Border Trilogy Part 3: What Remains

Summary

Radiolab – “Border Trilogy Part 3: What Remains”
WNYC Studios – Released April 20, 2018
Hosted by Jad Abumrad, Latif Nasser, Tracy Hunt

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Episode Overview

The final installment of Radiolab’s “Border Trilogy” addresses the brutal realities and human loss at the US-Mexico border. Through investigative storytelling and first-hand accounts, the episode follows the journey of a missing migrant named Marisela Zaguipoya, the process of identifying her remains, and the wrenching impact on her family—while questioning the effectiveness of the US border deterrence policy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Reality of Border Deaths: Inside the Medical Examiner’s Lab

• The episode begins in the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner in Arizona, where unidentified migrant remains from the Sonoran Desert arrive for forensic examination. Forensic anthropologist Bruce Anderson details the harrowing increase in border deaths since the early 2000s.

  "We're just crushed by the weight of all the dead and all the missing persons reports. It's like working a mass disaster when people are still dying and planes are still crashing around you."
  – Bruce Anderson, recounted by Jad Abumrad (05:22)

• Listeners hear about how animals, including vultures and dermestid (“hide”) beetles, participate in the decomposition process, making identification even more challenging.

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2. Marisela’s Story: From the Desert to Identification

• Anthropologist Jason De Leon and his students stumble upon the bloated body of an unidentified woman while conducting a research experiment with decomposing pigs (07:03).

  • The discovery is shocking for many students; the episode offers unflinching descriptions of the body's state after exposure in the desert.

  "Her body was incredibly bloated... to the point where it looked like it was about to pop from all the gases that had built up inside of her body cavity."
  – Jason De Leon (07:34)

  "The skin around the lips is stretched out of shape as though it had been melted... replaced by a stone colored ghoul stuck in mid scream. It's a look you can never get away from."
  – Jason De Leon (Book excerpt, read by Jad Abumrad, 09:56)

• Jason and his team document the body, then notify authorities, who eventually arrive to recover it after hours of waiting with the deceased.

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3. The Process of Identification

• Robin Reinecke of the Colibri Center for Human Rights, based in the Medical Examiner’s office, specializes in connecting missing persons reports with unidentified remains. She receives a call that helps narrow the identity of the woman found by Jason to a 31-year-old Ecuadorian woman, Marisela Zaguipoya, through matching timelines and characteristics (13:46).

• The identification process involves cross-referencing missing persons databases, working with international consulates, and forensic analysis of the remains.

  "She spends her days taking calls, going through voicemail... searching for missing family members who may have crossed the border."
  – Tracy Hunt (12:37)

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4. Marisela's Life and the Why Behind the Journey

• The narrative shifts to Marisela’s brother-in-law, Fernando, living in New York City, who shares intimate family memories and photos with reporter Tracy Hunt (19:06–21:03).

  • Marisela is depicted as a loving, determined mother of three enduring abject poverty in Ecuador.
  • The family’s desperation is palpable: their home is described as a “one-room plywood shack with a dirt floor,” and Marisela “told her relatives, ‘my kids are literally starving here’” (21:38).

• Pressure to provide a better life for her children drives Marisela’s decision to attempt the dangerous border crossing, even against her family's warnings.

  "Any sacrifice made is worth it for your kids."
  – Fernando, translating Marisela’s resolve (28:37)

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5. Fernando’s Migrant Journey and the Professionalization of Smuggling

• Fernando recounts his own harrowing migration experience ten years prior, detailing the high cost ($12,000 loan at 10% interest), perilous travel across south and Central America, and the abuses suffered en route (23:45–27:21).

  • He describes being detained in a hacienda with over 250 other migrants, held captive, and sexually assaulted by smugglers.

  "Once we were inside, they raped me three times... after that, I just wanted to die."
  – Fernando (27:21)

• The episode explores how US “prevention through deterrence” policies increased the costs and dangers of migration, funneling travelers to ever-more perilous routes.

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6. The Aftermath: Loss and the Limits of Deterrence

• Despite Fernando’s warnings about the dangers (including rape and deprivation), Marisela persists, ultimately making the journey alone (28:27–29:28).

• The family finally learns of her death via a consular call, devastating those she sought to help (29:53).

  • Jason, who found Marisela’s body, later brings photos to Fernando in New York City.

  "I saw all the photos. And the truth is that it tore me to pieces to see or imagine everything she had to endure in the desert... trying to keep going."
  – Fernando (31:12)

• Marisela’s body is sent to New York, her dream destination, for a wake before being returned to Ecuador for final burial. Fernando vows to care for her children as she would have wished (32:51).

