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In 2010, a four-year-old little girl died of extremely mysterious circumstances in Mexico. The little girl’s death went on to be officially ruled an accident, but many found this decision very controversial & speculated that she may have been killed by those closest to her.
In 2010, Paulette Gebara Farah was a 4-year-old girl who lived in the affluent municipality of Huixquilucan de Degollado, Mexico, a suburb of Mexico City, where she lived with her parents, Mauricio & Lizette & her 7-year-old sister.
Paulette was born on July 20, 2005 at only 25 weeks gestation & weighed a mere 1.7# at birth.
Doctors feared that she wouldn’t survive & as a result of her premature birth, she suffered with developmental delays & was unable to walk without assistance or speak in full sentences. She did not have any intellectual disabilities & was mentally in line with what was expected for a 4-year-old. Because of her medical issues, Paulette had frequent contact with doctors & was required to take expensive medication.
Paulette also attended a specialized school that assisted her with her specialized needs, but despite her challenges, she did better than people expected & never let anything slow her down. The principal of her school said that Paulette tried to be as independent as possible & only needed help on occasion because of her motor & language delays.
Despite the fact that doctors believed that Paulette would never walk, she had learned to walk a few steps & was able to speak a few words such as “mom”, “dad”, “water” & “food.”
Mauricio worked in real estate while Lizette was an attorney & the Farah family was financially secure & lived in a very spacious apartment & employed multiple staff to help care for home & their children. Two nannies cared for Paulette, sisters Erika & Martha Casimiro & as of 2010, they had worked for the family for seven years.
On the weekend of March 20, 2010, Maurico took his daughters on a weekend trip to Valle de Bravo, while Lizette was away for the weekend in Cabo San Lucas with her friend Amanda. Some speculate that the couple’s marriage was crumbling & Lizette may have been meeting up with her lover.
Mauricio returned home with the girls on the night of Sunday, March 21, 2010 at 9 pm & Erika put Paulette to bed. Lizette was already back from her trip & went to say goodnight to her daughters & recalled kissing Paulette & tucking her pink, patchwork quilt around her.
The next morning Erika & Martha helped get Paulette’s sister ready in time for her 7 am bus to school & about an hour later, Erika entered Paulette’s room on the second floor to wake her for preschool & this was when she discovered that the little girl, who could not walk without assistance, was not in bed. Erika began to search the bed, closet, bathroom & even her sister’s room & when she still couldn’t find Paulette, she went downstairs to notify Lizette as Mauricio had already left for work.
Erika & Martha continued to search the entire apartment, but there was no sign of Paulette anywhere. When they did inform Lizette about her daughter’s disappearance, they felt she was oddly calm about the situation. Some reports indicate that Lizette was strangely unbothered as if it was a typical day & made no attempts to assist them in finding her daughter. Because Paulette was unable to walk without assistance, Erika feared that someone had come into the apartment & taken Paulette during the night. Not only was the apartment searched but also the area around the outside including the elevators, but there was no sign of her.
When Mauricio was notified of Paulette’s disappearance, he came home from work & eventually contacted his sister about his daughter’s disappearance & she went on to notify authorities & report her niece missing. Almost immediately, the Attorney General of The State of Mexico, Alberto Bazbaz, was notified by Mayor Alfredo del Mazo Maza.
When forensic teams came in & combed through the entire two-story apartment five times over, there were not only no signs of Paulette but also no signs of a break-in or evidence that an intruder or a struggle had occurred. When Mauricio & Lizette were questioned, they indicated that nothing seemed suspicious on the night that Paulette went missing; the two family dogs hadn’t been barking & everything was as it should be. Maurico & Lizette’s bedroom was next to Paulette’s & they hadn’t heard a sound.
The home had a security system that would have alerted them had someone entered or left the apartment. CCTV from outside the home showed no sign of Paulette leaving & because of her physical disability, she would not have been able to leave the house on her own accord. The family lived in a high-rise apartment which would have made it impossible for her or a captor to leave through a window & again, there was no sign of a break-in.
Paulette’s aunt, Arlette Farah, took to social media to help spread awareness of her niece’s disappearance in hopes of finding Paulette. She posted photos & because of the bizarre nature of her disappearance, the case very quickly became a media sensation. No one could understand how a girl who could not walk without assistance could have seemingly vanished from her own bedroom without a trace.
The intense search, investigation & extensive media coverage caused controversy since more than four children go missing each day in Mexico & because of this, police often cannot handle the cases. Some felt that Paulette’s case was so highly publicized because of the family’s financial standings.
