Paulette Gebara Farah was a four-year-old disabled Mexican girl who disappeared from her bedroom in Huixquilucan de Degollado Mexico on March 22, 2010. After nine days of being missing, police found her body wrapped in sheets in her bedroom under her mattress on March 31, 2010.
On the night of March 21, 2010, Paulette Gebara, her sister, and her father Mauricio Gebara returned from a Valle de Bravo trip to their Huixquilucan apartment. The mother of Paulette Lizette Farah stayed up late to put Paulette and her sister to bed. On the morning of March 22, one of the nannies of Paulette entered the room to wake up Paulette but couldn’t find her. She notified Paulette’s mother and they began to search for her around the house.
Both parents of Paulette reported to Huixquilucan authorities about their daughter being missing and later on they put an amber alert of Paulette being missing. There was no sign of theft or kidnapping, everything was intact, with no broken locks, as well as the windows and doors. There was no evidence of Paulette leaving or being taken out of the building where they lived. Paulette could not go out alone, as she had a motor and language disability.
On March 29, the attorney general announced to Paulette’s parents that two of the nannies who took care of Paulette would be placed under restriction order due to falsehoods and inconsistency in their statements. According to Wikipedia, “Each one of them at a certain moment have falsified their statements, which has made it difficult to know the truth of the facts and clarify a firm line of investigation,” said then-Attorney General Alberto Bazbaz. Paulette’s parents kept searching through different places wishing to find Paulette when sadly on March 31 around 2 am they found Paulette’s remains in her own bedroom where she went missing. In the leaked video of the investigators, one voice is heard saying that “she was severely beaten” while they were examining the stained sheets. They revealed that Paulette had an “orthopaedic cloth” over her mouth, which was placed every night to prevent her from sleeping with her mouth open.
The investigation concluded that Paulette did not get murdered but instead died due to asphyxia. The public and the media’s reaction to Paulette’s death was immediate and intense. Little by little the case began to unfold in the public eye with many discussions about the responsibilities of her parents and signs that were ignored by those closest to her. On April 3, her mother wrote a legal statement proceeding against the restriction order claiming that the nannies were never involved in the events that caused her daughter’s death. The tragic death of Paulette made both of her parents start accusing each other of their daughter’s death. Her mother stated that her husband blamed her for Paulette’s death while her husband said he couldn’t completely trust his wife. Paulette’s body was later buried at the Pantheon Frances de San Joaquin in Mexico City on April 6. Her tragic death serves as a painful reminder of the vulnerabilities present in many families and the critical need for vigilance and care.