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7. Policy Reflection & Continuing Tragedy

• The episode closes by highlighting the continued ineffectiveness of US border deterrence policies:

  • The Border Patrol budget and agent numbers have surged since 1990, but undocumented immigration has grown threefold, and deaths continue (33:40).

  "Prevention through deterrence as a strategy—it hasn't deterred people from coming to the US either... More people are dying along the way."
  – Jad Abumrad (33:40)

• One year after Marisela's death, her cousin Jose Tacuri went missing in the same desert. Jason De Leon commits to continue searching for missing migrants, using drones and every possible tool at his disposal (34:54–36:27).

  "I told his mom I won't stop looking for him. I'll do whatever I can, whatever little thing that I can do. And if I can't find him, well maybe I'll find somebody else."
  – Jason De Leon (36:00)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the relentless influx of unidentified bodies and the human toll:

  "We're just crushed by the weight of all the dead and all the missing persons reports."
  – Bruce Anderson (05:22)

• On the emotional aftermath of discovering Marisela:

  "Whatever beauty and humanity that once existed in her face has been replaced by a stone colored ghoul stuck in mid scream. It's a look you can never get away from."
  – Jason De Leon (09:56)

• On the motivations of migrants:

  "Any sacrifice made is worth it for your kids."
  – Fernando (28:37)

• On the inefficacy of border deterrence policies:

  "We have about five times as many Border Patrol agents... and yet the number of immigrants living here, undocumented, has more than tripled during that time."
  – Jad Abumrad (33:40)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Medical Examiner and rise in deaths: 03:03–05:22
• Discovery of Marisela’s body: 06:34–09:56
• Identification process and Colibri Center: 11:03–13:46
• Fernando’s family memories of Marisela and their struggles in Ecuador: 19:06–21:38
• Fernando’s migration journey & abuses en route: 23:45–27:44
• Marisela’s decision to travel despite warnings: 28:20–29:28
• Reactions to Marisela’s death, wake in NYC, promise to her children: 31:12–32:51
• Reflection on border policy effectiveness: 33:40
• The continuing search for missing migrants: 34:54–36:27

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Tone & Style

The episode is investigative yet deeply human, marked by empathy, unflinching honesty, and vivid description. Moments of raw emotion and personal reflection from the speakers bring to life the tragic consequences of border policies and the determination behind every migrant journey.

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Conclusion

“Border Trilogy Part 3: What Remains” offers a searing look at the aftermath of crossing the US-Mexico border, told through the story of Marisela and those searching for answers. It moves listeners from the sterile corridors of a morgue to the aching memories of a family, exposing both the policy failures and unbreakable bonds of love and sacrifice at the heart of the migration crisis.

Transcript

[Jad Abumrad]

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[Latif Nasser]

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[Jad Abumrad]

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[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

With Christmas right around the corner, treat.

[Jad Abumrad]

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[Tracy Hunt]

But.

[Jad Abumrad]

But otherwise. Here we go. Oh, wait, you're listening.

[Tracy Hunt]

Okay. All right.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay.

[Tracy Hunt]

All right. You're listening to Radio Lab.

[Latif Nasser]

Radio Lab from wnyc. So we come back here where you see you had another case.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, and this. What is, what are those hairs?

[Latif Nasser]

That's dried muscle.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, that's muscle.

[Latif Nasser]

Closest I can. The closest thing I can say is the muscle dries out so it gets stringy and shredded.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay, wait, wait, let's actually, let's just start from the beginning. Okay, so we are in. What room is this again?

[Latif Nasser]

We're in the special procedures room at the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner. And what we're looking at here is a case, mostly skeletal remains.

[Jad Abumrad]

So we have a skull, we have a few. We have some parts of the spine, it looks like, and then just two.

[Latif Nasser]

And all three major bones of the lower limb. So the two thigh bones, the femurs and the two tibias and the two fibulae, we know it's the male. He's an adult 20 to 30 to 40 year old migrant. He came in in late January, early February, and animals found him. Maybe 50% of his skeleton is missing. His upper limbs and his pelvis and most of his spine are missing and his hands and feet are missing. We have evidence here that a vulture was feeding, was feeding on the person.

[Jad Abumrad]

I don't know if this is.

[Latif Nasser]

That's a beetle. That's a dermestid beetle.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's a beetle.

[Latif Nasser]

It's called a hide beetle. They're found globally and these hide beetles specialize in eating dried hard tissue.

