Last Wednesday, Jorge Rafael Zea Mejía was sentenced to 50 years in prison for the death of his wife, Luz María López Morales.
Although it is a result, it is not the end of a path that Ada Morales and Byron López, parents of the victim, have been traveling since 2020.
The last 20 months have been quite complicated for Morales and López, who embarked on a legal battle with the purpose of seeking justice for the femicide of their daughter. Her remains, partly burned, were abandoned in a sewer in zone 2 of the capital.
However, there is still a legal path ahead for the couple, who are determined to obtain full guardianship of their 3-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter, whom they have taken care of since that tragic day.
It has not been easy and it will not be in the following years, and Morales knows this, who gave an interview to Prensa Libre in which he reflected on how many times the femicide of his daughter could be avoided, but the system responded badly and late, and the consequences were fatal.
What are your projects in the short term?
What I want most is to be able to have custody of the girl, so that she can study and be under my complete supervision and that he —Zea Mejía— and her family cannot decide for her.
Before I die, I would like her to lose her father’s surnames or for it to be clearly stipulated that he cannot have rights over her. I want the best for my granddaughter and I will seek her well-being.
What challenge do you face in having to take care of your granddaughter?
My main priority is that the girl does not suffer anymore, and my biggest fear is that she will face some kind of harassment. I don’t want my granddaughter to go through that, but it will be a risk that we will have to take and we hope for the understanding of those around her, so that she can develop as well as possible in life.
I want to educate her with love and provide her with everything she needs for a healthy and suitable growth.
Are you seeking full guardianship of the girl?
Currently she is with me, but I face complicated situations due to some requirements that they ask for for various procedures, because I am not the mother. I have run into quite a few obstacles to be able to put her to study, for example.
For now I don’t know the steps I should follow, because I’m trying to assimilate everything that happened, but I will fight for the full guardianship of my granddaughter.
What are you looking for now that you have already obtained the conviction of the person responsible for the death of your daughter?
I wish I could have full rights to my granddaughter. I have even thought of an adoption so that she only has her mother’s surnames and avoid harming the girl, because she can affect her when she is older. I am a grandmother and I am not going to be there all my life to defend her. I am also very afraid that he —Zea Mejía— could make decisions about the girl.
What is the current condition of your granddaughter?
The psychologists have told us that her present cannot be normal, but we will try to ensure that the girl does not see everything that her mother went through as atrocious.
With my husband and the rest of my family we want her to be surrounded by love, tranquility and we give her the necessary support.
My granddaughter comes first, before anything else, and I even quit my job to take care of her and comply with what the judge asked me to do at the time.
What I want most is to be calm and have health to take care of her, watch over her and defend her in the moments that are necessary.
Before knowing the sentence, you reproduced an audio of the minor who recounted part of the violence that her mother experienced. What was her goal in presenting this?
They are human beings who not only need to know about laws, but also to see beyond, and that is why I wanted them to listen to what a girl goes through after living all that. My intention was never to manipulate, but when they judge someone, they do so by looking beyond and knowing what a child can suffer and face.
Rodrigo Arroyo, defender of Jorge Zea, pointed out that you were going to leave the country. That’s true?
It isn’t true. I found out that it was said that we were going to leave between 16 and 18 people, and the truth is that it makes me think. On the one hand, it scares me and we have to pay attention to it, because it is a number close to the members of my family.
At the moment we are trying to assimilate everything that happened, because we are the ones affected, our daughter was cruelly murdered and this has been quite hard.
Did you, at any time, suspect that your daughter was a victim of violence?
She was subjected to a very big manipulation, because she even began to move away from us.
I never imagined the capacity for manipulation that a human being can have. Even though my daughter was professionally trained, her partner caused her a lot of psychological and physical damage. It affected me a lot to listen to her co-workers when they commented that Luz María avoided being in groups where there were men, for fear of him.
Did you know if your daughter tried to file a complaint with the MP?
I didn’t know about that. A friend of hers stated that she went to bring her home and took her to the Public Ministry of Gerona, to file the complaint, and there they informed her that it was not appropriate and that she had to return to Mixco —jurisdiction where the couple lived— to do so.
They also went to the Lucky building —located on Paseo de la Sexta y 6a, calle, zone 1 of the capital—, and they did not receive the complaint either because they were told that it belonged to another place. So the complaint was no longer filed and that was left up in the air.
What recommendation would you give to women victims of violence and to those mothers who may be in a situation similar to the one their family faced?
Now I understand that a woman can be very manipulated by a man, and all Guatemalan women must know that we have rights, that no one owns our life and our being, that we can seek help if we need it and alert those closest to us.
There are submissive women to whom relatives or friends must pay close attention and constantly offer support, to avoid tragedies.
