{"id":20755,"date":"2019-08-06T10:30:46","date_gmt":"2019-08-06T14:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/sjc\/?p=20755"},"modified":"2023-12-06T10:38:20","modified_gmt":"2023-12-06T15:38:20","slug":"susana-vargas-cervantes-the-little-old-lady-killer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/sjc\/2019\/susana-vargas-cervantes-the-little-old-lady-killer\/","title":{"rendered":"Susana Vargas Cervantes | The Little Old Lady Killer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-20757\" src=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/sjc\/wp-content\/uploads\/Vargas-Cervantes_Little-Old-Lady-Killer-cover-400x601.jpg\" alt=\"Cover of The Little Old Lady Killer\" width=\"400\" height=\"601\" srcset=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/sjc\/wp-content\/uploads\/Vargas-Cervantes_Little-Old-Lady-Killer-cover-400x601.jpg 400w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/sjc\/wp-content\/uploads\/Vargas-Cervantes_Little-Old-Lady-Killer-cover-300x451.jpg 300w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/sjc\/wp-content\/uploads\/Vargas-Cervantes_Little-Old-Lady-Killer-cover.jpg 568w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/>For three years, amid widespread public outrage, police in Mexico City struggled to uncover the identity of the killer responsible for the ghastly deaths of forty elderly women, many of whom had been strangled in their homes with a stethoscope by someone posing as a government nurse. When Juana Barraza Samperio, a female professional wrestler known as la Dama del Silencio (the Lady of Silence), was arrested\u2014and eventually sentenced to 759 years in prison\u2014for her crimes as the Mataviejitas (the little old lady killer), her case disrupted traditional narratives about gender, criminality, and victimhood in the popular and criminological imagination.<\/p>\n<p>Marshaling ten years of research, and one of the only interviews that Juana Barraza Samperio has given while in prison, Susana Vargas Cervantes deconstructs this uniquely provocative story. She focuses, in particular, on the complex, gendered aspects of the case, asking: Who is a killer? Barraza\u2014with her \u201cmanly\u201d features and strength, her career as a masked wrestler in lucha libre, and her violent crimes\u2014is presented, here, as a study in gender deviance, a disruption of what scholars call mexicanidad, or the masculine notion of what it means to be Mexican. Cervantes also challenges our conception of victimhood\u2014specifically, who \u201ccounts\u201d as a victim.<\/p>\n<p>The Little Old Lady Killer presents a fascinating analysis of what serial killing\u2014often considered \u201ckilling for the pleasure of killing\u201d\u2014represents to us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For three years, amid widespread public outrage, police in Mexico City struggled to uncover the identity of the killer responsible for the ghastly deaths of forty elderly women, many of whom had been strangled in their homes with a stethoscope by someone posing as a government nurse. When Juana Barraza Samperio, a female professional wrestler [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[224],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Susana Vargas Cervantes | The Little Old Lady Killer | School of Journalism and Communication<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For three years, amid widespread public outrage, police in Mexico City struggled to uncover the identity of the killer responsible for the ghastly deaths\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/sjc\/2019\/susana-vargas-cervantes-the-little-old-lady-killer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Susana Vargas Cervantes | The Little Old Lady Killer | School of Journalism and Communication\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For three years, amid widespread public outrage, police in Mexico City struggled to uncover the identity of the killer responsible for the ghastly deaths\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/sjc\/2019\/susana-vargas-cervantes-the-little-old-lady-killer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"School of Journalism and Communication\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-08-06T14:30:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-12-06T15:38:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta 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