The Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice is pleased to host a talk by Dr. Susana Vargas Cervantes (Assistant Professor, School of Journalism and Communication Studies, Carleton University).

Based on her book of the same title, this talk examines Mexico City police's struggle to find the killer responsible for the deaths of forty elderly women, many of whom had been strangled in their homes with a stethoscope by someone posing as a government nurse. When Juana Barraza Samperio, a female professional wrestler known as la Dama del Silencio (the Lady of Silence), was arrested as the Mataviejitas (the little old lady killer), her case disrupted traditional narratives about gender, criminality, and victimhood in the popular and criminological imagination.

Marshalling ten years of research, and one of the only interviews that Juana Barraza Samperio has given while in prison, Dr. Vargas Cervantes deconstructs the complex, gendered aspects of the case, asking: Who is a killer? What does it mean to be Mexican? Who “counts” as a victim? And, what does serial killing represents to us?

Please register for this event below. A Zoom Webinar link will be provided closer to the date of the talk.