Philip True (18 June 1948 – 16 December 1998) was an American foreign correspondent in Mexico City, Mexico for the San Antonio Express-News. While on a ten-day, 65-mile trek to learn about the Huichol people in the southern Sierra Madre Occidental, Jalisco, True was murdered. True was the first American journalist to be murdered in Mexico in modern times.
Early history
Philip True was from San Fernando, California, and he attended both the Los Angeles Valley College and the University of California, Irvine, where he graduated in 1970. After college he was a dock worker and union representative, as well as a drywaller. While in his forties, True became a journalist, first for the Brownsville Herald in 1990 and then for the San Antonio Express-News after 1992. As a reporter for the San Antonio Express-News, he had worked the Laredo bureau and then became its correspondent in Mexico City, Mexico. His most notable works of journalism were his coverage of the Chiapas conflict and Pope John Paul II's visit to Cuba in January 1998.
Philip and Martha True were married for 7 years and had lived in Mexico City since 1996. Martha, a native Mexican from Matamoros, worked as the head of a nonprofit environmental agency in Mexico City. When True traveled to learn more about the Huichol Indians, Martha was four months pregnant with their first child. The couple had one son, Teo.
Disappearance and death
Philip True had been a correspondent for San Antonio Express-News in Mexico City for three years in Mexico City. He twice tried to convince his editor to let him pursue a story about the Huichol Indians, who lived in a settlement in the Sierra Madre. After reviewing the idea, Fred Bonativa turned it down, and so True decided to work on it during his vacation time. True planned a ten-day trip that would take him through the state of Jalisco to Nayarit state. He started his journey 1 December 1998 in Tuxpan, Jalisco, was last seen 4 December in Chalmotita, Jalisco, and his wife reported him missing on 10 December. After the initial search for True failed, Robert Rivard, editor of the San Antonio Express-News, convinced the President's office to commit resources to the search and afterward the missing person announcement was widely publicized. Margarito Díaz, a Huichol hunter, announced he had found a body and guided the party to the site. The Mexican army located True's corpse 16 December 1998 inside a 330-foot deep mountain ravine in the Chapalagana Canyon (Translated from Huichol: "Canyon of the Twisted Serpent') on the Jalisco-Nayarit border. True's corpse had been moved between the time Díaz first spotted it and the arrival of the search part. The corpse was found in his sleeping bag alongside a river and was covered in dirt with his neck wrapped with his bandanna. At first, the media reported True had accidentally fallen into the ravine, but Jalisco's coroner told Televisa network news that the autopsy indicated True had been murdered.
Investigations
The investigations focused on Juan Chivarra de la Cruz, 28, and Miguel Hernandez de la Cruz, 24, two men of Huichol heritage who were brothers-in-law. After the arrest, the two confessed, but would later recant, initially saying they had killed True for taking unauthorized photographs or that he had trespassed on Huichol lands or that he had shown disrespect to their relatives. The first of the two autopsies performed on True in Jalisco, Mexico revealed that he was strangled with his own bandanna. The autopsy further revealed signs of torture, which was inconsistent with the confession. The autopsy also uncovered signs that he had been bludgeoned perhaps with a stick. Cuts and bruises all over True's arms could have indicated torture or some kind of defensive wounds. The report concluded that True was dead before he ended up in the deep ravine.