Juan Soldado: Rapist, Murderer, Martyr, Saint. PAUL J. VANDERWOOD, Durham: Duke University Press, 2004.

Abstract

In 1938, eight-year-old Olga Camacho left her home in Tijuana for the corner store. She did not return. After a frenzied search of the neighborhood, her body was found. Olga had been raped, her throat slashed. A young soldier assigned to Tijuana, Juan Castillo Morales, was soon arrested and accused of the crime. He supposedly confessed and, shortly thereafter, was publicly executed by the military: taken to a cemetery, surrounded by his fellow soldiers and an angry public, he was told to run, and then shot in the back. Within weeks of the execution, residents of Tijuana began to transform the accused murderer into a martyr, from Juan Castillo Morales to Juan Soldado.