She was like Batman: The Avenger Mother from Mexico and the question of whether it was all a lie

When her son Hugo failed to answer his phone on July 12, 2005, Isabel Miranda de Valas wasted no time. Kidnappings were rampant in Mexico City, so Valas immediately enlisted her brother and nephew to help her search. They scoured the streets near where Hugo was last seen, eventually finding his SUV. A passerby told them he saw someone being forcibly removed from the vehicle and taken into a nearby apartment, Valas later recounted.

She also described a conversation with a boy who heard gunshots and saw an injured man being taken from an apartment around 4 a.m., The Guardian reported. "Within 24 hours, we found his car, and then the building where they took my son. We practically solved the case. But the police didn't believe us," Valas said later. Many kidnapping cases went unreported at the time because families feared police corruption. Those who did go to the police often struggled to convince officers to take their reports seriously. But Valas was different.

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Within 24 hours, we found his car, and then the building where they took my son. We practically solved the case. But the police didn't believe us.

She was a successful businesswoman who founded an advertising agency owning and operating billboards across Mexico City. "She didn't beg or say 'please.' She would point fingers at public officials not doing their job – and that was unthinkable. In Mexico, many people are often afraid to speak out because you don't know if a politician is connected to the cartels. That intimidates them, but not her," said Federico Döring, a politician and one of Valas's early allies. At 35, Hugo was a wealthy young man living fast, his passions including motorcycles, American football, and chasing women. He was Valas's first son and accustomed to getting his way, his ex-girlfriend Vanessa Bárcenas told police. In the years before his disappearance, he had drifted from old friends and seemed to be using drugs, said Claudia Muñoz, another of Hugo's ex-girlfriends with whom he had a child.

Hugo also had other problems. He told Vanesa that some suppliers for his clothing manufacturing firm were involved in "something that resembled drug trafficking," which led to his problems with the police and made him a target for kidnappers. After a conflict with gang members, Hugo began driving an armored SUV and installed cameras in his home in a gated community. When the police investigation into his disappearance stalled, Valas took matters into her own hands. With incredible speed, she obtained Hugo's phone records and the names of people he had spoken to in the hours before he vanished. It is not uncommon for families to conduct their own investigations in Mexico, but the Valas family took it to a whole new level, hiring private detectives and surveilling persons of interest day and night. Still, no breakthrough followed. None of the building's residents reported hearing any commotion. The witnesses Valas and her family relied on...

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She didn't beg or say 'please.' She would point fingers at public officials not doing their job – and that was unthinkable. In Mexico, many people are often afraid to speak out because you don't know if a politician is connected to the cartels. That intimidates them, but not her.