in a statement.
Sonora authorities said they identified one of the suspects by his moniker of “El Bolas” (Balls), sought an arrest warrant and located him through intelligence gathering and information sharing from other, unnamed law enforcement agencies in the Sonora-Arizona region.
Mario Alberto N. — Mexico does not release the full names of suspects or victims — appeared before a Mexican judge late last week and his attorney requested more time to contest the charges. The judge ordered the suspect held in custody pending a hearing.
Several murders have been reported in the vicinity of various roadside religious shrines in Nogales. Last month, police found a body with signs of violence and a bullet wound to the face next to the Capilla de la Santa Muerte, or Holy Death sanctuary, according to local news reports.
In February, another two bodies were found there and, according to El Diario de Sonora, a dozen bodies were left there in previous years.
In a 2021 article, The New York Post reported how gang members engaged in dangerous “missions” pray to Holy Death and other religious figures such as St. Jude – the patron saint of lost causes – for protection.
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