The case of a Canadian woman assaulted in a Mazatlan hotel last month refuses to die down, with the plot thickening on a seemingly daily basis.
Last weekend, a Mexican man admitted to the attack and the case appeared to be closed. Now the defendant claims he has been made a fall guy.
Jose Ramon Acosta Quintero, 28, says he was tortured into confessing by Sinaloa police who, amid rising concern over tourist safety in Mexico, were under pressure to solve the case quickly.
Acosta has retracted his confession, telling a judge on Tuesday that state investigators coerced him into admitting responsiblity for the brutal attack that left Sheila Nabb, 37, in a coma for several days.
A Mazatlan resident who also goes by the alias El Ray, Acosta was arrested last Friday and paraded before reporters the following day to admit his guilt. The suspect repeated a statement in Spanish and English, saying he was drunk and high on cocaine when he encountered Nabb, naked, in the hotel elevator.
Acosta said he had spent the day drinking heavily with a Canadian friend. After running out of beer, they went to the hotel’s 24-hour bar which provides free drinks to guests. He “was very, very drunk,” having consumed 19 alcoholic beverages and a line of cocaine when Nabb entered the elevator he was in.
Acosta said they chatted normally but then argued when he tried to stop her leaving the elevator. The accused said he panicked when Nabb started yelling for help and then punched her several times in the face.
Acosta had no cuts or bruises on his hands when a reporter at the press conference asked him to display them, despite having allegedly broken nearly every bone in Nabb’s face with his bare fists. He now says this confession was made under coercion, with police fabricating details in statements he was forced to sign.
“Things that they put in, they added, that I never said or did. I signed off on it anyway, because that day, they hit me, they gave me electric shock, they slapped me, they kicked me, everything,” Acosta said at a pre-trial hearing on Tuesday.
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