Mexican Town Mourns Slain Md. Children

Sorrow, Questions Fill Village As 3 Bodies Arrive for Funeral

TENENEXPAN, Mexico, June 12 -- The small white coffins containing the bodies of three children brutally killed in Baltimore arrived Saturday in this grieving farming village for an all-night farewell by hundreds of townspeople and relatives.

"It is the saddest thing that has ever happened to this town," said Berta Bolanos, who operates a public telephone in this village of a few thousand, where many travel by donkey and cut mangos from trees in the searing sun for less than $200 a month.

"What we are going through is killing us. It hurts the soul," said Venancio Espejo, uncle of one of the slain children, Alexis Espejo, 10, who was decapitated May 27 in Baltimore. Two of his cousins, Lucero Quezada, 8, and Ricardo Espinoza, 9, were nearly decapitated in one of the city's most gruesome crimes, said Baltimore police, who have arrested two other relatives and charged them with first-degree murder.

"What can we do for the children? The only thing we can do is say a last goodbye," the uncle said.

The three coffins were driven in a five-hour funeral procession from Mexico City through majestic mountains and orchid-filled valleys to Tenenexpan, the home town of the children's parents. "Why, God? Why, God?" screamed Alexis's mother, Maria Andrea Espejo, beside the flower-covered coffin of her son. Minutes earlier, she had lifted the lid and fainted into the arms of relatives.

The bodies arrived by plane Friday in Mexico City. The children's final resting place, some 2,000 miles from the northwest Baltimore neighborhood where they were killed, is a gentle slope overlooking lush green fields.

The children's burial was planned for Sunday in the village's cemetery, where, as one relative said, "all of those who have left, ultimately return."

By some estimates, half the town has immigrated to the United States to seek better-paying jobs. A headline in the local paper read, "Tenenexpan weeps for Alexis, Ricardo, and Lucero." The article described the village, which has one main road and many dirt paths, as a "ghost town" because so many had abandoned it for work north of the border.

But Saturday, it was anything but abandoned as hundreds of relatives and friends arrived on foot and by donkey, car and taxi from nearby villages and faraway cities. The immediate family members who had been living in Baltimore illegally will be allowed to return temporarily to the United States after the funeral, U.S. immigration officials have said. Their testimony in the homicide cases will be needed in court. The Mexican government paid the cost of the families' and the bodies' return for the funeral.

"This has really brought the town together," said Leonora Lopez Lozano, who offered for the wake a large room her family once used. The room was decorated with candles, flowers and three crosses. After the coffins were lifted inside the room and teddy bears were placed inside, hundreds of mourners filed in. Many said they planned to spend the entire night before the coffins.

Lopez said that "even people who were not part of the family" brought tamales, chicken, bread and other food to feed the crowds.

Alexis and his mother, Espejo, left for the United States from Mexico City as recently as December, Lopez said. "Like many, she left with the illusion of going to the United States to make more money there," Lopez said.

She said that Espejo had been working as a secretary in a legal office in Mexico City, but that she complained of low wages and decided to risk crossing the U.S. border illegally with Alexis before Christmas. Lopez said that she didn't know exactly how they crossed, but that a typical route is to fly to Tijuana and cross near there.

Alexis and his mother came to Tenenexpan in November to celebrate the popular Mexican holiday the Day of the Dead, during which families honor deceased relatives. Several villagers recalled seeing Alexis, a cherubic boy with brown eyes and brown hair, enjoying the country life, rolling in the dirt near chickens.