Abdul Latif Sharif

Abdul Latif Sharif (1947 – June 1, 2006), was an Egyptian-born chemist and chief suspect in the Juárez killings, a decade-long murder spree that began in the Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez in the early 1990s.

Sharif emigrated to the United States in 1970 to work as a high-paid research chemist for a series of U.S. companies, some of which are alleged to have shielded him from persistent accusations of rape and murder. Jailed for 12 years for rape in 1984, Sharif was released early for good behavior in 1989, committed another rape, and fled to Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, to escape a deportation hearing across the Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas. After the bodies of young women began to turn up in the desert surrounding Juárez, Sharif was arrested and imprisoned, serving a long sentence for murder in a maximum-security jail in the state capital of Chihuahua, Chihuahua, where he eventually died of natural causes in a local hospital.

The murders have continued since Sharif's imprisonment, leading to speculation that there are multiple killers besides Sharif.

References

* Antonio Mendoza, "Killers on the Loose: Unsolved Cases of Serial Murder", (Virgin Books 2002), [ISBN 0-7535-0681-5] – Study of unsolved serial killing around the world, including Ciudad Juárez.
* Simon Whitechapel, "Crossing to Kill: The True Story of the Serial-Killer Playground", (Virgin Books 2002), [ISBN 0-7535-0686-6] – Updated edition of the first detailed study of the Juarez murders.