Murdering Innocence: A Memoir

Murdering Innocence, A Salvadorian Memoir


“My soul hurts” Tiffany whispered.
So did mine. My eyes were opened.
Life had manifested in front of me in the form of music. Like divine water from ever flowing fountains. This song portrayed it in its most true and humblest form. Like a summer sunset. It was neither slow nor rock-on rhythm. Like the guitar song at night. It was neither classic nor modern. It is you, in the morning dawn. It was not slow or fast. In a smile… there you are. It had a constant rhythm, filled with much improvising. Like fresh rain on my hands. It was clear, crystal pure.
Like children.
Like Katya.

         Katya and I were in the same 3rd grade class. I only have two memories of her. One was when my friend Tiffany ditched me to go and eat lunch with Katya, and the other was when I asked Katya what classroom she had been in 1st grade.
         Katya, as many of my classmates, had gone to the beach with her family during Holy Week vacation. In theory, we were supposed to attend mass and pray as the good Catholics we supposedly were. However, most people did both: have fun and pray. So Katya, her sister Gina Marcela, her father Edwin Miranda and her mother Hilda Jimenez had gone to relax at a private property the Mirandas owned in Los Blancos Beach in the province of La Paz. Mrs. Hilda hadn't meant for her daughters to stay the night. She had plans to attend mass with Katya and Gina. The girls pleaded her to let them stay. Mr. Edwin assured his wife to take good care of them. Nothing bad could ever happen to them. After all, Mr. Edwin himself held a position in the government in the Department of Defense. In the end, Mrs. Hilda agreed and came back to San Salvador.
         Little did Mrs. Hilda know that when she returned to La Paz on the morning April 4th 1999, she would find Katya's lifeless body laid on the beach. She had been sexually abused and murdered. It looked as though she had been beaten up several times. She had been suffocated against the sand, which had caused her death.
         When I went back to school, the environment was awkward. Sobbing, weeping and sadness was felt and heard. During recess, girls were gossiping about Katya's death. I was among them. It was rumored that several semen amounts were found in her body. Semen? What was semen? I wondered. Curiosity took me so I asked.
"It's like sperm"
Then I felt that I didn’t want to know more.

         Her peers described Katya as humble, pretty, timid but with a good heart. Tiffany later told me that Katya defended her sister, Gina, from bullies. She dreamed becoming an astronaut, as her mother dreamed when Mrs. Hilda was little. Her happiest day was when she received Christ in Holy Communion.
         We had a special mass for Katya. All 3rd graders were to be present, especially my class. I was sitting with some friends when I saw Mrs. Hilda and Mr. Edwin enter the chapel accompanied by some relatives. During the blessing of the bread, I saw Mrs. Hilda explode in tears. One after one, they flowed without stopping. In her face, I saw a great sadness, pain, torment, suffering and pure sorrow. I felt a huge need for my mom, to hold her close. I wanted to hug Mrs. Hilda as well, but I had no right. I didn't even know Katya that much.
         When Father said to give each other the peace salute, every kid dashed to Mrs. Hilda. In Christianity, (or at least in Latin American Catholicism) the peace salute was when you went to strangers and wished them “peace” by shaking their hands or hugging them. Mrs. Hilda received all 3rd graders. With tears still in her eyes, she kissed every one of them on the forehead. I went to give Mr. Edwin the peace salute. He hadn't cried at all during the ceremony. I held out my hand and he shook it politely, "La paz, little one."

         Months later, Mrs. Hilda decided to find out who had killed her daughter. I was shocked to know who was the main suspect: Katya's grandfather, Carlos Miranda. And not just him, but Mr. Edwin Miranda was suspected too! Testimonies spoken at the court said that Mr. Edwin was sleeping in a camping tent with his two daughters. Next to him, slept Carlos Miranda. He had "supposedly" told Katya that around 3:00 am he would wake her up. Carlos was going to teach Katya how to fish. Mr. Edwin Miranda had not been sleeping in the tent, according to Gina. Rumors said that he had gone off with a woman to party at the beaches near by. He was charged for abandoning his children. Carlos denied any guilty by declaring that all people in the ranch had been given drugs that made them sleep. He introduced another suspect: Doroteo Maradiaga. Doroteo had threatened to hurt Carlos where it would hurt the most, since he and Doroteo were enemies. But Mrs. Hilda does not believe that accusation up to this date.

