In 2014, the Zetas drug cartel was at war with their former bosses, the Gulf cartel. Constant sh00t-outs between the rival gangs forced many bars and restaurants in the city to close their doors.
In order to afford weapons and ammo, the cartels needed money. One of the easiest ways to get money was by abducting people and demanding ransom money from their victim’s families.
At the time, Miriam Rodríguez owned a cowboy apparel shop in the city called Rodeo Boots. Though her two other children left San Fernando because of the danger, her 20-year-old daughter Karen stayed to finish school and help her mom with the shop.
On January 23, 2014, The Zetas abducted Karen while driving. Two trucks pulled up on either side of her, from which armed men forced their way into her truck, took control of the vehicle, and took off. The Zetas were notorious for being one of the most brutally violent cartels in the country.
What followed were weeks of calls back and forth between the cartel. The Rodríguez family sent multiple ransoms, fulfilling the Cartel’s every demand and following their instructions to a ‘t’. Sadly, the cartel never returned Karen to her family.
A few weeks after the final payment, Miriam’s older daughter Azalea told The New York Times that her mother, who had moved in with her, came downstairs and stated that Karen was most likely dead
Miriam Rodriguez then said that she would avenge her daughter’s murder and planned to hunt down those involved with Karen’s death and bring them to justice.
From that day, Miriam set out to use every angle she could to track down information about her daughter’s kidnapping. Within the year, her super-sleuthing eventually led the authorities to an abandoned ranch where Karen’s remains were found among dozens of other victims of Zeta’s kidnapping ring.
Over the next three years, Miriam successfully tracked down 10 of the gang members involved in her daughter’s murder – each one was put in jail. She cut her hair and dyed it red. She pretended to be various people, got close to friends and family members of her targets to get information, and even impersonated government officials to get what she needed. Even followed them, learned their schedules, and then took them down and had them thrown in jail.
As everyone suspected, her campaign for justice did not go unnoticed by the cartels. She was disrupting everything that the cartels had worked so hard to put in place in San Fernando.
“I don’t care if they kill me,” Mrs. Rodríguez once said. “I died the day they killed my daughter. I want to end this. I’m going to take out the people who hurt my daughter and they can do whatever they want to me.”
In March 2017, a couple of dozen prisoners escaped from the penitentiary in Victoria where many of the cartel members Miriam Rodriguez had helped to detain were held.
On Mother’s Day, ironically returning home from putting another person involved with her daughter’s murder behind bars, a group of those escaped prisoners sh0t and kil;led her right on her front lawn.
Miriam’s community, though not entirely surprised by her assassination, grieved her death. As to be expected, however, fear of repercussions from the cartels caused her movement to fade.