Mexican teen at center of gender violence outcry was asphyxiated, third autopsy shows

Authorities initially suggested Escobar died after falling into the well on the grounds of a roadside motel outside the city of Monterrey as she was returning home from a party. State attorney general Gustavo Guerrero also said in late April that Escobar's death was due to "a profound contusion to the skull." Escobar's father criticized investigators for their inability to find his daughter's body and cast doubt on their version of the events leading to her death. The family later hired independent investigators to carry out a second autopsy, which found Escobar had been sexually assaulted and murdered.

A young Mexican woman whose body was found in a well in the northern state of Nuevo Leon in April died of "asphyxia by suffocation," authorities said Monday, contradicting the state's earlier findings and adding to doubts over the conduct of the investigation. The results of a third autopsy were presented on Monday in the case of Debanhi Escobar, 18, who vanished when returning home from a party April 9.

Escobar's case became a national scandal when investigators took almost two weeks to find her body, which was located just meters away from where she was last seen. Authorities initially suggested Escobar died after falling into the well on the grounds of a roadside motel outside the city of Monterrey as she was returning home from a party.

State attorney general Gustavo Guerrero also said in late April that Escobar's death was due to "a profound contusion to the skull." Escobar's father criticized investigators for their inability to find his daughter's body and cast doubt on their version of the events leading to her death.

The family later hired independent investigators to carry out a second autopsy, which found Escobar had been sexually assaulted and murdered. Authorities then exhumed Debanhi's body in order to conduct the third autopsy, which contradicted elements of both the state's original autopsy, as well as the independent one.

It found Escobar died of asphyxia, not blunt force trauma to the head. It also did not find evidence that she had been sexually assaulted. Escobar's vanishing came amid a spate of other disappearances in the region and sparked protests across Mexico, where an estimated 10 women are killed a day.