[Jad Abumrad]

So he's still eating?

[Latif Nasser]

Yes, he is.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wow.

[Latif Nasser]

He was in the body bag. He and his colony would have been on the body. Wow. In the body bag. And although we try to get most of them off during our exam, you can see there's lots of little crevices where a single bug could be.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

Wow.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, wow, that's so. Yeah.

[Tracy Hunt]

Wow.

[Jad Abumrad]

I'm Chad Abumrad. I'm Robert Krulwich, this is Radiolab. And today we present the final episode of our Border trilogy with producers Latif Nasser and Tracy Hunt. And this is episode three, which we're calling what Remains.

[Tracy Hunt]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay, so just to catch everyone up, here's Latif, the person I was just talking to. His name is Bruce Anderson. He's a forensic anthropologist at the Pima County Office of the Medical examiner in Arizona, which is where when they find a body of a unidentified migrant in the Sonoran Desert, that's where they bring them. And, and Bruce had been working there, you know, on and off since the 1980s. But he told me that it was only in the early 2000s that he started seeing, you know, just more and more and more of these migrant bodies. Being brought in and we're just crushed.

[Latif Nasser]

By the weight of all the dead and all the missing persons reports. And, you know, you're. It's like working a mass disaster when people are still dying and planes are still crashing around you and you, you throw your hands up in the air sometimes and you just think, when's it gonna stop?

[Jad Abumrad]

And it hasn't stopped. The number of bodies found last year was in the same range as the year before. The number of people crossing did go down after Donald Trump's inauguration, but traffic has basically rebounded. So people are still coming through the desert. They're not being deterred. Which made us wonder, is deterrence that fundamental idea behind our current border policy? Is it even possible now? In some ways, that's a policy question which we talked about in our last episode, but it's also a human question. Is Jason still there?

[Latif Nasser]

I'm still here.

[Jad Abumrad]

And that's what led us back to the person who we started this whole journey with, the anthropologist Jason De Leon. Alright, can you hear Latif too?

[Latif Nasser]

I sure can.

[Jad Abumrad]

Good morning. Oh, good morning. Fantastic. Well, I feel like maybe we should just start off where we left off, which is that you were going to tell us the story of Marisela.

[Latif Nasser]

Sure.

[Jad Abumrad]

When was this, by the way?

[Latif Nasser]

This would have been June of 2012.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay.

[Latif Nasser]

So we had been about two weeks into the pig experiment.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is a series of experiments where Jason and his team, mostly students, looked at how pigs decompose in the desert in order to understand how people decompose in the desert.

[Latif Nasser]

And it wasn't until about two weeks into this experiment where we were out hiking one day with a group of.

[Jad Abumrad]

About nine people down in Southern Arizona.

[Latif Nasser]

And so on this particular day, on this trail that I had hiked many, many times, a student had run ahead to check stuff out and was taking pictures of us as we were walking up this hill. He turns around, starts yelling at us, he says, hey, you gotta come up here. Something has happened. So I threw my backpack down and I race up this hill. And by the time I get up there, I see that, that he's kind of staring at this body that's just laying face down in the dirt on this trail.

[Jad Abumrad]

Like a fully intact body. Yeah, a woman's body.

[Latif Nasser]

You could tell it was a woman because she had long hair. You know, she's wearing camouflage clothes, stretch pants, women's running shoes on, she's got a scrunchie around her wrist. But the rest of it, I mean, her body was incredibly bloated. I mean, to the point where it looked like it was about to. To pop from all of the gases that had built up inside of her body cavity. I didn't know what to do at this point. I mean, you know, the students start walking up. I mean, these are young students. We had someone in the group who was 18, 19.

[Jad Abumrad]

For some of the students, this is the first time they've seen a dead body. One of them was crying.

[Latif Nasser]

I tell everyone, I say, hey, look, you got to go sit down and give me a second here to figure out what it is we're going to do here.

[Jad Abumrad]

So first he called the police.

[Latif Nasser]

We did that, and then we kind of had a conversation. Are we going to photograph this person? Are we going to record any information? Are we still doing research right now?

[Jad Abumrad]

And Jason decided, yeah, we should. We should document this.

[Latif Nasser]

You know, we took some notes down. Gray to green discoloration about what she was wearing. Brown to black discoloration of arms and legs.

[Jad Abumrad]

Took some pictures of the body.

[Latif Nasser]

Her fingers have started to curl. Her ankles are swollen to the point that her sneakers seem ready to pop off. There's a steady hissing of intestinal gases. And then it just got to the point where I was like, okay, this is enough. I don't want to do this anymore.

