Texas Editor Believes Reporter Was Murdered

The editor of the San Antonio Express-News asked Mexican judicial authorities to rule that the 1998 death of the Texas paper’s Mexico correspondent was murder.

Editor Robert Rivard said an entry in Philip True’s diary on Dec. 4 mentioned an altercation with a Huichol Indian named Juan who was upset by his presence in the territory.

True, 50, disappeared during a hike through Huichol land. His body was found in a shallow grave.

Juan Chivarra and Miguel Hernandez, two Huichol Indians, were detained Dec. 26 after it was discovered that they had True’s backpack. They admitted killing him but later retracted their confessions. An appeals court is considering their August acquittals.

An initial autopsy determined that True was strangled, and five U.S. pathologists who looked at that report in the wake of the acquittals concluded that True was murdered and that strangulation was the probable means of death.