A name: Juana Barraza Samperio. The sentence: 759 years in prison. Crimes: 17 murders of elderly women in Mexico City and 12 robberies. One of the first serial killers in modern Mexican history. Facts. The biography of the so-called “Mataviejitas” could be told as a bureaucratic and judicial file, like those found in the stagnant archives of any government.
The case of Juana Barraza resurfaced in recent weeks after an incident in which an elderly woman, Doña Carlota, burst in with gunshots against a family that supposedly had taken possession of her house.
Juana Barraza’s case is much more serious.
When thinking about serial killers, one’s mind often recalls the files of Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, and John Wayne Gacy, or Harold Shipman, among others. Thinking about female serial killers is less common, but names like Aileen Carol Wuornos or the Countess and relative of Vlad Tepes, Erzsébet Báthory, with over 600 deaths, as well as Felícitas Sánchez Aguillón, the “Ogresa” of the Roma neighborhood, are part of the history of horror, alongside Barraza Samperio.
From ‘técnica’ to ‘ruda’
The profile of Juana Barraza, from “technician” to “rough” in the jargon of Mexican wrestling, is not understood without her brief time as a “ring expert.” Pause. After nearly two hours of La dama del silencio (The Lady of Silence), this remains in doubt. Despite having a professional team and a pink outfit with a butterfly, as well as a championship and an artistic name, her former colleagues question her wrestling career. They claim that Barraza never stepped into the ring at Arena San Juan in Nezahualcóyotl, despite having seen photos or training sessions.
A childhood filled with physical and psychological abuse by her mother, who sold her to the highest bidder, as well as the separation from her partner, were moments that, according to Barraza’s own account, led her to be known as the “Mataviejitas” (Old Woman Killer). “I hated the old ladies because my mother mistreated me, hit me, always cursed me, and gave me away to an old man,” she declared on one occasion. A 48-year-old woman, in that distant January of 2006, who dressed in red when she killed. She would knock on doors and present herself as a social worker, only to end the day by tying up and strangling more than a dozen elderly women.
Barraza Samperio stood out for changing her hair color once a week, constantly moving houses with her two children, and inviting drinks and food to her friends. A facade that raised no suspicion of her crimes.
All of this ended on January 25, 2006, after she murdered 89-year-old Ana María de los Reyes Alfaro. Her modus operandi involved busy streets in the city, which played a key role in her escape, and proximity to parks where she could monitor elderly people. However, on this occasion, she didn’t realize that the octogenarian did not live alone and had a tenant. She was found at 21 José I. Jasso Street, in the Moctezuma neighborhood, on the eastern side of the city, by 25-year-old José Joel López González. This led to her arrest.
The days in prison for Mataviejitas
After a sentence of more than seven centuries, Barraza Samperio’s life has been spent preparing tacos three days a week at Santa Martha Acatitla, a marriage and divorce with another inmate between 2015 and 2016—a relationship that lasted only one year, as they met only three times—and the memory of her story embedded in a song by Mexican singer Amandititita.