[Jad Abumrad]

And so they covered her with a blanket because Jason noticed the birds circling overhead. Four turkey vultures. And so at that point, they just sort of sat down and waited for.

[Latif Nasser]

The police to come, the sheriff.

[Jad Abumrad]

An hour went by, two, three, four.

[Latif Nasser]

Just waiting with the body.

[Jad Abumrad]

It was about five hours in that a sheriff and three border patrol agents show up. And they had hiked three miles to get to Jason with a stretcher. And so they bring the stretcher. The sheriff puts on gloves. He asks them a few questions, like, did you guys put the blanket on there? And then they roll her into this white body bag. And as the authorities do that, Jason. Because she was face down, Jason gets to see her face for the first time. And so he writes a paragraph in his book, and it's pretty gruesome, but I'm gonna read to you the paragraph that he writes about it in his book. As her body turns, I see what is left of her face. It is frightening and unrecognizable as human. The mouth is a gnarled purple and black hole that obscures the rest of her features.

[Latif Nasser]

I can't see her eyes because the mouth is too hard to look away from. The skin around the lips is stretched out of shape as though it had been melted. Her nose is Smashed in and pushed up. She died face down. And the flesh on the front side of her skull has softened and contorted to fit around the dirt and rocks beneath her. The scene is a pastiche of metallic gray and pea green. Whatever beauty and humanity that once existed in her face has been replaced by a stone colored ghoul stuck in mid scream. It's a look you can never get away from. After this thing had happened. And it really, it just shook me in a lot of different ways.

[Jad Abumrad]

Jason says he just couldn't shake the question, who was this woman? How did she end up face down in the desert?

[Tracy Hunt]

So that night, I remember Jason calling me.

[Jad Abumrad]

Jason called a friend of his, a woman named Robin Reinecke.

[Tracy Hunt]

Him being really clearly shaken and, you know, asking for advice.

[Jad Abumrad]

Robin actually runs this nonprofit when Toussaint.

[Tracy Hunt]

Called the Colibri center for Human Rights.

[Latif Nasser]

Calibri center for Human Rights. And they do a lot of work with the missing and with bodies that have been recovered. So Jason tells her, look, today we had this thing, we found this person.

[Jad Abumrad]

Out here and could you help us ID her? Now the thing is, Robin's office is actually in the medical examiner's office. So that means that just down the hall from Robin is the guy we met at the beginning, Bruce Anderson.

[Latif Nasser]

Probably a couple hundred people, or at least bones of a person are in here.

[Jad Abumrad]

So Bruce is working on the medical examiner's side. So anytime an unidentified migrant body comes in, Bruce tries to piece together who this person is. Looking at the dimensions and the shape.

[Latif Nasser]

Of the skull markers, robustness of the.

[Jad Abumrad]

Bones, like looking at the length of the bones or the density of the.

[Latif Nasser]

Bones by the non fusion of these separate bones.

[Jad Abumrad]

Looking at whether some bones in the body are fused together, which is something that happens right after puberty, Bruce can actually figure out a process, approximately what age the person is, their sex, their weight, their height. And in the case of the woman that Jason found, her body was surprisingly in relatively good condition. So pretty quickly they were able to determine, you know, she's probably in her 30s, she's 5 foot 4. They were actually able to get fingerprints from her as well. Meanwhile, on the other side, on Robin's side. Wow. So each of these tabs is a person, is that right? Yeah, she's dealing with hundreds of missing persons reports all day, every day. She spends her days taking calls, going through voicemail, which is full of relative searching.

[Tracy Hunt]

I'm looking for my uncle. He disappeared in 2010. Or I'm looking for my daughter, she crossed two weeks ago.

[Jad Abumrad]

We haven't heard from her and she's also getting tips from different people, different aid organizations. And it's actually one of those calls that leads to a break in the case of the body that Jason found.

[Tracy Hunt]

Huh. Okay, so this is an email from me from 2012. Hi Jason, just a quick update regarding the woman that your group found. The case number is 121567 and as of yet she has not been identified.

[Jad Abumrad]

But Robin tells Jason that she got a call from an aid organization that had spoken to a guy who had crossed the desert with a big group of people around the same time and around the same area where Jason found the body.

[Tracy Hunt]

He said that he had recently left behind two fellow travelers who were in serious medical distress.

[Jad Abumrad]

He said one of them was an elderly man, 70 years old, and the other was a woman, maybe from Guatemala or Ecuador, late 30s, early 40s.

