Bodies of Evidence:Honor, Prueba Plena,and Emerging Medical Discourses in Northern Mexico's Infanticide Trials in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Abstract

In the early morning of February 15, 1898, a farmer named Zacarias Navarro found the remains of a newborn infant in a shallow well on the outskirts of Alamos, Sonora, in northwestern Mexico. As caretaker of the well, it was predictable that Navarro would be the first resident to make the grisly discovery. He immediately informed the chief of police, Manuel Vargas, who sent officers to retrieve the infant's body.