When Rafael Caro Quintero, who was a Mexican drug lord in the 1980s, was arrested in Mexico this week, the news rekindled old and terrible memories for Lannie Walker, daughter of American writer John Clay Walker. Enrique “Kiki” Camarena and Mexican pilot Alfredo Zavala Avelar in 1985, their gang allegedly murdered up to six U.S. citizens in the Mexican city of Guadalajara around the same time. One of them was John Clay Walker, a writer who was then 36 years old and had moved to Guadalajara to finish a book.” We were very happy to hear that (Caro Quintero) had been captured, and it also reopened a great trauma for us,” Lannie Walker said. “My sister and I have lost almost 40 years without our father, there is nothing that can make up for that,” said Lannie.The American writer and his friend Alberto Radelat, a dentist student from Fort Worth, Texas, had entered an exclusive seafood restaurant in Guadalajara to celebrate Walker’s planned return to the Unidos.No states expected Caro Quintero and his collaborators to be holding a private party in a room in the back of the restaurant.” Our father was a U.S. citizen with no involvement in the U.S.-Mexico drug war, he was an innocent bystander who unknowingly caught in the fire of a dangerous drug cartel,” said Lannie Walker. They began questioning my father and Al, asking them what they knew about the anti-drug agents in Mexico, what they knew about the investigation. My father knew nothing, he was an innocent writer. They tortured him with an ice pick for an hour,” said Walker.Mike Vigil, the DEA’s former director of international operations, said that “Caro Quintero was one of those individuals who as he now had power, had wealth, crossed the line many times in terms of the people he killed.” On what happened at the restaurant, Vigil said that “they looked and saw the two Americans and immediately their paranoia made them think they were DEA agents. They took him to the back and stabbed him to death.” Radelat and Walker’s bodies were found wrapped in a rug in June 1985, nearly five months after their disappearance. In December 1984, two young American couples went door-to-door in Guadalajara in an attempt to expand their faith as Jehovah’s Witnesses. All four were kidnapped and never seen again. Two state police officers later said they had helped kidnap and murder the couples on the orders of Caro Quintero and another capo, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo. Apparently they had knocked on the door of Fonseca Carrillo without knowing it when they tried to evangelize. Vigil, who was in Mexico and worked on Camarena’s case at the time, explained why the investigation focused on the dea agent’s murder. I think the DEA focused on the case of Kiki Camarena and then on the drug trafficking charges. I don’t think the DEA, not that they weren’t interested in the other murders, but it probably would have fallen perhaps into the jurisdiction of another agency.” One of the things we focused a lot on was bringing these people to justice, simply because the DEA is committed that if one of our agents is killed, we will pursue those people to the end of the world, and we will not pay attention to expenses or any activity we have to do to get it.” Said. Lannie Walker said that “if Caro Quintero is extradited to the United States and convicted and punished here, that would be a bit of justice.” That probably won’t happen anytime soon. Caro Quintero’s lawyers appealed to the court — and the judge agreed — to make sure he goes through the entire extradition process and has the ability to file appropriate appeals if necessary. The extradition of former Sinaloa cartel kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman took a year. We recommend you read:
“We have hope,” Walker said. “But we are well aware of how the Mexican government and the Mexican judicial system have worked, as far as our father’s case is concerned so far. So we have hope, but we are nervous that what happened in 2013 could happen again,” he said, alluding to a misguided decision by a Mexican appeals court that allowed him to leave prison until his capture this month.
VIDEO of Caro Quintero just before entering the Altiplano Prison in Edomex