[Tracy Hunt]

It isn't certain that this group is related to ML 1215 67, but it's highly likely. I will contact Guatemalan and Ecuadorian consulates regarding new missing persons cases.

[Jad Abumrad]

And eventually, using all the information that got gathered, Robin was able to determine that the body that Jason found, it's the body of a 31 year old Ecuadorian woman named Marisela Aguipoya. Marisela Zaguipuyas. Robin gets in touch with Jason to tell him. Jason then asks her, I would just.

[Latif Nasser]

Would appreciate if you could help me at all connect with this family.

[Jad Abumrad]

That request would, oddly enough, lead Jason to New York City. That story in just a moment.

[Tracy Hunt]

Hey, it's Mae from Cincinnati, Ohio. Radiolab is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world.

[Jad Abumrad]

More information about [e-mail]. radiolab is supported by Rippling. Finance teams often spend weeks chasing receipts, reconciling spreadsheets and fixing errors across disconnected spend tools. This can be frustrating, and that's not. Software is a service. That's sad. Software as a disservice. If you've been thinking about replacing stitched together tech stacks with one platform for all departments, Rippling can help. Rippling is a unified platform for global hr, payroll, IT and finance, helping people replace their mess of cobbled together tools with one system. Designed to help give leaders clarity, speed and control. By uniting employees, teams and departments in one system, Rippling works to remove the bottlenecks, busywork and silos in business software. With Rippling, you can choose to run hr, IT and finance operations as one, or pick and choose the products that best fill the gaps. Right now you can get 6 months free when you go to rippling.com Radiolab learn more at r I p p l-I n g.com Radiolab terms and conditions apply. Radiolab is supported by Planet Visionaries, the podcast created in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. Stay tuned for a trailer and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

[Latif Nasser]

I'm Alex Honnold, professional rock climber and founder of the Honl Foundation. I wanted to let you know about a brand new season of the Planet Visionaries podcast in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. This is the podcast exploring bold ideas and big solutions from the people leading the way in conservation. Join me in conversation with the likes of climate champion Mark Ruffalo, biologist and photographer Christina Mittermeier, and one of the.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

Most successful conservations of our time, Chris Tompkins. Join us on Planet Visionaries wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy Hunt]

Radiolab is sponsored by OMG yes.com There is new research on pleasure that's actually fascinating and the site OMG yes makes it accessible to everyone. OMG yes shares finding from the largest ever study into women's pleasure and intimacy in partnership with researchers at Yale and Indiana University. They asked tens of thousands of couples what they wished they'd discovered sooner. They found the patterns in those discoveries and all that wisdom and pleasure and intimacy is organized as hundreds of short videos, animations and how tos on omgs.com and guess what? Half of OMGS users are men. Hooray for generous lovers, right? You'll find specific research backed techniques. It's the science of sexual generosity in action. See what they discovered today@omg yes.com that's OMG yes.com.

[Jad Abumrad]

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[Tracy Hunt]

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[Jad Abumrad]

The TED Radio Hour explores the biggest.

[Tracy Hunt]

Questions and the most complicated ideas of our time with the world's greatest thinkers. Listen now to the TED Radio Hour from npr.

[Jad Abumrad]

Chad Robert Radiolab we are back with the third installment of our border trilogy, what Remains. And when we left, Jason, along with Robin from the Calibri center, had managed to ID the body of the woman he found in the desert. And so now he was trying to get in touch with her family.

[Latif Nasser]

I don't know when people disappear or when they die in the desert, I think that the families make up, you know, lots of stories run through people's heads. And so I was hoping that if I could find this person's family, I could at least say this is what it was like, when we found her, this is what we think had happened.

[Jad Abumrad]

So Robin was eventually able to get Jason the contact information for Maricela's brother in law, who will call Fernando.

[Latif Nasser]

And I make the awkward phone call that says, hey, I'm the person that found Maricela in the desert, and I would like to come and see you if that's possible.

[Jad Abumrad]

Turns out Fernando actually lives in New York City. But he had spoken to Maricela just before she left. And when we heard his story, we decided, okay, we better send a reporter, Tracy Hunt, to talk with him.

[Tracy Hunt]

Yeah, so I went to visit Fernando at his apartment in Queensland. Kimberly, please. He lives there with his three dogs. Friendly guy, a little shorter than me, neatly dressed, he's got, you know, dark hair, longer on the top, shorter on the sides. And when I got there, he pulled out a bunch of photos of Maricela. So this is their marriage, their wedding photo. She was his brother's wife. Oh, they look so young. Were they 19 when they got married? So in this picture that Fernando's showing me, it's his brother and Maricela. They're in a church and they're posing at the altar. She's in a white satin gown. Her hair is long and dark and shiny, and she's got kind of like an oval shaped face. And, you know, she looks beautiful. But even though it's her wedding day, the thing that struck me is that she's not smiling, not even a little bit. Was she serious like that? Yeah.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

Actually, that's part of the reason why my mother said she didn't like her as much in the beginning. She said, you know, she always has an angry face on. She looks like somebody who doesn't have a lot of friends.

[Tracy Hunt]

And on top of that, Fernando says she also had a habit of getting his brother in trouble.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

You know, she would tell my brother to sneak out of the house to go see her, go out dancing, to parties without permission, you know, those kinds of things.

[Tracy Hunt]

But. Fernando says she eventually won the family over.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

She helped out at home.

[Tracy Hunt]

She treated my mom really well, especially his mother.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

Actually, I think my mother loved her more than she loved us.

[Tracy Hunt]

So Maricela and Fernando's brother, they got married. They ended up having three kids, two boys and a girl. Maricela had a job in a factory that made counterfeit jeans, I think Levi's. And Fernando's brother, he would go around to different villages selling sodas. And they just couldn't really manage to make ends meet.

[Latif Nasser]

They were living real rough at the time. I Mean, when I went to the house and saw where they had lived.

[Jad Abumrad]

So Jason, after he connected with Fernando, he actually ended up going down to Ecuador to meet Maricela's family before she had left.

[Latif Nasser]

I mean, they were living in a one room plywood shack with a dirt floor and animals running through the house. And, you know, and she had told her relatives, she's like, look, my kids are literally starving here.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

At the time, I wasn't able to help out as much financially because I was also helping build a house for my parents where they were also going to go live. And so I wasn't able to support them as much or help out with things like school. And so, you know, what she really wanted to do, you know, in order to, like, send her kids to school and all that, she really wanted them to have what she never had, because she never had anything. And so that was really the pressure that she was under.

[Tracy Hunt]

So Fernando says in 2012, he called home.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

One time. When I called home, my mom said that she wanted to talk to me.

[Tracy Hunt]

So I said, ok. Marisola got on.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

The phone and she told me that she wanted to come here.

[Tracy Hunt]

She told him that she and his brother, they wanted to follow in his footsteps, that if they could come to New York like he had, they could make money, send it back home and help out their kids, that that was the only way. And immediately Fernando was like.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

Absolutely not, no.

[Tracy Hunt]

So Fernando told her no, because he didn't want her to go through the same thing he went through 10 years before 2001. He was 17 years old, about to turn 18, and his aunt was about to go to New York, and she convinced him and his parents that if he went to New York, he'd be able to get a job, make more money, and support his family from there.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

To have a better life, to have the things we needed. So my father thought about it and gave his permission, but he told me not to stay here too long.

[Tracy Hunt]

And so he used his grandfather's land as collateral and took out a loan for $12,000.

[Jad Abumrad]

$12,000?

[Tracy Hunt]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

Do you know what the interest rate was on the loan?

[Tracy Hunt]

10%.

[Jad Abumrad]

10%?

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah.

[Tracy Hunt]

So one thing that a lot of people have talked about is the fact that prevention through deterrence, it professionalized the human smuggling business. Because not only did these migrants need, you know, guidance from all these south and Central American countries, they also need guidance through the desert. So now you have this smuggling business that's more expensive and. And also more dangerous.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

Yes. So the coyote told us that 15 days maximum to get here.

[Tracy Hunt]

Fernando says he and his aunt took a bus from Ecuador to Peru. And then from Peru they flew to Panama, got on another bus, and then somewhere in Costa Rica.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

I remember the path had been really mountainous, there was river, all that.

[Tracy Hunt]

This bus pulls over and the coyote who was with them at that point just said, okay, you have to get off here.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

When we got out, they took our luggage and they threw them on the ground towards the river. And they said, you have to cross the river and someone will find you there and signal to that person. And we were left there like that with my aunt saying, hold on, that wasn't the deal. The deal was to take us all the way to Mexico in cars. But from that point when we started crossing mountains on foot, that's when horrible things started to happen.

[Tracy Hunt]

From that point on, they were packed into the trunks of taxis, hidden in basements, chicken coops and huts, totally filled with rats. And three months into this journey, a journey that was supposed to take just 15 days, somewhere in Mexico, Fernando says that he and his aunt are taken to this run down hacienda, this just sprawling ranch house. Inside the ranch house, habilla mas de dosienta cincuenta Personas. Ay.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

There were more than 250 people there from all over the world. Chinese, Central Americans, from every country, from all over South America.

