Authorities said Friday that two people are in custody for the murder of Mexican actress Julia Marichal, whose headless, decomposing body was found Dec. 2 in a water tank at her capital home.
Pedro Osvaldo Castellanos Gonzalez, 23, and Ana Betsaida Duarte Acosta, 27, were arrested separately earlier this week and have confessed to the crime, Mexico City chief prosecutor Miguel Angel Mancera told reporters.
He said Castellanos told police he choked the 67-year-old victim to death and that his accomplice cut off Marichal’s head postmortem.
The pair then placed the body in the water tank, the prosecutor said, adding that police found Marichal’s credit and debit cards in Castellanos’ home.
Mancera also announced the release of the victim’s nephew Mauricio Marichal, arrested Dec. 5 on suspicion he was involved in his aunt’s death.
Julia Marichal was the daughter of Cuban actress Esther Martinez Peñate, who married Mexican writer Juan de la Cabada.
The late actress appeared in a dozen “telenovelas,” or soap operas, including “Mundo de Juguete” (1974), and a number of films, such as “Las puertas del paraiso” (1971).
Marichal worked for several well-known directors, including Alejandro Jodorowsky and Ana Sokolov. She was an advocate of black culture in Mexico and spent her last years trying to preserve the De la Cabada archives.