Alberto Bazbaz, the Attorney General of the State, was heavily involved in the intensive search & his involvement only increased controversy since Paulette’s case received so many resources & people recognized that she was from a wealthy family. Many felt that when other children go missing, nobody “lifted a finger” yet in Paulette’s case the police department used all of their resources to find her. Many felt that one child’s life should not hold more importance over another simply because of money.
Posters of the little girl were posted throughout the county & the case quickly became a media circus. Paulette’s case received more coverage & attention than a recent earthquake, however, despite the attention, there was no progress & no sign of her.
There were many interviews with Paulette’s parents especially involving Lizette so her image became the face of this case. During one particular interview, Lizette spoke with the media as she sat on the edge of her daughter’s bed.
During her interviews, Lizette hinted at the possibility of Paulette being kidnapped & asked the culprit responsible for her daughter’s disappearance to come forward. However, the public questioned this theory since evidence indicated absolutely no sign of a break-in or the presence of an intruder. As the days went by, people grew increasingly suspicious because of the mysterious nature of how she disappeared. There was no ransom note & no one had contacted the family, demanding money. People assumed that the motive for the abduction would have been financially driven because there seemed to be no other reason to take a child that required constant care.
Because the home was not considered a crime scene, many people filtered in & out during the days in which Paulette seemingly vanished.
Many noticed that during her interviews, Lizette came across as very cold & distant; she seemed nervous & never shed a tear. When she was once questioned about how her daughter could have been taken, she jokingly mentioned the possibility of aliens or Harry Potter being responsible which only added to the growing concern. As time went on, doubts began to surface about the family’s initial account of events.
A week after Paulette’s disappearance an announcement was made that Mauricio, Lizette & their nannies were taken into custody due to inconsistencies in their stories, but no one was charged.
There were also undercover recordings between Lizette, Mauricio & their other daughter which led investigators to believe that Lizette may have been responsible for whatever happened to Paulette. In one recording between Lizette & her daughter, she could be heard saying what sounded like instructions to her daughter, not to admit anything to the investigators otherwise she would get into trouble. When confronted with this information, Lizette claimed it was taken out of context. By this point, everyone within the home was moved to a hotel & placed under a restriction order.
Investigators went to the family’s home & conducted a reenactment of events in hopes of finding answers that would lead to finding Paulette. No one was prepared for the discovery that came nine days after Paulette went missing.
At 2 am on Wednesday, March 31, 2010, Paulette’s body was found wedged in the corner of the foot of her bed between the bed frame & the mattress, she was wrapped in her own sheets. It was the very spot where Lizette sat for her televised interview.
The public was baffled when they learned that the missing girl had been in the very place she had vanished from. Not only had her mother been sitting on the bed where her daughter’s body was, but the house had been searched numerous times by her parents, nannies & forensic teams. Paulette’s bed was claimed to have been searched at least five times.
Since her disappearance, the nannies had made the bed numerous times & even changed out the bedding. A family friend had also slept on that bed for numerous nights in the time that Paulette was missing. More than 100 people had been in Paulette’s room & yet she hadn’t been found for more than a week. The police had even brought in cadaver dogs at one point.
In a leaked video of the investigation, one investigator said that Paulette had been severely beaten, but this was later refuted by Attorney General Bazbaz.
Decomposition has a very strong, characteristic odor which cannot be overlooked & forensic investigators claimed that the body could not have been there any longer than three days which would leave a six day gap in the case. Experts indicated that any time after three days, the smell of decomposition would have been unavoidable. However, others refuted that there had been enough bedding & blankets to mask the smell.
Authorities hadn’t noticed anything amiss until Tuesday, March 30, the day before Paulette was found when they detected the faint odor of decomposition. Paulette was found lying on her side with red pajama bottoms & a blue sweater.
Bazbaz had initially declared the case a “homicide investigation” & both the parents & the nannies were questioned. He indicated that Lizette was the prime suspect but they were investigating the level of knowledge of the others involved.
However, despite these exceptionally suspicious findings, the coroner ruled Paulette’s cause of death as accidental. They concluded that she had rolled to the foot of her bed & accidentally fell & lodged herself in the gap between the mattress & the footboard which caused her to die from “asphyxiation that obstructed the respiratory airways & compressed the abdominal thorax.” The autopsy revealed that Paulette had an orthopedic cloth over her mouth that was used to prevent her from sleeping with her mouth open. Her covers compressed her lungs, resulting in suffocation. There were no signs of physical or sexual violence & there were no drugs or toxic substances found in her system. The autopsy concluded that she had eaten five hours prior to her death. There were two segments of rectangular adhesive cloth on both cheeks & signs of injury to her left elbow & knee. The autopsy concluded that she had died between five & nine days earlier.
