Aztlan Times

4:00 AM, May 25th, 2002- The screams of my mother shook my body awake. As I entered the living room I saw her collapse on the couch while the silohuettes at the front door exclaimed “FRANKIE DIED”! My legs buckled and I, also, dropped. Frankie, my 17 year old brother, had left for Rocky Point, on the morning of May 24th in his 1995 Chrysler Sebring. I began to visualize a horrible auto accident on the two lane highway to Mexico. “HE WAS BEATEN TO DEATH” said the woman at my door. “Who the hell are you” I thought to myself. I soon realized that it was Frank’s friends and their father. My 12 year old daughter entered the room scared and crying. My 18 year old brother just stood there in disbelief. Time does not stand still when when your world comes crashing down. We started the phone calls and the drives to gather the rest of our family. My mother has seven children.

We raced at 90 mph to Rocky Point in a Lincoln Navigator and not a word was spoken. We arrived at the local jail and swarmed the desk clerk. The day shift had just come on duty and information was scarce. We were shown a list of suspects but none of the names were familiar. The officers allowed us to go to the cells and view the suspects.

“Adrian, Adrian, Adrian”! We recognized the face. Adrian woke up in shock and started shaking his head no, no, no. He wanted us to think we had made a mistake and even said “no hablo ingles”! Frank had considered him his brother because Frank’s Dad had been married to Adrian’s Mother. We walked away.

Marcy, whose family woke us up with the news, showed up “crying” at the jail and said that Frank had been stabbed. She said that they had left a club and were walking as a group when about 20 Rocky Point Locals attacked them. She claimed that my brother got left behind as they ran for their lives. Looking back now, I can’t believe I fell for the story.

Witnesses started coming forward in the weeks that followed and said that it was 5 guys that attacked him not 20. I returned to Rocky Point the following year and found out that my brother’s so-called friends had told the police an entirely different story. The police had, also, determined that the suspects were from Tucson, AZ. The search continues for the murderers of Frank John Monares.