The inventory of terror: 1,300 objects have now been found at the Teuchitlán extermination center

A mouth has opened in Teuchitlán, and horror has emerged. It’s filled with dust, wrinkled, and riddled with holes. It has measurements and a size, you can see it and touch it. It fits in 18 suitcases and 170 backpacks. In a pair of boxing gloves. In 154 pairs of ownerless shoes, in all these colorful blouses. How many covered themselves with the dozens of blankets found at the Izaguirre Ranch? Who owns the 305 pairs of pants found at the extermination center? What happened to their owners? Where are they now? In a country with more than 124,000 missing people, it is an inventory that has captured all of Mexico’s terror.

The Jalisco Attorney General’s Office this week published an update on the objects found at the Teuchitlán ranch. In total, there were 1,308. Most have been photographed along with their identification numbers and classified by clothing type. They are seen on plastic sheeting atop the concrete. They have gone from being piled up to forming a perverse catalog. They were found by the group of relatives of missing persons who call themselves Warrior Searchers, alongside crematoriums, remains of bones, and graves. The searchers entered the property, located just over an hour from Guadalajara, the state capital, on March 5. Since then, they have been receiving calls from survivors of the site: they speak of forced recruitment, torture, rape, and murder carried out by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

The location of their discovery turns these 1,308 objects into a trail of grief. Hundreds of families are searching among them for clues about their missing loved ones, from Veracruz and Guanajuato to Nayarit and Tamaulipas. Many of the items are men’s, like the 195 paris of boxer shorts, but there are also 14 dresses, three skirts, and three bras. Among the clues, some children’s-sized pants have also been found. At the ranch, which is presumed to have served for years as a CJNG headquarters, 143 blankets have been found; 65 of them are identical, gray and checkered, with only the threads varying in color, as if purchased in bulk. There are also some old towels.

Among the 168 shirts cataloged by the Prosecutor’s Office, Danny thought he recognized one belonging to his brother, Carlos Jonathan Alejandro Zúñiga, who disappeared in Tonalá (Jalisco) in February 2021. They come in all sizes, shapes, and colors, long and short-sleeved, and belong to fans of the Chicago Bulls, the Spanish national soccer team, and Tigres de Alicante, the soccer team from Tepic, the capital of Nayarit. The one Danny identified was of a baseball player, from the Texas Rangers. He tried to see it in person, but the authorities still wouldn’t let him. They told him that DNA would be taken in the next few days to make the comparisons, but that the process “will take a long time”: “They told us it could take years.” The Jalisco Attorney General’s Office has encouraged families to review the list to try to expedite identification, but has warned that “the discovery of this evidence does not, under any circumstances, confirm the identity or current status of potential victims.”

Verónica Reséndiz still doesn’t dare dig into the Teuchitlán inventory. “I haven’t seen all the shoes. I’m scared,” she says, “I want to find my son, but I’m also afraid of finding him like this and not being able to see him again.” Marco Antonio Ponce was 25 years old when he vanished on May 30, 2020, from Ciudad Madero, Tamaulipas. His dinner was left unfinished inside his home, but his mother couldn’t find a trace of him: drones, dogs, security cameras, and searches by neighbors proved futile. “Nothing,” she says. She always suspected the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, since a member of the criminal group had threatened her son when he was working at a refinery in Tamuín (San Luis Potosí). “The shoes are what I can identify him with. But to think about what comes next...” It all begins and ends with those electric blue sneakers.

The publication of this catalog is an unprecedented exercise in a country with more than 5,600 registered clandestine graves. Some of them are enormous, such as La Bartolina in Tamaulipas, where authorities began uncovering half a ton of bones in 2021, and the number continues to rise. Or the network of dozens of graves in Colinas de Santa Fe in Veracruz, where the remains of more than 300 people were recovered. In the Guadalajara metropolitan area alone, the investigative media outlet Zona Docs reported the location of 28 “extermination sites” in 2019. This is the name given to places where people are held, tortured, and often murdered. The horror was known, but Teuchitlán has brought it into raw focus.

The discovery by searchers of the evidence at the ranch — after it was raided in September 2024 by the National Guard and the Jalisco Prosecutor’s Office and presumably impounded — has brought the tragedy of disappearances to the forefront of politics. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has implemented a series of measures to address the crisis, such as unifying the uncontrolled identification records — starting with the data held by prosecutors’ offices and forensic services so that information can be cross-referenced — equating the crime of disappearance with kidnapping, and strengthening the National Search Commission. She also announced several initiatives — such as not waiting 72 hours to file a report — that were already law.

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