“No one, absolutely no one couldn’t have noticed, nor heard, or seen something strange or dangerous for the people there. It’s absurd that two girls under the care of people well-trained in guns (and were survivors of the El Salvador’s Civil War) could have been drugged and fooled by someone.”
Hilda Jimenez, June 2000

True. Mr. Edwin Miranda was in fact the Chief of the Logistic Department of the Presidential State. His father, Carlos Miranda González was a lawyer, while Katya’s uncle Godofredo Adalberto Miranda, was Second Chief in the Division of Criminal Investigation of the National Civil Police. Captain Jorge Alberto Miranda was of high ranks in the Armed Forces of El Salvador. Luis Alonso López and Francisco Rosales were two loyal employees of Carlos Miranda. All of them were present in Los Blancos Beach on the night of April 3rd, 1999.
How could the girls be unprotected?! Something was not right.
This was what Mrs. Hilda wanted to know.

         Soon the story of Katya Miranda spread throughout the whole country. People adopted her as their daughter, sister, friend and saint. She became a national symbol that represented the truth about child abuse in El Salvador. She was compared with Jesus Christ.
         I was annoyed at this. Who cared if Katya was dead anymore? What was the big deal? She was not someone important. She was as insignificant as a fly. She was not Christ. Everyone was acting dumb because of Katya’s fame. Look at those girls in school; they all said how much they liked her. They “were” her friends and her death had affected them so much. Hypocrites. All they wanted was to get interviewed by the press and appear on TV. Katya’s friends were only Tiffany, Diana and Andrea. They got interviewed, but they never cared. They said that nothing could make up for their loss.
         The year 2000 came and thus a new millennium started. The 4th grade was a year filled with various events. One of them was April 4th, the 1 year anniversary of Katya’s death. We had several masses. The one I remember the most was held at our school soccer field. For the last month we had prepared several songs and a rehesearsed mass. My favorite song was called “Eres tu.” It is you. The religion and theology teachers were playing guitars and singing background sounds. I can still remember the words.

“It is you in the morning dawn,
Like a summer sunset.
In a smile… there you are.
Like divine water from ever flowing fountains,
With the guitar song at night.”

It was then when my eyes were opened and saw Life being murdered. Katya was life in its simplest and humblest: a child. A million questions passed through my head. What right did Katya’s murderer have to rape her innocence? What did he gain with killing her? Why? She was like me; she was like my classmates.
And she was like Christ because Jesus was in her.

“Let the children come to me! Don’t try to stop them. People who are like this children belong to the kingdom of God. I promise you cannot get into God’s kingdom unless you accept it the way a child does.”
Mark 10, 24: 14-16

         This was the passage from the Bible I loved as a little girl because it sounded as though children were better than adults. How simple and easy was it to be like a child, I thought. All children ever wanted was to be themselves, imagine and have fun… whether they dreamed to be a princess in a far away land, a pirate in the Caribbean, or an astronaut who discovered life on mars.
         If children, however, were better than adults, why had God allowed Katya to die? I looked to the sky and asked Him. No answer came. But I insisted; I demanded an answer of him. Katya was my sister in Christ and I had a right to know. I had indirectly answered my own question: Christ. One god, One faith, One savior. That is what united Katya and me. Not just us, but many million children who suffer, and whose voice is silenced by society. This was the reason of her death. In order for their voice to be heard, she had to die. She was like the Christ of all Salvadorian children who had no parents, who were abused if they had them, who went to bed hungry every night, or were kidnapped, and raped. They, who were forced to work in the streets and look after themselves.
         It can be argued that Katya was no poor girl, as she attended one of the most expensive schools in San Salvador. But her human rights had been violated and she had been left unprotected. After Katya’s death, more attention was paid to the rights of children. Organizations decided to raise awareness and protect their innocence. Their main figure was Katya. Although there is much to do still, the most important step has been taken already: the beginning. Mrs. Hilda emphasized this wherever she went. This was her reason to live now: to aid the unprotected ones.
         At that same mass, Mrs. Hilda shared her most sacred treasure: the memory of her daughter. She read us one of the many letters she has written to her daughter since she died. I asked my teacher for a copy of this letter, and she gave me hers. It read:

