Two Bodies Found on Texas Farm Identified as Kidnapped Devine Woman and Her Abductor

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Two bodies found on private farmland in Texas have been confirmed as belonging to a missing Devine woman and her suspected kidnapper.

Authorities and family members cited by KENS 5 said the bodies, found on July 9, belong to 37-year-old Jessica Sanchez and 48-year-old Jorge Jaramillo, who had allegedly abducted her at gunpoint.

Gary Mangold, the owner of the property where the bodies were found, told San Antonio’s KSAT station that he discovered the two bodies around 3 p.m. on Tuesday in an area covered by trees and brush.

“It’s just closure for the family now, and that’s good. At least they know. Not knowing is a terrible thing,” Mangold told KSAT.

Jaramillo was identified in the KSAT report as being Sanchez’s boyfriend until, on Memorial Day, he held a knife to her throat.

“They had been together for about seven years and separated on Memorial [Day] after an incident occurred,” Santiago Carrillo, Sanchez’s brother-in-law, told KENS 5.

Jaramillo was arrested for aggravated assault following the incident and Sanchez got a restraining order against him, KSAT reported.

Police have not indicated any motive for the alleged kidnapping.

“The only thing I could fathom is he could not take not being with her and so he found a breaking point,” Carrillo speculated about Jaramillo’s motive, KENS 5 reported.

Family members cited by Fox 29 San Antonio said Sanchez’s three young daughters witnessed the kidnapping, which was carried out at gunpoint.

The Devine Police Department was cited by KENS 5 as saying that Jaramillo climbed through a window into Sanchez’s house and threatened her with a firearm. He then allegedly forced her to leave the house with him, using her vehicle to escape the scene.

Police have not released information regarding the victims’ cause of death.

KSAT posted the story on its Facebook page, where it drew emotional reactions.

“My heart hurts for her, as she feared something would happen (after reading about protection order),” one person wrote. “May her soul rest in peace and her family find strength to get through this.”

“This is heartbreaking! That poor woman and now her children are left without their mother,” someone else commented. “Prayers going out to all affected.”

Facts About Crime in the United States

Violent crime in the United States has fallen sharply over the past 25 years, according to both the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) (pdf).

The rate of violent crimes fell by 49 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to the FBI’s UCR, which only reflects crimes reported to the police.

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The violent crime rate dropped by 74 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to the BJS’s NCVS, which takes into account both crimes that have been reported to the police and those that have not.

The FBI recently released preliminary data for 2018. According to the Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, January to June 2018, violent crime rates in the United States dropped by 4.3 percent compared to the same six-month period in 2017.

While the overall rate of violent crime has seen a steady downward drop since its peak in the 1990s, there have been several upticks that bucked the trend.

Between 2014 and 2016, the murder rate increased by more than 20 percent, to 5.4 per 100,000 residents, from 4.4, according to an Epoch Times analysis of FBI data. The last two-year period that the rate soared so quickly was between 1966 and 1968.