Erika & Martha did not believe that Paulette’s death was an accident & felt that her body had not been at the foot of the bed throughout the nine days that she had been missing since they felt they would have found her had she been there.
When the story broke of how Paulette’s body was found, an outrage erupted through Mexico since the public felt that it wouldn’t have been possible for her body to go undiscovered in her bed for that long.
Alberto Bazbaz believed that Paulette’s body hadn’t been moved & had been there all along, “The position the child was in when she was found was the same as the position she was in when she died. That is, the original & final position are the same.” When he spoke out during a news conference, he indicated that the investigation had been conducted “in strict compliance with the law” despite the fact that only one week earlier he indicated that errors had been made, including the fact that Paulette’s body hadn’t been found despite the room being searched. Bazbaz said that in order for his office to carry out its duties properly, it needed both the trust & support of the people it served.
Authorities asked the nannies to reenact the process of how they made Paulette’s bed & from the way they were doing it, it was concluded that the little girl’s body could have been potentially overlooked. However, they remained adamant that they would have noticed disheveled bedding or some sort of evidence that Paulette had fallen between the bed & frame. Many people believed that Paulette had been deliberately murdered in the home & that it had not been an accidental death.
Because so many people had filtered in & out of the room in the time that Paulette was missing, the home was contaminated since it had not been sealed off as a crime scene. Footprints, fingerprints & DNA was everywhere making it nearly impossible to pinpoint a suspect.
A close family friend, Amanda de la Rosa, lived with the family for several days after Paulette’s disappearance & even slept in the little girl’s bed each night she was there.
Many theories have come out in this case & some believe that Lizette killed her daughter due to frustration over dealing with Paulette’s disabilities. Paulette required two nannies as well as expensive medical treatments & some wondered if she had become a financial burden to her parents. Lizette could be described as a cold person who lacked empathy & emotional attachment & suffered from some type of personality disorder. She was said to be very intelligent, very capable & very astute. Throughout the time that Paulette was missing, Lizette seemed unemotional & carefree & was even quoted saying, “even if I lose Paulette, I still have another daughter.” When accused of being potentially involved in her daughter’s death, she became defensive, angry & anxious.
Someone noticed a pair of pajamas that sat on the top of the bed during a televised interview that Lizette participated in before Paulette was found. When Paulette was discovered, she was wearing these very pajamas. It’s possible that she had multiple pairs of the same pajamas, but the coincidence was eerie.
Mauricio was also speculated as a potential killer & some wonder if Paulette was already deceased by the time he came back with her from their weekend away. Mauricio had been close friends with the Attorney General, Alberto Bazbaz who could have potentially assisted in covering up the murder. Alberto was very vocal in his accusations of Lizette’s involvement.
Some theorize that both parents were involved & question if the couple was having financial struggles & potentially staged a kidnapping to receive money from the government. Maybe Paulette’s body had been hidden somewhere else & then relocated to the bed where she was ultimately found. No one could wrap their head around how the house could have been searched at least five times over yet Paulette’s body wasn’t found for nine days.
Mauricio & Lizette turned on each other after Paulette’s body was found & Mauricio said, “The only thing I can say is that for me, it wasn’t an accident. I can only speak for myself.” In a separate interview, Lizette tearfully said that she didn’t understand why her husband would be suspicious of her & claimed that investigators could have manipulated him to turn on her. “They have played with a lot of minds. Maybe he didn’t have enough trust in me, because I have never doubted him.”
The seriousness of the divide between Mauricio & Lizette was amplified when Mauricio did not attend Paulette’s funeral on April 6 where Paulette’s older sister & paternal family were also not present. Paulette was laid to rest at the French Pantheon of San Joaquin in Mexico City.
In May 2010 Alberto Babaz resigned from his position as regional attorney general after Paulette’s case highlighted serious shortcomings in the state’s justice system.
Mauricio & Lizette went on to divorce & Lizette obtained custody of Paulette’s older sister. The circumstances surrounding Paulette’s disappearance remain unexplainable, but no arrests have ever been made. The case remains with much speculation & controversy & many believe that there was a cover-up or that authorities mishandled the investigation. But regardless of how Paulette died, her death was a tragic loss & her case remains one of Mexico’s most baffling mysteries.
References:
- Medium: The suspicious death of Paulette Gebara Farah
- CNN: Mexican girl, 4, died of asphyxiation, officials say
- BBC News: Resignation in Mexican missing girl Paulette case
- Refinery29: Netflix’s The Search tells of one of Mexico’s most devastating true crime stories
- Paranormal Catalog: The strange death of Paulette Gebara Farah
- The Yucatan Times: The mystery of Paulette’s death: Mexico’s infamous unsolved crime
