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"I got angry."

Juana Barraza is a Mexican Serial Killer and the most prominent perpetrator of the Mataviejitas ("Little Old Lady Killer") murders in Mexico City.

Background
Juana Dayanara Barraza Samperio was born in rural Hidalgo, Mexico in 1957. Her parents were Trinidad Barraza, a police officer, and Justa Samperio, an alcoholic prostitute. Three months after Juana's birth, Justa abandoned her husband to begin an adulterous relationship with Refugio Samperio, a married man that was also Justa's step-father, and would become Juana's own father figure.

Juana Barraza never learned to read and had a rocky relationship with her mother, to whom she barely spoke in her infancy. She lost her virginity at age 12, when Barraza's mother pimped her to a man named José Lugo in exchange for three beers. Barraza was forced to sleep with Lugo for the next four years, suffering a miscarriage when she was 13 and another when she was 16. Soon after, Barraza's mother died of cirrhosis and she left for Mexico City, where she would marry and divorce several times. She had four children, the eldest of whom later died in a gang shooting, when he was aged 24.

During the 1980s and 1990s Barraza held a variety of jobs and even toured central Mexico as a masked wrestler named La Dama del Silencio ("The Lady of Silence"), an alias she chose in reference to her own shy, silent personality. In 1995, short of cash after the birth of her fourth child, she began to steal in shops and later to burglarize homes.

In 1996 she hatched a plan with a friend, Araceli Tapia Martínez, to steal from the elderly. The two would dress in white and pretend to be nurses in order to gain access to lone old people's homes, robbing their valuables once they were inside. However, Tapia was also in a relationship with a corrupt Federal, Moisés Flores Domínguez, and the couple concocted a parallel plan to extorsionate Barraza. Flores met Barraza after a burglary that she had committed alone and demanded 12,000 pesos in return for not arresting her. In 2000, the then 43 years old Barraza retired from wrestling, where she earned 300 to 500 pesos per fight, and her situation became desperate.

Serial Killings and Capture
Murders of elderly people in Mexico City began to increase in 1998, inviting press speculation about the existence of a serial killer targetting the capital's elderly, that they called El Mataviejitas (Spanish for "The Little Old Lady Killer", use of "El" indicating a presumed male perpetrator). However, the Mexico City police denied any connection between the crimes, and a number of people were imprisoned for isolated murders. Barraza did not commit a murder until 2002, and might have been inspired herself by stories about El Mataviejitas rather than the other way around. Afterwards, however, the murders increased significantly: from 2-3 per year between 1998 and 2002, to 9-12 in 2003, 14-17 in 2004, and 8-11 in 2005.

Known Victims

 * 1995-2001: undetermined number, only robbed
 * 2002, November 25: María de la Luz González Anaya, 64
 * 2003:
 * March 2: Guillermina León Oropeza, 84
 * July 25: María Guadalupe Aguilar Cortina, 86
 * October 9: María Guadalupe de la Vega Morales, 87
 * October 24: María del Carmen Muñoz Cote de Galván, 78
 * November 4: Lucrecia Elsa Calvo Marroquín, 85
 * November 19: Natalia Torres Castro, 85
 * November 28: Alicia Cota Ducoin, 76
 * 2004:
 * February 20: Alicia González Castillo, 75
 * February 25: Andrea Tecante Carreto, 74
 * March 20: Carmen Cardona Rodea, 76
 * March 26: Socorro Enedina Martínez Pajares, 82
 * May 24: Guadalupe González Sánchez, 74
 * June 25: Esthela Cantoral Trejo, 85
 * July 1: Delfina González Castillo, 92
 * July 3: María Virginia Xelhuatzi Tizapán, 84
 * July 19: María de los Ángeles Cortés Reynoso, 84
 * August 31: Margarita Martell Vázquez, 72
 * September 29: Simona Bedolla Ayala, 79
 * October 24: María Dolores Martínez Benavides, 70
 * November 9: Margarita Arredondo Rodríguez, 83
 * November 17: María Imelda Estrada Pérez, 76
 * 2005:
 * January 11: Julia Vera Duplan, 60
 * February 10: María Elena Mendoza Vallares, 59
 * April 13: María Elisa Pérez Moreno, 76
 * April 14: Arturo Patiño Barranco, 74
 * April 19: Carolina Robledo, 79
 * April 20: Ana María Velázquez Díaz, 62
 * May 15: Delfina Quiroz de la Rosa, 76
 * June 17: Celia Villaliz Morales, 78
 * June 29: María Guadalupe Núñez Almanza, 78
 * July 5:
 * Julia Vargas, 64
 * Mario Cruz Flores, 84
 * July 20: Emma Armenta Aguayo, 80
 * August 9: Emma Reyes Peña, 72