My dearest daughter,
Jesus remembered his blood that he gave to humanity in the cross when he saw how his blood flowed through your small and fragile body that morning of April 4th, 1999. He cried and rushed to your side. He took you in his arms, cleaned the tears of your face and healed the pain from your body. He kissed your forehead and said to you, “Katya, what a beautiful name. I've come for you, brave one. You die so you can save other children from the sufferings you’ve gone through. This, on the day of my resurrection, I bring you gifts: your wings and a white dress. Ah, and know that your soul shall forever remain pure.”
And the sky that shone with its millions stars and full moon stopped crying from your martyrhood and smiled as they heard Jesus calling you to his side.

Every time I read this letter, I get this bulge on my throat and my eyes flood with tears. Just like I did when Mrs. Hilda read it to me the first time back four years ago.
         When the mass ended, we all went back to class. Midway from the chapel, I realized I had forgotten my lunchbox. My mother would kill me if I lost it. I went dashing back to the chapel, worried about not finding it. But I did, and when I bent to pick it up, a kind voice said, "Pobrecita mi niña, olvido su lonchera." My poor little girl forgot her lunchbox. The voice belonged to Mrs. Hilda. She was smiling at me. She had called me "mi niña." I looked into her eyes with wonder looking for something… I did not know what though. I knew there was pain; sorrow, maybe anger. But I found courage. I smiled in a way that only I can smile. It is the way I smile to my mother. Mrs. Hilda didn't know my name; neither did she know that I, like Katya, was the oldest daughter. She didn't even know my mother, yet the moment her gaze fell on me I understood. She could see through me, she saw a niña.

         It’s been six years since Katya died and Salvadorian authorities have failed to find the people who killed innocence. Not just Katya’s but the one of my classmates and mine as well. It saddens me to know that there is no justice in my country for the ones who cannot raise their voice to adults.
My country.
My beloved land… where Katya and I grew up. Our judicial system is so inefficient and corrupt. The ones who have the money reign and us common folk suffer under their rule. Will the day arrive when justice comes at last to that little piece of land? Will ever the laws of men punish him who killed innocence?
My eyes shed tears to think that this year Katya would have been 15 years old, a quinceañera. The Quinceañera is a young Latina woman's celebration of her fifteenth birthday, which is celebrated in a different way from her other birthdays. The celebration marks the transition from childhood to womanhood of the Latina. She would have ceased from being Katya the niña and soon she would have moved on to experience feelings like depression, hyperness, hatred, peer pressure, stress and love.
But she didn’t.
I did.

         I have not thought of Katya for about three years now. She was literally left behind along with El Salvador. We were going to the United States. It was still dark when I left my grandma’s house. The time to get to the airport from the capital was about 1 hour and half. As the sun started to rise, we passed by the cemetery where my grandfather and Katya were buried. Silently, I said good-bye to them, and that was the last time I thought of Katya Miranda.
         Even though Katya and I only spoke once, her death had and still has an effect on me. Everyone in El Salvador has associated her with his or her lives somehow. Some see her as a daughter who was abused horribly; others see her as a martyr who died screaming for justice in the name of the outcasted children from society. To others she was a saint, and to some she was a friend.
         Now, my association with Katya is uniquely personal. To me, Katya is the symbol of an old lifetime that lasted for nine years: my childhood spent in El Salvador. A childhood that was ended with Katya’s death but whose memory still remains. It was a childhood unlike any other because it was based of simple daily jewels. It is you, in the morning dawn, a dawn that I would watch from the window of my room every day before leaving to school ever since I was five. Like divine water from ever flowing fountain, water from Los Chorros cascades, where my family and I would spend our holy week vacations in. Like fresh rain on my hands, whose tropical scent of herbs soaked me while I danced under its majesty. Like a summer sunset, which I would be witness of from the roof of my house. Peacefully, I would wait for the sun to go sleep behind the mighty volcano of San Salvador. Finally, Katya is like the guitar song at night, whose Flamenco tune was played by Aunt Mercy, while I stared in wonder to the stars.