Transcript: 174. The Tragic Death of Paulette Gebara Farah | Mexico

You are listening to: The Evidence Locker.

Our cases have been researched using open source and archive materials. It deals with true crimes and real people. Some parts are graphic in nature and listener discretion is advised. Each episode is produced with the utmost respect to the victims, their families and loved ones.

Warning: Today’s episode deals with the death of a child. The case remains unsolved, and we would like to play our part in keeping Paulette’s story told. However, the story may not be suitable for sensitive listeners.


In Mexico, over 34,500 people were murdered during 2020 alone. That is almost 100 victims each day if you average it out. Sadly, the country is so brutalized by violence that most of the time, even dead bodies hanging from the bridges or severed heads in trash bins do not always make the headlines.

However, when 4-year-old Paulette Gebara Farah went missing in March 2010, the case caught the attention of the entire country. The little girl had seemingly vanished without a trace from her own bed in the middle of the night. The family lived in a high-rise apartment, and there were no signs of forced entry, and the two family dogs had not barked once that night. The house was also monitored by CCTV cameras, but the footage did not show Paulette leaving or being taken by someone. 

So, where was little Paulette?

>>Intro Music

Paulette Gebara Farah was born on July 20, 2005, in Huixquilucan, State of Mexico to Lizette Farah and Mauricio Gebara. Paulette's parents had married in 2001, accompanied by 600 guests as they exchanged vows in the church of Madre de Dios de Czestochowa, in the small community of Lomas de Tecamachalco, Naucalpan. Lizette was the daughter of Lidia Farah Morales and Bechara Naim Farah, a Lebanese immigrant and prominent businessman. All her life, Lizette had enjoyed the privileges of being born into a wealthy family. She attended the best private schools in Mexico and eventually became a lawyer. Mauricio, was more of a self-made man, who had grown a successful business in real estate alongside his brother.

The couple's first daughter, also called Lizette, was born in 2003. Two years later, Mauricio and Lizette were ready for another baby, but unfortunately, this time, the pregnancy did not go as planned.

Paulette came into the world prematurely, at 25 weeks of gestation, weighing just 800 grams (1.7 pounds) and measuring 35 cm (1.1 foot). From birth, the little girl suffered from a series of disabilities, including motor deficiency and language impairments, which prevented her from functioning normally. As a result, she required constant visits to the paediatrician, expensive medications and therapy sessions in addition to extra attention and assistance on a daily basis. To ease the load on Paulette's parents, the little girl had two nannies, sisters Erika and Martha Casimiro, taking care of her around the clock.

Still, despite her limitations, Paulette always seemed to do better than others expected. While she had issues with moving her body and producing language, Paulette did not have any kind of intellectual disability, and she did not let anything slow her down. Her kindergarten principal, Carmen Valles, later described the young girl as

"… a little enthusiast who made the best effort to carry out her activities on her own and who only needed assistance, due to her motor and language disabilities, in some daily actions."

With time and horse therapy, Paulette learned how to walk, and while it was not more than a few steps at the time, it was still a win as doctors had said she would never be able to walk at all. And while Paulette was not able to form complete sentences, she learned how to make herself understood as she knew how to pronounce words like "mom," "dad," "water," and "food." Overall, Paulette could have had a much better life than originally predicted if it just would not have been cut short three months before her fifth birthday.

On March 21, 2010, around 9pm, Paulette, her sister Lizette, and her father Mauricio returned home from a weekend trip to Valle de Bravo. They arrived at the family’s residence in Huixquilucan, where one of Paulette's nannies, Erika, took her straight to bed. Paulette's mother, Lizette, had been on a separate trip to Los Cabos with her friend Amanda but had arrived back the same day as her family. As Paulette was then in her pyjamas, ready to go to sleep, Lizette came to tuck her in and gave her a kiss goodnight. That was the last time she allegedly saw her daughter alive.

The following day, Erika and her sister Martha got Paulette's elder sister ready for school and then waited with Lizette until the school bus picked her up at 7am. Around an hour later, Erika went to wake the four-year-old up for kindergarten, but Paulette was not in her room. Actually, she was nowhere in the 300 m² luxury apartment. As Erika later stated:

"I looked for her in the bathroom, under the bed and in the closet. I couldn't find her and decided to search the parent's bedroom as well, then her sister's room. And then I searched her room once more."

