Film Review: "The Lady of Silence: The Mataviejitas Murders" ("La dama del silencio: El caso de la Mataviejitas") (2023).

From the director of Beauties of the Night (Bellas de Noche) comes The Lady of Silence: The Mataviejitas Murders (La dama del silencio: El caso de la Mataviejitas). This crime documentary film directed by María José Cuevas, and written by Miguel León. In early-2000s Mexico City, nearly fifty elderly women were strangled in their own homes in Mexico City, triggering the hunt for — and capture — of a most unlikely suspect.

On December 27, 1957, Mexican serial killer and former professional wrestler dubbed La Mataviejitas (The Little Old Lady Killer), Juana Dayanara Barraza Samperio, was born. Barraza's mother, Justa Samperio, was an alcoholic who reportedly exchanged her for three beers to a man who repeatedly raped her in his care, and by whom she became pregnant with a son. She had four children in total, although her eldest son died from injuries sustained in a mugging. Prior to her arrest, Barraza was a professional wrestler under the ring name of La Dama del Silencio (The Lady of Silence). She had a strong interest in lucha libre, a form of Mexican masked professional wrestling. On March 31, 2008, she was sentenced to seven-hundred and fifty-nine years in prison for the killing of sixteen elderly women. The first murder attributed to Mataviejitas has been dated variously to the late 1990s and to a specific killing on 17 November 2003. The authorities and the press have given various estimates as to the total number of the Mataviejitas victims, with estimates ranging from forty-two to forty-eight deaths. All of Barraza's victims were women aged sixty or over, many of whom lived alone. Barraza bludgeoned or strangled them before robbing them. After the arrest of Juana Barraza the case of the Mataviejitas was officially closed despite more than thirty unresolved cases. In the Spring of 2008, Barraza was tried, Mexico City prosecutors said fingerprint evidence linked Barraza to at least ten murders of the as many as forty murders attributed to the killer. The wrestler is said to have confessed to murdering Alfaro and three other women, but denied involvement in all other killings. She told the police her motive was lingering resentment regarding her own mother's treatment of her. On 31 March, she was found guilty on sixteen charges of murder and aggravated burglary, including eleven separate counts of murder. She was sentenced to seven-hundred and fifty-nine years in prison. Since sentences imposed in Mexican courts are generally served concurrently, but the maximum sentence under Mexican law is sixty years, she will most likely serve the full sentence in prison.

With an absorbing narrative and effective direction, the viewer is immersed in the horrors and intrigues behind the Lady of Silence's crimes. Criticizing its boilerplate approach doesn’t mean this isn’t a story worth telling – just that it could have been told better, with more concision and clarity, and less repetition. If you’re interested in true crime docuseries, you’ll probably find this one worth watching. It’s a grim recollection of one of Mexico’s darkest years.

Simon Says The Lady of Silence: The Mataviejitas Murders (La dama del silencio: El caso de la Mataviejitas) receives: