24 April 1989 released on 24 April 2019 after 30 years on prison.
Claudia Mijangos Azrac (born 25 May 1956) is a Mexican woman who was convicted of filicide.[1] In April 1989, Mijangos stabbed her three children to death declaring she was obliged by a diabolical entity that possessed her.[2] She was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and temporal lobe epilepsy. Therefore, she was sentenced to 30 years in prison, the maximum sentence for such a crime in Mexico.[3][4] Mijangos was released from prison in 2019 and admitted to a psychiatric clinic.[5]
According to local legends, the house where she committed the crime is haunted. The site was televised by the Mexican paranormal television program, Extranormal[6] and by the Mexican parapsychologist Carlos Trejo.
Background
Claudia Mijangos was born on 25 May 1956 in Sinaloa, Mexico,[7] where she was raised in an upper-middle-class family. In her youth, she was named beauty queen of her hometown of Mazatlán.[5] After graduating in commerce, she married Alfredo Castaños Gutiérrez. They had three children. After the death of her parents, the family inherited a sizable amount of money and moved to Querétaro City, Querétaro.[8] There, the three children were enrolled in the Catholic school Colegio Fray Luis de León, where Claudia Mijangos worked as a catechism teacher.[5][9] Claudia later opened a clothing store downtown.[5]
In the late 1980s, Claudia and her husband Alfredo began to develop marital problems. She began to display signs of emotional instability, according to relatives and friends. The couple attended marriage counseling with Dr. Jaime Flores of Instinto Asesino, a television show on Discovery Channel Mexico. Dr. Flores asserted that the power struggle apparent within the marriage was irreconcilable. Shortly after, Claudia became obsessed with Father Ramón, another teacher at the Colegio Fray Luis de León.[10] Claudia and Alfredo separated in 1989.
When Claudia was 33 years old, she began to experience severe psychotic attacks in the months preceding the murders. These attacks reportedly involved hallucinations of demons and angels which left Claudia psychologically tormented.
On April 23, 1989, Claudia's husband picked up their children from a school fair and brought them to Claudia's house.[8] There, Castaños and Claudia engaged in an intense argument.[5] He probed her about Father Ramon and articulated his desire to get back together. Furious, Claudia defended Father Ramon and rejected Castaños's desire to rekindle their relationship. Before he left, Claudia threatened Castaños saying he would be sorry.[11] After locking the door behind him, Claudia went upstairs to tuck her children in bed and went to sleep.
A few hours later on April 24, 1989, at around four in the morning, Claudia awoke to loud voices in her head. She stated that the voices told her Mazatlan had disappeared and that "all of Queretaro was a spirit". Desperate, Claudia called her friend Veronica Vazquez who asked Claudia to calm down. Veronica promised to come in the morning to help her. Following the call, Claudia got out of bed, dressed, went to the kitchen and took three knives while her children were still sleeping.
At about five in the morning Claudia woke up her 6-year-old son Alfredo and attacked him with a knife. Leaning on his bed, she grabbed his left hand and completely amputated it. Alfredo screamed out which awoke his eldest sister, 11-year-old Claudia Maria, came to the room and begged her mother to stop. Switching knives, Claudia rushed over her eldest daughter and stabbed her six times. Wounded, Claudia María managed to leave the room and loudly pleaded her mother for mercy. The screams woke the neighbors. Claudia took the third knife and stabbed her nine-year-old daughter Ana Belén in the heart. Claudia ran downstairs, searching for Claudia Maria who had fainted on the dining room floor and stabbed her again. She then dragged her upstairs and placed her lifeless body in the master bedroom.[4]
Crime scene and evidence
Pictures taken in the crime site
The dress that Mijangos used during the murders.
Bed in the principal room, there she placed the bodies.
Knives set in the kitchen, the weapons that she used are not shown.
References
^Rosado, Isaías (April 24, 2015). "A 26 años del caso Mijangos" [To 26 years of the Mijangos case]. ADN Informativo (in Spanish). Queretaro, Queretaro. Archived from the original on May 31, 2016. Retrieved May 28, 2016.
^Pino, Ángeles (September 16, 2011). "La trágica historia de Claudia Mijangos" [The tragic history of Claudia Mijangos]. El Universal (in Spanish). Mexico City. Retrieved May 28, 2016.
^"Claudia Mijangos, la Hiena de Queretaro". Escrito con sangre (in Spanish). Escrito con sangre blogspot. Retrieved May 28, 2016. El diagnóstico fue epilepsia del lóbulo temporal, acompañado de esquizofrenia, por lo que se suspendió el proceso penal ordinario y se acordó aplicar una medida de seguridad de 30 años de prisión...
^ ab"Claudia Mijangos, la Hiena de Queretaro". Escrito con sangre (in Spanish). Escrito con sangre blogspot. Retrieved May 28, 2016. Hubo rumores y artículos de periódico afirmando que había salido de prisión y se había ido del estado, pero no era verdad...
^Rampoldi, Juan Manuel (director); Ayala, Héctor (pollee); Castellanos, Rigoberto (pollee) (February 2011). Instinto asesino. Temporada 2, Cap. 5: La Hiena de Querétaro [Instinto asesino. Season 2, Chapter 5: The Hyena of Queretaro] (Television production) (in Spanish). Discovery Channel - Endemol Argentina. Event occurs at First part of video. Retrieved May 29, 2016. Por la cercanía de Querétaro con el DF, buscando una mejor calidad de vida, muchas parejas jóvenes deciden radicarse en está ciudad durante los 80s. (...) Claudia Mijangos nace en Mazatlán era hija de una familia acomodada. Sus padres fallecen y le dejan una herencia a Claudia, muy generosa. Ella en ese momento estaba casada con Alfredo Castaños y tenía 3 hijos... (...) (Ayala, Héctor. 2011) ... Colegio Fray Luis de León. Ella tenía 3 hijos en el colegio, en la primaria también era miembr de un grupo de madres catequistas... (Castellanos, Rigoberto. 2011)
^Rampoldi, Juan Manuel (director); Dr. Flores, Jaime (pollee); Castellanos, Rigoberto (pollee) (February 2011). Instinto asesino. Temporada 2, Cap. 5: La Hiena de Querétaro [Instinto asesino. Season 2, Chapter 5: The Hyena of Queretaro] (Television production) (in Spanish). Discovery Channel - Endemol Argentina. Event occurs at First part of video. Retrieved May 29, 2016. Una vez que se establece en Querétaro abre una tienda de ropa exclusiva para mujeres. (Narrator) A mi me tocó atender al Sr. Alfredo Castaños y a la Sra. Claudia Mijangos comomo terapeuta de pareja. Ellos tenían una lucha de poder, en donde ceder significaba ponerse uno debajo del otro por ello se negaban a ceder uno frente al otro... (Dr. Flores, Jaime. 2011) Pues ella buscaba disolver su matrimonio por la Iglesia, durante eses platicas me di cuenta que a veces ella se transformaba, ella no era ella, después de un rato ya se comportaba como normalmente... (Castellanos, Rigoberto. 2011). También se expeculaba que ella tuvo una relación con el padre Ramón. (Ayala, Héctor. 2011)