Yet, there were no signs of Paulette having left the house – and how could she have, owing to her motor disabilities. It was extremely challenging for the little girl to even get out of the bed by herself, let alone walk from her room to the front door without help. Terrified that somebody had been able to somehow snatch the little girl during the night, Erika informed Lizette and Mauricio before beginning a desperate search for Paulette around the condominium area where the family lived on Hacienda del Ciervo street. But, unfortunately, the efforts turned out to be in vain. Paulette was nowhere to be found.

After speaking with the neighbors and the security guards, who had not seen the little girl either, Mauricio notified his sister of her niece's disappearance. She then reported Paulette missing to the Huixquilucan authorities, followed by the mayor informing the Attorney General of the State of Mexico, Alberto Bazbaz, of the situation. An investigation was launched immediately, and soon the family's apartment was filled with a forensic team, police officers and detectives. However, it was quickly realized there were absolutely no clues of what had happened. The two-story home was searched from top to bottom, but there were no signs of forced entry, no sign of struggle, no missing items and no Paulette. Investigators were left baffled, not having any leads to follow. It was like the beginning of a mystery movie, but unfortunately, the situation was very much real.

As Paulette's aunt, Arlette Farah, then began sending emails and uploading the little girl's photos to social media asking for help, the bizarre story quickly turned into a media frenzy. In a record time, flyers were posted with Paulette's photo and information on public transport, billboards were erected, and ads were on all TV channels. Still, while the little girl's disappearance gripped the attention of the whole country, the intensive search and investigation also caused controversy. On average, more than four children go missing in Mexico every day and normally, police cannot keep up with all the cases. But in Paulette’s case, a girl from a wealthy family disappeared and police pulled all possible resources to find her. Of course, that was in no way little Paulette's fault, and everyone hoped the horrible situation would quickly end with a positive resolution.

Paulette's parents, with Lizette as the main spokesperson, did countless interviews where they pleaded for their daughter's safe return. Lizette strongly implied that she believed Paulette had been kidnapped. Many people questioned this assumption, seeing as there had not been any signs of a break-in, no signs of a struggle and the family never received a ransom call. Lizette, who did not seem overly distressed and never cried during the interviews, came across as being nervous. When she was asked how her daughter could possibly have been taken from their home, she had a peculiar answer:

"Maybe she was taken by aliens, or perhaps even Harry Potter."

Of course, there is no blueprint for how someone should act when they’re going through trauma. But the Mexican public felt increasingly uncomfortable about the missing four-year-old's mother joking like that. Slowly, suspicion grew… Was there more to the story than Paulette's family had initially said?

Five days after Paulette's disappearance, Lizette gave another interview, sitting inside the missing girl's room. She went through the events of that fateful night again, explaining how she had tucked Paulette in, given her a kiss goodnight and gone to sleep herself, not knowing she would never see her daughter again. During the 22-minute interview, the journalist Lilly Téllez did not notice anything strange in Paulette's room or in the little girl's mother. Lizette seemed heartbroken, sitting on her daughter's bed, describing how she missed Paulette:

"The only thing I want is to get my child back. She's a special girl who needs her parents; who cannot survive on her own; who has a family that adores her and is willing to give up their own lives for her."

However, the story of a missing girl and grieving mother would soon have a shocking turn, which left the whole country of Mexico in disbelief.

At this point, after a thorough investigation in and around the building, authorities concluded that Paulette could NOT have been kidnapped. It was also NOT possible that she could have wandered off by herself as she could not walk or move unassisted. Canine units had been used during the search and found no trail of Paulette leading out of the apartment, or any traces of outsiders inside the family home. As there was no other logical explanation left, the police surmised that either Paulette's parents, her nannies or all of them together were responsible for the girl's disappearance.

On March 29, the Attorney General of the State of Mexico announced they were going to place Mauricio Gebara and Lizette Farah, as well as the nannies, Erika and Martha Casimiro, under house arrest due to the inconsistencies in their statements. As Alberto Bazbaz commented at the time:

 

"Each of them at a certain moment has falsified their statement, which has made it difficult to know the truth of the facts and clarify a firm line of investigation."

 

The next day, Paulette's parents and the nannies were transferred to a hotel where they would spend their time until the case could be resolved. At this point, Lizette was openly considered a suspect in her daughter's disappearance. According to BazBaz, they had undercover recordings of conversations between the mother and her husband and older daughter that led them to believe Lizette had done something to Paulette.

 

"She is the only suspect. I have no doubt that this is a homicide investigation. At this moment, we can say that Lizette is a suspect. In addition to her, we are investigating the level of knowledge of others involved."

In one of these recordings, Lizette can be heard telling her older daughter not to admit anything to the investigators. Otherwise, she would get in trouble. According to Lizette, what she had said had been taken out of context, but it still raised the question: what did Paulette’s sister know? Or was Lizette just afraid her daughter would admit something that had not actually happened, as she later claimed? Either way, at that point, Lizette was thought to be solely responsible for Paulette's disappearance.

Making things even more suspicious, both of Paulette's nannies, Erika and Martha, claimed that the missing girl's parents seemed overly calm while everyone else was frantically searching for her. Erika said that when she had woken Lizette on March 22 with the news of Paulette being missing, the mother had seemed unconcerned, enjoying her morning coffee and cigarette before doing anything else. Also, neither Lizette nor Mauricio reported their daughter missing. It was Mauricio's sister who alerted authorities.

Still, without concrete evidence, the police did not have anything other than a theory. The most critical piece of the puzzle was yet to be found, Paulette's body. And so, the investigators decided to carry out a reconstruction of the events leading up to the little girl's disappearance, with both parents present, in hopes of finding out new clues. However, what they ended up revealing still remains one of the most bizarre mysteries in the State of Mexico.

As unbelievable as it sounds, nine days after her disappearance, Paulette's body was discovered in the same place she was last seen alive: her own bedroom. Around 2am on March 31, police had been recreating the events on the night she disappeared when an officer caught a whiff of a putrid smell coming from the bed. As the mattress was then ripped off, Paulette's tiny body was found wrapped in blankets, wedged at the foot of her bed. She was lying on her side, wearing red pyjama bottoms and a blue sweater. As if the discovery itself had not been shocking enough, according to the autopsy report, Paulette had died accidentally.

The Attorney General of the State of Mexico, Alberto Bazbaz, who had previously commented that he was sure they were investigating a murder and named Lizette Farah the main suspect, now changed his opinion completely.

"The records and experts agree that the death of this child was an accident. Having not found a bit of evidence to the contrary, we are closing the investigation without pursuing criminal charges."

It was reported that Paulette had rolled to the foot of her bed while sleeping and accidentally fell into the gap between the mattress and footboard. As she had not been able to get out of the situation by herself, the little girl had eventually died by "asphyxiation that obstructed the respiratory airways and compressed the abdominal thorax." In addition, it was reported that no traces of drugs or toxic substances or signs of sexual assault were found in the body.

While the autopsy was unable to determine the exact time of death, Bazbaz's statement meant that Paulette had died on the night between March 21 and 22, and her body had been in the same location all this time. As he commented:

"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 and final position are the same."

So, according to the official version of the events, Paulette had never left her room and blankets covering her decomposing body had been enough to conceal the smell for over a week. All while family members, nannies and investigators had tromped in and out the room, allegedly searching it through and through. On top of that, Lizette had been interviewed sitting on her daughter's bed, and reportedly, people had even been sleeping on it. Yet nobody had found the little girl.

To put this in perspective, in average conditions, it takes 24-72 hours before a dead human body begins to smell. Once the bacteria start its work, the release of gas produced in the process is so significant, whatever space or room the body is placed will begin to fill with a foul, virtually intolerable odour. It is not something that can be concealed with a couple of blankets. So had Paulette's body really been under her mattress for nine days, or was it placed there later?

According to authorities, everybody had just simply missed the little girl for nine days.

