The hunt for the alleged killer of Spanish student Claudia Tacoronte in Morelos

The residents were gathered Saturday afternoon drinking coffee inside the house when they heard the first screams. “Help, help!” A young woman had been mugged and stabbed beside the Casa de la Cultura in downtown Cuautla, in the state of Morelos in central Mexico. It was Claudia Tacoronte, a Spanish exchange student at the Autonomous University of the State of Morelos (UAEM). Security cameras in the building, footage from which EL PAÍS has seen, recorded a man wearing a white T‑shirt and carrying a black backpack. First he walks by and stops. Then he disappears from the footage for about a minute before being seen again, running. A camera from another angle captures that entire run. It is 8.50 p.m. At 10.12 p.m., a Facebook video from local outlet 45 Digital Noticias shows the young woman on the ground. The reporter calls for an ambulance and asks for help: “To any residents who see a person with a white jacket or sweatshirt and a black backpack on Los Pinos street heading toward Santa Inés, notify the authorities or detain them, please.”

Claudia Tacoronte had arrived in Mexico from Spain in mid‑August on an exchange program at UAEM. She was 21 and studying early childhood education at the University of Granada. She came to the Cuernavaca campus under an agreement between the two institutions that has been in place since 2023. That Saturday, she decided to travel with a classmate to Cuautla to attend a medicinal plants fair, an event of workshops and talks about 30 miles from the state capital, where she lived.

Local residents say that shortly after 8.30 p.m. the young woman was walking down a street in the city center when she was attacked. “They stabbed the girl and she managed to get into the Casa de la Cultura. It was a robbery. Neighbors here say it was a robbery or an attempted robbery,” the local reporter says in a live video, noting that the woman was able to run, take refuge in the public building and scream. That is when more people rushed to help her.

The reporter from 45 Digital Noticias adds that the attacker also ran off, that people tried to follow him, but “he had the advantage.” That is why the reporter repeatedly describes what he was wearing and in which direction he ran, hoping one of his 43,000 social media followers might help identify him: “He’s wearing a white sweatshirt. Dark backpack. He has just wounded a young woman.”

Besides asking for help, the reporter expresses outrage that authorities had taken “half an hour to respond” to the calls for assistance. “We kept calling the emergency numbers and they didn’t answer. They sent us to voicemail, put us on hold,” the reporter says. In the footage recorded that night, a body can be seen lying on the floor inside the Casa de la Cultura, with several people gathered around, protecting her. “The girl is in very bad shape,” the man acknowledges. During the seven minutes of the recording, an ambulance and a police patrol car are seen arriving.

Medical emergency personnel were unable to save Claudia, who has become the fourth UAEM student murdered in the past seven months. Her case has shocked both countries and authorities on both sides of the Atlantic have vowed “to see this through.” Meanwhile, a man in white with a black backpack remains wanted by police.

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