Flawed investigation by local police cited
 
                  CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) -- State prosecutors have long said that 88
                  women found dead in the desert outside this rough border city were
                  killed by a gang of criminals working with bus drivers. But few people in
                  Ciudad Juarez believed them, least of all the mothers of the victims.

                  Now, the federal government has formally declined activists' requests to take over
                  the state of Chihuahua's decade-long investigation, saying they also believe there is
                  little evidence of a conspiracy.

                  Under Mexican law, federal investigators can only take over murder investigations if
                  they involve federal offenses like drugs, weapons possession, organized crime, and
                  criminal conspiracy.

                  Federal Assistant Attorney General Carlos Vega said there was nothing to support
                  the state of Chihuahua's theory that an Egyptian-born chemist, gang members and
                  bus drivers planned the murders.

                  "We didn't see anything to support that," he said.

                  The decision was a blow to lawmakers, relatives of victims and other activists who
                  have long criticized state investigators as inept. Even state investigators admit they
                  need help and have openly turned to the expertise of FBI officials.

                  After reviewing 30 case files, federal officials announced Thursday they found no
                  evidence to substantiate the state's theory that more tha n one person is involved,
                  and they refused to take over the cases.

                  The bodies of at least 88 young women -- mainly slender, long-haired, and between
                  the ages of 15 and 20 -- have turned up in the desert in the past decade. All appear
                  to have been raped, and had either been strangled or had their necks broken.

                  Several suspects have been arrested in the killings but just one conviction.
                  Egyptian-born chemist Abdel Latif Sharif Sharif was found guilty in one of the earliest
                  murders and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

                  Under the conspiracy theory, Sharif allegedly paid members of a gang known as the
                  Rebels to continue the killings after he was arrested to show someone else was the
                  killer. However, no evidence of such payments has ever surfaced. Other Rebel
                  members then allegedly contacted a group of bus drivers and asked them to carry
                  on killing.

                  All of the suspects arrested in the cases allegedly had some connection with Sharif
                  or the Rebels, and almost all have said they were tortured into signing confessions.
                  Many have been held in jail for as long as six years pending trial, even as the bodies
                  of young women continue to turn up in the desert.

                  Despite the federal decision, local prosecutors say they'll continue the probe.

                  "It is very probable that the latest murders are the work of a new wing of the very
                  same group," said Chihuahua state special prosecutor Angela Talavera, referring to
                  the murder of three girls whose bodies were found near a gravel pit in February.

                  Talavera conceded the conspiracy theory may sound bizarre, but she said: "In this
                  case, the things that appear most unlikely, almost taken from a movie script, turn out
                  to be true."

                  She said that the federal prosecutors' objections to the conspiracy theory "may be
                  just an excuse."

                  The theory doesn't convince Benita Monarrez, whose daughter Laura B. Ramos
                  Monarrez was killed in 2001 and her body dumped along with those of seven other
                  women in a vacant lot.

                  She described a police videotape of the confessions of two suspects arrested in her
                  daughter's killing as "childish and insulting." The video shows the two men -- one of
                  whom died earlier this year in police custody under suspicious circumstances _
                  woodenly reciting the full names, ages and dress of each of the victims.

                  "Who can believe this? Either the (police) are playing a cat-and-mouse game, or they
                  are protecting someone who has power or money," Monarrez said.

                  With little hope of help from local police, residents have taken matters into their own
                  hands.

                  Activists and parents have set up "safe houses" and organized pink "women only"
                  bus services as well as informal buddy programs so women don't walk alone. Many
                  victims have disappeared while traveling to work or school, and some were allegedly
                  attacked aboard buses.

                  CB radio operators, neighborhood groups and women's activists have also begun
                  organizing weekend "desert patrols" to search for evidence.

                  The desperation has reached such a pitch that prosecutors have asked the FBI to
                  help out on the case, in part because people trust U.S. police more.

                  One week ago, the FBI established a tip hotline and soon will begin giving classes
                  to dozens of Mexican police in crime scene investigation.

                  Copyright 2003 The Associated Press.