As soon as the news broke of the official story, it sparked outrage across Mexico. The nation found it unbelievable that Paulette's body could have remained inside the family home undiscovered for so long. In addition, the behaviour of the girl's parents had been more than questionable since the beginning, and Attorney Bazbaz himself had initially clearly stated he believed Lizette was the one responsible for Paulette's disappearance. Yet, he was ready to end the investigation in the middle of the most bizarre circumstances with an explanation that did not convince anybody.

On April 3, Lizette initiated an amparo proceeding against the house arrest order, saying she had not been involved in her daughter's disappearance or death in any way. Around the same time, specialists made a public statement at a press conference that they had analysed Lizette's actions during the whole ordeal and concluded she suffered from some kind of personality disorder. As legal psychiatric expert Sandra Yadeum commented:

 

"We have before us a lawyer - intelligent, bold, astute. She has always remained very distant in matters of affection and emotional attachment. She has lied. In short, there are characteristics that speak of a mental disorder."

 

Many found this easy to believe due to Lizette's lack of emotions as she had not been "crying or reacting as a mother is expected to do" after Paulette's disappearance and because of her strange comments, like:

 

"Even if I lose Paulette, I still have another daughter."

 

Nevertheless, the following day, a judge ordered the release of Lizette, her husband and the two babysitters. And so, Mauricio Gebara left the hotel where all four of them had been staying at 10:20 AM, Lizette Farah at 11:00 AM, and the nannies Erika and Martha Casimiro around noon. Still, while Paulette's death had been ruled an accident, each person was forbidden to leave the country at this point.

After their release, it had not gone unnoticed that Paulette's parents had left the hotel separately. The reason why was revealed the very next day.

On May 5, the mudslinging between Lizette and Mauricio commenced. They accused each other of Paulette’s murder publicly. In an interview with the local Televisa network, Mauricio made it clear he did not believe the official version of the events leading to his daughter's death and could not defend his wife's innocence:

"The only thing I can say is that for me, it wasn't an accident. I can only speak for myself.

Meanwhile, during her separate interview with the same network, Lizette cried how her own husband could even think she had something to do with Paulette's death. Lizette claimed that the authorities had possibly manipulated Mauricio to believe she had killed their daughter, saying:

 

"They have played a lot with our minds. Maybe he didn't have enough trust in me, but I have never doubted him."

 

The seriousness of the issues between the couple became evident when Mauricio did not attend her daughter's funeral on April 6.

Paulette Gebara Farah was laid to rest in a white coffin wrapped in white roses at the French Pantheon of San Joaquín in Mexico City. In addition to her father's absence, the little girl's elder sister was not present, and neither was anyone from the paternal side of the family.

In turn, Lizette did not attend Paulette's wake at the request of her husband. Reportedly, Mauricio had stated he did not want to see Lizette anymore "because things were going to get worse." The Gebara family also denied Lizette from seeing her 7-year-old daughter Lizette Jr., who had been with her father's family since Sunday, April 4. However, after an official complaint, The Attorney General's Office of the Federal District, which had collaborated in Paulette's case, granted custody of Lizette Jr. to her mother on May 10, 2010.

But this case was far from over…

Initially, it seemed like investigators left no stone unturned to find Paulette. However, little by little, information surfaced about how poorly the investigation was conducted. First of all, as the forensics team had arrived at the apartment on March 22, they had been only allowed to look for signs of forced entry, nothing more. Also, deputy attorney Alfredo Castillo had allegedly ordered them to stop almost as soon as they got there for reasons unknown. In addition, the crime scene had never been adequately closed off, so people had been able to walk in and out as they pleased. As a result, the scene had been slowly but surely contaminated, and evidence may have been destroyed.

There was also not any reasonable explanation why a friend of Lizette, Amanda de la Rosa, had been allowed to live in the family home for several days and sleep in Paulette's room. It seemed that nobody actually considered it to be a crime scene or at least did not treat it as such.

Nevertheless, during Amanda's time in the house, the bed was made daily and yet, no foul smell or bloody stains on the sheets were ever noticed. However, the stains are clearly visible in the public video of the discovery of Paulette's body.

