He wasnt involved in drugs, ever. So why the fuck was Alex murdered?

Mom wants slayings solved

El Pasoan's son was killed in Juárez

Daniel Borunda
El Paso Times

Blanca Irma Lujan of El Paso has trouble sleeping.

On the afternoon of June 16, her 29-year-old son, Alejandro Rubio Lujan, was following his daily routine when he arrived at work. He parked his white Hummer with Texas plates in front of Mangos, an upscale Juárez bar he owned.

Minutes later, a pair of gunmen confronted Rubio in the bar. He was shot eight times in the head with a 9 mm gun, Chihuahua state investigators said. Some shots flew through the bar's windows. The gunmen possibly fled in a Chevrolet Avalanche driven by a third man.

Three months later, the gangland-style slaying remains unsolved.

"I don't sleep. When I do, I sleep little," Lujan said. She often ponders the motive for the brutal shooting. "I keep thinking, 'What was it my son didn't want to do? What did he do that bothered somebody?"

The case is one of several unsolved homicides of El Pasoans in Juárez this year, including a U.S. Marine shot Aug. 29 during a roadway dispute. The slaying of Sgt. Heber Villagran spurred Lujan to speak out, she said.

A Chihuahua state police spokeswoman said the homicide cases remain open but the Villagran investigation has yielded no description of the shooter or his vehicle.

Rubio, a 1995 graduate of Cathedral High School, lived both with his mother in El Paso and an uncle in Juárez, his mother said. After learning the ropes at an uncle's restaurant, the family saved up and in 2002 Rubio opened Mangos on Avenida de la Raza at Avenida Insurgentes. The popular bar hired attractive young women recruited in Venezuela as hostesses.

Some Mexican news media reported the bar was frequented by drug traffickers, but Lujan denied her son was linked to the drug trade.

"He was a businessman," she said. Rubio invested profits into the bar, which was not robbed, said Lujan, who questioned her son's friends and employees about the shooting.

"It was not narcotrafficking," Lujan said. "I don't know what it was. It was someone with money, maybe somebody a little outside that circle. I know it was planned but there was no threat."

Chihuahua state police spokeswoman Claudia Bañuelos said the case was handed over to Grupo Zeus, an investigative task force. "It has not been determined whether the shooting was linked to organized crime," she said.

Lujan said she would like to see the families of other slain El Pasoans pressure Juárez authorities into solving the killings. "Why are the police silent? Why don't they act? What do they fear? Why is crime winning?"

Daniel Borunda may be reached at dborunda@elpasotimes.com; 546-6102.


That was his dream, to open and own his own bar. He was a nice guy...