Missing man from Border Report special confirmed dead

JUAREZ, Mexico (Border Report) – Mexican authorities say they have identified the remains of a young man whose disappearance was reported last year on the special “Border Report:” Death, Denial and a Region Under Siege.

According to the Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office, DNA tests have determined that one of the six skeletal remains found in March on a vacant lot in a neighborhood less than a mile from the Rio Grande and the U.S. border wall was that of Christian Gael Candia Casillas.

Candia, 19, was reported missing by his mother last September after leaving work at a lumber yard, disappearing in a neighborhood where police have unearthed the bodies of 21 people since late last year.

The Attorney General’s Office said four of the six skeletal remains were matched to relatives through DNA testing. They include Candia, Brayan Eduardo CA, Brayan Alberto VS and Miguel Eduardo PR. The men disappeared between 2019 and 2023.

The Attorney General’s office told Border Report that the remains had been released to family members for burial. An autopsy determined that Candia was strangled. The four cases have been classified as homicides and remain under investigation. No suspects have been arrested.

El Valle de Juarez, as the neighborhoods and Mexican farming communities of Juarez across the border from Socorro, San Elizario, Fabens and Tornillo in Texas are called, has been the scene of widespread drug cartel activity over the past 15 years.

El Paso immigration attorney Carlos Spector has provided Border Report with numerous testimonies from clients who sought asylum in the United States after members of the Sinaloa Cartel killed their relatives or drove them from their homes in El Valle de Juarez.

A shootout last August left four people dead as rival drug gangs allegedly fought for control of a new highway that would run from the southern tip of Juarez to the Marcelino Serna border crossing in Tornillo, Texas.

Throughout Juarez, drug gangs are expanding the domestic drug trade. Several cases have been documented in which drug gangs raided the homes of rivals and killed not only their competitors but also their retail customers.

State officials said the investigation into Candia’s death is ongoing, but no suspects have been arrested.