Allegedly, the video was taken with the purpose of recording the re-enactment of events leading to Paulette's disappearance. In the footage, a team of three forensic experts can be seen measuring the little girl's bed and then removing the blanket to reveal two large bloodstains. Eventually, the team discovered Paulette's body under the sheets, partially hidden on one side of the mattress. However, it was curious that before they had even seen the corpse, one forensic expert could be heard stating twice on the video that Paulette had been "severely beaten" to death. How could they make such a statement if the video really was a recording of a real-time event and they were seeing the evidence for the first time?

The weird detail caused many to think if the recording was actually a re-enactment of the re-enactment. The theory was supported by the fact that none of the forensic team members seemed in any way surprised when they discovered Paulette's body. Yet supposedly, the room had been searched numerous times, and it should not have been possible for the little girl to be there. On top of lacking any kind of visible reaction, the experts continued to narrate the events with a monotonous voice like they were following a script without putting any effort into acting.

However, the biggest issue people had with the video was the fact that it mentioned violence as a cause of death. Yet, as soon as the footage was released, Attorney General Bazbaz announced Paulette had died accidentally from suffocation after rolling in her sleep between the mattress and the bed frame. Yet Paulette's body was positioned in such a way it did not seem any way possible she had ended up like that on her own. Furthermore, authorities themselves had been the ones giving the video to the press to prove how the discovery had been made, but afterward, they refused to address the apparent controversies.

On top of everything, it seemed like nobody had remembered to mention that Mauricio Gebara had close ties with Attorney General Bazbaz. If the speculations of the political relationships in the case were true, it would have explained why Bazbaz had been so swift to put all the blame on Lizette. He managed to convince the whole country Paulette's mother was a cold and calculating woman who had gotten rid of her disabled daughter. But for whatever reason, Bazbaz had then changed his mind about pursuing Lizette.

Even more shockingly, it was later revealed that both Mauricio and Lizette had stated during the investigation that they knew what had happened to their daughter, blaming each other from the start. Allegedly, Mauricio had told the officers:

"Yes, I know where Paulette is, and I will only tell you if you help me, legally, so that I do not have any problem with the law... I have a fear of going to jail... I am desperate."

So had Attorney General Bazbaz used his position to help Mauricio by brushing a murder case under the carpet? Whether or not the speculations were true, a public uproar over the handling of the case only got louder day by day. And so, it was not surprising when on May 26, Alberto Bazbaz resigned. However, he stated that the entire investigation had been conducted "in strict compliance with the law," and he stood by his conclusion that Paulette's death had been an accident. According to Bazbaz, he was only stepping down because his agency had lost credibility and the trust of the public due to controversies in the case. Which, of course, had not been in any way the result of his own actions.

Bazbaz's resignation did not satisfy the nation, which was still left without answers to an endless amount of questions concerning the death of the little Paulette. Most believed and still believe to this day that Bazbaz lied about how the girl had died, possibly under the instruction of his boss and close friend of Paulette's grandfather, Gov. Enrique Pena Nieto. After all, the governor was widely considered the front-runner for president in 2012, and the case could have proven an embarrassment for his administration. However, if the authorities really tried to shrug off Paulette's death as an accident and thought everybody would just quickly forget what had happened, they were wrong.

It is still widely believed that Lizette was the one responsible for what happened to Paulette. Many speculate that the mother with the strange behaviour had, in fact, been exhausted by the emotional and financial burdens of raising a disabled child. As a result, Lizette had either planned the disappearance or had lost control, struck her daughter and unintentionally killed her.

Lizette could have then hidden her daughter's body in an air duct or perhaps in the elevator shaft before moving it back to her bed. This theory is supported by the fact that one neighbour of the family had complained that one of the elevators in the building was acting up soon after Paulette's disappearance, like it was bumping into something. But there is a one big question: why would she then bring the dead body back to her own apartment?

Another popular theory is that Mauricio and Lizette were having financial problems, and as a result, they decided to stage a kidnapping, but the plan went horribly wrong. Paulette's nannies were also suspected of spiriting away the little girl with a plan to later demand a ransom for her safe return. However, neither of these theories sound as plausible as the one of a cold and calculating mother getting rid of her own daughter. A big part of that is thanks to former Attorney General BazBaz, who named Lizette the main suspect without any concrete evidence and before Paulette's body had even been found.