[Tracy Hunt]

There's all these rooms filled with people. And Fernando actually says that there were all these armed guards all over the place. Nobody was allowed to leave.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

And so we were casio mes encerados a pending there for about a month.

[Tracy Hunt]

And while he was there this part.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

I didn't tell Jason what happened to me there. I was abused sexually.

[Tracy Hunt]

Fernando says that he was sitting outside the hacienda one day with his aunt when a group of men approached him and told him that he had to go inside with them. And he said no, that he was fine sitting there, you know, outside.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

My aunt begged them not to hurt me, to please not abuse me or do anything to me. And they said, no, don't worry. That they only wanted to ask some questions inside. But that wasn't what they wanted.

[Tracy Hunt]

They told Fernando, look, you can come with us now or you can come with us later after we beat up your aunt. So finally Fernando relented and went with them. And when they got inside the hacienda, they went into a room and once.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

We were inside, they raped me three times.

[Tracy Hunt]

How many of them were there?

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

Like six. After that, I went to. I just wanted to die.

[Tracy Hunt]

After a couple of weeks, Fernando and His aunt finally got out of this hacienda, and they start their trek into the desert. Fernando thinks that he went through the same desert that Maricela would try to cross. Ten years later, he's actually caught by the border patrol and held for about a month before he manages to bail himself out of detention and make his way to New York. And Fernando says he shared all of this with Maricela, except his own rape. But he did tell her that migrants do get raped. That he's seen it happen, that he knows it happens.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

Even when I told her all of that, she said none of that would happen to her. She knew how to defend herself. And, you know, if she had to.

[Tracy Hunt]

She would hit people. And then he told her, you might have to go without food or sleep outside. But.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

She said that it didn't matter, that all that mattered was getting here. Because the kids are the ones that matter most. Any sacrifice made is worth it for your kids.

[Tracy Hunt]

And then he doesn't talk to her anymore. That's actually the last phone call they ever have because he thinks that if he cuts her off, maybe she'll just give up. But she goes to one of her brothers, and her brother says that he would only pay for her to go, but he's not gonna pay for her husband to go. When you found out that she was gonna come by herself, did you try to tell your brother, look, she. You shouldn't let her come here by herself. Come at all, I should say.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

Yeah. Yeah, I called, but my brother said that there wasn't another option and that he wanted to go first. But her brother had put the condition that she go first. And because they didn't have another option, she said she would go.

[Tracy Hunt]

In May of 2012, Maricela left Ecuador. About three weeks later, right before she walked into the desert, the Maricela sent her family a message on Facebook. She told them, I don't know how I'm going to get there, but I am going for my family. God willing, I will get there. When did you finally hear what actually happened to her?

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

Someone called me, told me they were from the consulate. And I said, okay, finally, she's been found. And then they told me. Maricela was dead. And they didn't know what day exactly she died, but that she'd been dead for about a month.

[Latif Nasser]

It was just really difficult wondering if I'm going to do more damage than good by going to meet these folks.

[Jad Abumrad]

Eight months after Marisela's death, Jason came to New York to meet Fernando. And he brought with him the pictures of Maricela's body that he took when he. When he found her in the desert.

[Latif Nasser]

You know, he was like, just right now, show me the photos. And I was just dancing around that for over an hour.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

Jason warned that the photos were really upsetting. There were so many like that. But I said that it's okay to show them to me.

[Latif Nasser]

And I give him this book of photos that I've printed out. And it's got pictures of this shrine that we built for her in the desert. It's got pictures of my students who were there. And then eventually, it's just pictures of, like, the back of her head. So it's her hair, it's some of the clothing, it's her hand.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

I saw all the photos. And the truth is that it tore me to pieces to see or imagine everything she had to endure in the desert. She tried to keep going, dragging herself. Brought me photos of how she was found and her body outstretched, trying to keep going.

[Tracy Hunt]

Before Maricela's body was sent back to Ecuador, Fernanda decided they should have it sent to New York first.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

When I talked to my family, I said, you know, her dream was really to arrive here. And so I thought, at least we can fulfill that dream with her body, to be able to have a wake for her here.

[Tracy Hunt]

They held a wake at a funeral home in Queens. Almost 100 family members and friends came to celebrate Maricela's life.

[Jad Abumrad]

Life.

