Mexico City, Mexico — The bodies of activist Sandra Domínguez and her husband Alexander Hernández were found in Veracruz, Mexico on April 24, six months after their disappearance on October 8, authorities reported on Monday.
Domínguez had exposed corruption and pornographic chats involving high-ranking officials from her home state of Oaxaca, southeastern Mexico. Her work as a human rights defender not only revealed how government officials shared explicit material of Indigenous women without their consent, but also put her life at risk, as she had been receiving death threats for the past four years.
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On April 24, officials from Oaxaca’s Prosecutor’s Office located the two bodies on a ranch in Santiago Sochiapan, Veracruz, about 87 miles from San Juan Cotzocón in Oaxaca, where the couple was last seen.
Following an operation on January 29 in which security forces raided “El Capricho” ranch in an attempt to arrest the property’s owner — the main suspect in the couple’s disappearance — authorities discovered the graves concealing the two bodies, along with heavy weaponry, including AR-15 and AK-47 assault rifles believed to have been used by the suspects.
The raid led to a shootout between Mexican security forces and the suspects, resulting in the deaths of the ranch owner, two of his accomplices, and a state police officer.
Authorities stated that a criminal syndicate based in Veracruz was both the intellectual and material author of Domínguez and Hernández’s disappearance and murder. A woman has been arrested and is being held in pretrial detention for her alleged involvement.
Human rights defender, colleague, and friend of Domínguez, Joaquín Galván, has taken to social media to express his doubts about the investigation’s outcome and the government’s role in her disappearance.
“I can’t yet say definitively that the state disappeared and murdered Sandra, but I can say that she was disappeared and murdered by organized crime and government operators from Oaxaca whom she had denounced,” he said in a video.
According to Galván, who has supported Domínguez’s family and pressured authorities to pursue the case since her disappearance, the state prosecutor’s office promoted a persistent narrative that criminalized Domínguez’s husband while shielding state officials who may have been involved in the couple’s disappearance and murders.
“It’s striking that the main suspect in her disappearance was killed during the operation, striking that one of those arrested was a police officer, and striking to see the funding of media outlets and bots trying to criminalize her and push the official version,” he continued.
Early in the investigation, authorities claimed that Domínguez’s husband had ties to local organized crime and linked the disappearance to his alleged criminal activity.
While promising to explore other leads — including Domínguez’s activism and the death threats she received — the prosecution largely dismissed her investigations into high-ranking officials from Oaxaca.
In 2020 and again in 2023, Domínguez reported that senior officials from the Oaxaca state government, controlled by the ruling MORENA political party, had participated in WhatsApp chats where explicit sexual content involving Indigenous women — especially from the Mixe community — was shared without their consent.
According to Galván, Domínguez had also been investigating possible connections between those same government officials and organized crime.
“But little is known about the fact that several of the officials she denounced have ties to organized crime — the same organized crime that disappeared her in that region,” Galván said on social media.
According to the activist, “Domínguez’s story is just beginning,” and he has vowed to seek justice for his friend and colleague.
“When the interests of the state and organized crime find a common enemy, what happened to Sandra Domínguez is what happens,” he added.