Due to endless allegations, Lizette eventually filed a lawsuit claiming that her personal and professional reputations had been irreparably damaged by statements that proved to be completely false. Even her own friend, Amanda de la Rosa, had turned against her during the investigation and eventually wrote a book about Paulette's disappearance, accusing the girl's mother of her death. However, in the end, Lizette lost her case in court and did not win any of several appeals, the last one being rejected in 2014. The same year, she and Mauricio officially divorced. Afterward, Lizette completely disappeared from the public eye.

While we still do not know what really happened to Paulette Gebara Farah, and only time will tell if we ever will, one thing is for sure. People of Mexico and anyone who has heard about the case do not believe the four-year-old simply rolled over during her sleep and died. There are just too many inconsistencies and unexplained details. To add to the mystery, soon after Paulette's death, a video named "El extraño caso de la pijama de Paulette" or "The strange case of Paulette's pyjamas" was posted on YouTube. First, the footage showed pictures of Paulette's body dressed in blue and red pyjamas with reindeer figures, the eerily similar ones that were then seen in a clip of an interview with her mother—recorded several days before the discovery of the little girl's corpse.

People were immediately questioning how it was possible the pyjamas appeared in Paulette's room after her disappearance, while her nanny had confirmed the girl had been found wearing the same clothes she had dressed her with on the night of March 21. Soon enough, Lizette claimed that the pyjamas actually belonged to Paulette's older sister and were just used as a prop. However, the explanation did not convince the audience, as the blue and red pyjamas with reindeer figures were seen on multiple occasions within Paulette's belongings during various interviews. Still, there was not any other evidence to support the theory that Paulette had possibly been alive for some time after her alleged disappearance, and her clothes had been changed during that period. But once again, the nation felt they were lied to.

Finding out the truth became even more difficult as in 2017, Paulette's body was exhumed and cremated. Authorities declared that her remains were no longer objects of evidence for the investigation as the case was closed. Many disagreed with the decision and thought the girl's remains should have been re-examined due to the controversy of how she had died. But that did not happen, and officially, Paulette's death remains an unfortunate accident. As there was not really anything left to do at this point, the public uproar eventually became quieter and quieter and soon, what was left was just some background noise.

That was until mid-2020 when Netflix released the true-crime-based miniseries called 'La Busqueda' or 'The Search', which follows the bizarre case of Paulette Gebara Farah's disappearance, and the events that followed. The show immediately became the number one series watched in Mexico, reopening the wounds caused by the little girl's death over ten years ago.

Soon enough, the discussion of the case was back to life, and comments on the poorly handled investigation began to spread on social media. The PAN senator and former journalist, Lilly Téllez, who had interviewed Lizette in her daughter room, sitting on Paulette's bed for more than an hour back in 2010, wrote on her Twitter:

"I know that Paulette's body was not there, and I denounced it in various media. After insistently denouncing that Paulette's body was not in her bed, I received a threat to drop the case, and I remain vulnerable to that threat. Without the necessary conditions to make a complaint to the authorities, this is another example of the lack of State of Right."

 

So while Netflix' The Search tells the shocking true story of a four-year-old girl who lost her life, it also exposes high levels of institutional corruption in Mexico. In the series, the participation of Enrique Peña Nieto, the former president of Mexico and who at that time of Paulette’s death was Governor, was involved in a subtle way. Interestingly, both the attorney and the deputy attorney, who played more visible roles in the series and during the real events in 2010, are now being investigated for political espionage. Both Bazbaz and Castillo were apparently involved in a massive network that spied on over 300 politicians belonging to Peña Nieto's opposition. The source close to the investigation, which current status is unknown, assured that the revelation was just "the tip of the iceberg."

The case of Paulette Gebara Farah, which is often compared to that of JonBenet Ramsey, is, in the same way, one of those that the collective memory will never forget. To this day, her story continues to be one of the most told in the country of Mexico, more than ten years after her tragic death. The explanation that the little girl died "by her own means" remains widely unaccepted, and as a result, the nation is still waiting for the honest answer for the question: 

"What happened to little Paulette?"

If you'd like to read more about this case, have a look at the resources used for this episode in the show notes.

 

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