The murder of Leyla Monserrat, a 15-year-old girl in Sonoyta, Sonora, has once again generated outrage in Mexico after the sentences against her attackers were revealed: two minors, supposedly her friends, who tricked her, murdered her, and recorded the crime on video, but received sentences of just 2 years and 10 months of confinement.
In addition, the juvenile justice system also ordered financial compensation of just over 5,000 Mexican pesos, an amount that doesn’t even cover half of the young woman’s funeral expenses.
Leyla Monserrat was lured on September 25, 2025, by two friends, Britany Michel (15 years old) and Monserrat (13 years old), who took her under false pretenses to a house in the El Desierto ejido, in the municipality of General Plutarco Elías Calles. The girls had stopped speaking to Leyla after an argument days earlier. The victim’s mother, Carmen Angélica Becerra, recounted that her daughter was mocked and harassed about her skin color, in addition to receiving bullying messages from the aggressors.
On the night of the crime, Leyla was tied to a chair, blindfolded, and strangled, while one of the girls recorded the entire scene with a cell phone. The video, which later circulated on social media, was received anonymously by the victim’s mother and became one of the key pieces of evidence.
“The evidence presented is a compelling video in which they are taking my daughter’s life; they even recorded everything, they decomposed my daughter’s body, poured lime on it, and buried her,” the mother told the media.
After committing the murder, the perpetrators tried to cover up the crime by burying Leyla Monserrat’s body in the backyard of one of the girls’ homes. The body was found a week later, in conditions that required the coffin to be sealed, preventing the mother from saying goodbye to her daughter. The cause of death was mechanical asphyxiation.