[Tracy Hunt]

They were told to keep the coffin shut. The next day, her body went back to Ecuador. Fernando had to stay in New York because he knows if he were to go back to Ecuador, it would just be way too hard to try to come back to the United States. He says that, you know, right now he's just trying to fulfill a promise.

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

The promise that I made to Maricela's body when it arrived here, that I was going to look after her children. I was going to try to give them what she had wanted for them.

[Tracy Hunt]

When you think about that conversation, do you think that there's anything you could have said that would have made her stay?

[Fernando (Marisela's family member)]

I told her what could happen along the way. I thought that would be a way of deterring her.

[Latif Nasser]

No, no, no.

[Jad Abumrad]

And it's worth pointing out, you know, I mean, more generally, prevention through deterrence as a strategy, it hasn't deterred people from coming to the US Either. The annual budget for the Border patrol is roughly $3.5 billion bigger than it was in 1990. We have about five times as many Border Patrol agents, and yet the number of people, immigrants living here, undocumented has more than tripled during that time, from three and a half million to about 11 million. And more people are coming every year, every day. And more people are dying along the way.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah, let's just do it here.

[Jad Abumrad]

About a year after Marisela died, Jason got a call from her family again.

[Latif Nasser]

Do you want, you want Maverick or Iceman? You have to name the drones.

[Tracy Hunt]

You guys are top gun fans.

[Jad Abumrad]

Another family member had disappeared in pretty much the same place Marisela did.

[Tracy Hunt]

So which is this?

[Latif Nasser]

I think that's Maverick.

[Tracy Hunt]

That's Maverick.

[Latif Nasser]

I'm going back to the Arizona desert, basically because Marisela had a cousin, a 15 year old cousin named Jose Tacuri, who disappeared almost one year to the day that she died. I was able to kind of triangulate, based on interviews with people who he was with and with information from various folks where we think he went missing. I mean, I told his mom that I would not stop looking. And it took me a couple of years to figure out a way to do that. But right now it's, we'll go back and we'll use these drones and see what we can come up with.

[Tracy Hunt]

And you know better than anyone what happens to bodies in the desert now, I think, I mean, why are you still looking for him? Or why, you know? Yeah. As callous as that question sounds, I.

[Latif Nasser]

Guess for me part of it is I just don't know what else to do. You feel so hopeless. I told his mom I won't stop looking for him. I'll do whatever I can, whatever little thing that I can do. And if I can't find him, well, maybe I'll find somebody else. Getting mad at me now. So we will.

[Tracy Hunt]

What was that?

[Latif Nasser]

It's getting mad at me because it's running out of batteries. We'll do one.

[Jad Abumrad]

We'll do one more.

[Latif Nasser]

One more run. The immigration issue poses real problems and.

[Jad Abumrad]

Challenges and as always, provides great opportunities.

[Latif Nasser]

For the American people.

[Jad Abumrad]

It is a commonplace build a great wall along the Southern where 40% of the babies born on Medicaid.

[Tracy Hunt]

Based on my Fifth Amendment constitutional rights.

[Jad Abumrad]

On the advice of counsel, I invoke my fifth amendment. This mythical division between these two cities. They can't just arbitrarily stop you just because.

[Latif Nasser]

People being apprehended.

[Jad Abumrad]

This episode was reported by Latif Nasser and Tracy Hunt. Produced by Matt Kilty and Tracy Hunt. Jason De Leon's book, which inspired this series is called the Land of Open Graves. Special thanks to our interpreter, Alison Corbett and for giving voice to Fernando in English, Carlo Alban, and Carlo's manager, Ted Brunson. Thanks also to Hayden Stewart, Raul Raspastrana, Paulina Alonzo Chavez, and Ambassador Jacob Prado from the government of Mexico and to the staff at the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office and the Ghilibri center for Human Rights. I'm Jad Abumran. I'm Robert Krulwich. Thanks for listening.

[Tracy Hunt]

This is lori from katona, new york. Radiolab was created by jad abinrod and is produced by soren wheeler. Dylan keefe is our director of sound design.

[Jad Abumrad]

Maria mattis arpedilla is our managing director. Our staff includes simon adler, maggie bartolomeo.

[Tracy Hunt]

Becca bressler, rachel cusick, david gebel, bethel.

[Jad Abumrad]

Haptay, tracy hunt, matt kielty, robert krulwich.

[Tracy Hunt]

Annie mckeown, lad of nassar, melissa o', donnell, arian wack, pat walters, and molly webster, with help from amanda aronczyk, shima oliai, jake arlo, and reid cannon. Our fact checker is michelle harris.