This World

Killer's Paradise (2006x5)

Air date: May 04, 2006

Two women are murdered every day in Guatemala and many are hideously mutilated. In 2005, 665 women were killed - more than 20% up on the previous year and 10 times the equivalent rate in the UK. But in Guatemala, not one killer has been caught. There is no fingerprint or DNA database, no crime or victim profiling and no real forensic science. No one investigates and witnesses do not talk. So why, after 36 years of civil war, are the guns and the knives being turned on women? And who is responsible for these murders? Some people point to the street gangs, while others blame domestic violence or serial killers. But no one really knows because the crimes are not investigated. Is this just incompetence? Or is the justice system in Guatemala designed to protect the guilty? The award-winning team of Olenka Frenkiel and Giselle Portenier follow the search of those who still believe they can find justice, and those who have lost all hope that the killers of their loved ones can be caught. Who shot law student Claudina Velasquez? Who tortured and killed 13-year-old Stephanie Lopez? And who murdered the nameless woman whose dismembered body was found in a refuse sack? Someone knows... but no one will tell.