As many as forty bodies have been discovered buried in the yard of a former chief of police in a city in northwest El Salvador, leading to charges against at least ten people, including the former chief, NBC News reports.
Homicides hit a historic low in El Salvador in 2020, but the bodies are thought to have been buried before then. Most of the bodies appear to be of women, leading to questions of femicide by Hugo Ernesto Osorio Chavez, the former police chief in Chalchuapa, a city of more than 70,000 people.
The discovery of the bodies coincidentally happened the same week as a serial killer was arrested in the Salvadoran state of Mexico. The unnamed 72-year-old man was being investigated in the disappearance of a 36-year-old woman when police found the remains of several others in his home.