I wanted to become a cardiologist and a few months ago I had entered a university in the state of Mexico. Ana María Serrano Céspedes “had a life ahead of her,” her mother said, but it was cut short and her ex-boyfriend, Alan Gil Romero, is in protective custody over her death.

The parent, Ximena Céspedes, calmly denounced the femicide of her 18-year-old daughter on social networks. She asks that there be no more murders of women and specifically demands “justice for Ana María.”

Ana María, the niece of José Manuel Restrepo, the former Colombian finance minister, was murdered in Mexico, the country where the family lives.

The femicide took place on September 12, 2023. The family filed a report five days later.

Restrepo wrote on his social networks: “NEVER! NEVER! I thought I could be so close to an act as cruel and despicable as FEMICIDE. Today, with pain in my heart and soul, I cannot accept remaining silent when there is impunity for these kinds of acts all over the world.”

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The messages that warned Ana María’s mother

Ana María’s life was taken at a time when her parents were celebrating their anniversary in Europe, Céspedes told Grupo Formula.

The young girl, the autopsy revealed, had been asphyxiated, “but she also had a blow to the head and a history of gender violence against her,” Infobae published.

“We had planned that trip for 2020,” said the mother. That was not possible because the Covid-19 pandemic paralyzed everything.

Asked about what happened on September 12, the mother said she was in Rome and spoke to her daughter at 3 p.m. (Mexican time). “He told me he had just arrived and was going to college.”

“At 2am in the morning our mobile phone rang, it was an unknown number.” Ximena Céspedes said she wrote to her daughter at the time to ask how she was doing. I don’t answer. He did it again and there was no response either.

“About fifteen minutes later some messages came in.

-She said to me, ‘Wait so long for me’ and she would never say that. It was about saying yes or no and never waiting for me.”

I said to my husband, “Is there something strange about Ana María?” And I called the neighbor and asked him to come to the house.

Then I got a farewell message.

-Mom, I don’t want to be alone. I want to say goodbye to you… There I said: there is nothing to do here, something is happening.

The neighbor went to the house and there wasn’t much to do, unfortunately he called me and the first thing we did was take a flight back to Mexico. We arrived at the Public Prosecution Service almost immediately,” he recalls.

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Her relatives called Ana María “Nana,” published El Colombiano, a medium indicating that “she was one of the best students in her high school and managed to build a medical career and pursue her dream of becoming a cardiologist. ‘

Ximena Céspedes told El Colombiano that “Ana started to feel that her relationship was not on the right track and that her partner was showing possessive behavior.”

She ended the relationship last June and according to the parent, Alan Gil sent her gifts and insisted they return.

He didn’t let her go out with her friends, he told her ‘you can’t wear that’, ‘why did you say hello to so-and-so’, ‘why did you wear the miniskirt to college when I gave it to you .’

Ximena about Alan Gil

A week after the painful events, Alan’s family has not communicated with Ximena and “I’m honest, I don’t know if I would want to now,” she told Colombian media.

Alan Gil, El Colombiano explained, “is a 20-year-old Mexican who has known the family for six years and who shared a year and a half of dating the victim.”

Their relationship was a normal courtship between two teenagers, which lasted about a year and a half during their school years.

Ximena Cespedes

Ximena Céspedes partly regrets that she “didn’t see the signs.” He said that after the courtship ended, he was “intense.”

From what was told to El Colombiano, Alan showed no aggressive behavior or physical violence.

“On the contrary. Alan was a very kind and respectful young man. We invited him to join my family for dinner. They traveled to Germany together. “Everything seemed fine,” Ana María’s mother remembers.

Justice for Ana María

A judge sent Alan Gil to protective custody. The media indicated that he tried to fake suicide.

“He entered through the back door of the family home in Mexico, hung his victim from one of the curtains in the room and sent a series of farewell messages ending with the suicide alibi,” El Colombiano published.

“We have been asking since Sunday for justice for Ana María and all victims of femicide in Mexico, Colombia and any other country.

Faced with the drama of femicide, Ximena Céspedes calls for action: “Let us all as a society commit ourselves against femicide, let us move from outrage to social mobilization and then to awareness. I imagine that the generation of public policy would come later so that this doesn’t continue to happen.”

Last Thursday was Ana María’s wake. “We buried her on Friday, at university and at school they thought about her a lot and we felt very accompanied… She moved the world (…) She touched all the hearts she met,” described her mother.

(JO)