ALFONSO QUIROZ CUARÓN: BIOGRAPHY AND CONTRIBUTIONS - BIOGRAPHIES - 2024

Alfonso Quiroz Cuarón (1910-1978) was a Mexican criminologist considered the father of discipline in the country. Born in Ciudad Jiménez in 1910, the murder of his father in 1925 was the trigger for his interest in analyzing and understanding the motivations that lead criminals to act.

After being orphaned, since his mother had previously died, Quiroz moved to the capital of the country. There he trained in various subjects, from psychology to legal medicine. In 1939 he became the first Mexican to graduate in criminology from the Autonomous University.

Alfonso Quiroz Cuarón

Before even obtaining the title, between 1932 and 1933, Quiroz participated in an extensive criminological study in the Lecumberri prison. One of his contributions was his recommendation that the objective of rehabilitating the convicted be taken into account, in addition to carrying out preventive policies taking into account social, psychological and economic aspects.

During his professional career, Quiroz participated in some of the best-known criminal investigations in the country. Among them, the murder of Trotsky, the murderer of women Goyo Cárdenas or the French forger Enrico Sampietro. Although Quiroz didn't like the comparison, Time magazine called him the Mexican Sherlock Holmes in an article.

Short biography

Alfonso Quiroz Cuarón was born in the city of Jiménez (Chihuahua), on February 19, 1910. The future criminologist spent part of his childhood in that town, until his father, who worked on the railways, moved to Tampico for work reasons..

Death of his father

Alfonso attended elementary education in Tampico. At the age of 14 he was orphaned by his mother and a year later he also lost his father.

At first, the young man received the news that his father had died due to an accident. This event was fundamental for Quiroz's professional career. From that moment he felt the need to answer a question: what causes a person to become a murderer?

Mexico City

The loss of his two parents meant that Quiroz had to move to Mexico City in 1929 to be in the care of his uncle José. He looked for his first job, that of an assistant in the court in the Belén prison.

In addition to working, Quiroz studied medicine at the Military Medical School and was a passionate reader of the works of Sigmund Freud.

Later, as a member of the Forensic Medical Service, he completed his training studying legal medicine and psychiatry. In addition, she performed enough autopsies to be able to specialize.

One of the key moments in Quiroz's career occurred in 1932. That year he participated together with several experts in one of the first studies on the personality of prisoners.

As a result of this work, Quiroz was convinced that imprisonment could not be the only function of criminal policy, but that it should also focus on rehabilitation and prevention.

Alfonso Quiroz became in 1939 the first criminologist to graduate from the Autonomous University of Mexico. He was immediately appointed head of the Medical Psychological Section of the Observation Center of the Juvenile Court.

Personal life

Alfonso Quiroz was characterized by his discretion about his personal life. According to his biographers, three women had a decisive influence on his life.

The first was his aunt Elia, who took care of him after he was orphaned; the second, Maria Aparicio, a Brazilian criminologist who disappeared during the Castelo Branco dictatorship and whom Quiroz tried to find without success; and the third, Yolanda de la Rocha, who many thought was his wife, although they never actually married.

United Nations Organization

The prestige of the criminal profiles carried out by Quiroz was not limited to his country. One test was his appointment as a United Nations envoy to the Dominican Republic. Its mission was to make a report on the criminal acts committed by the American soldiers who had participated in the invasion of the country.

Death

Alfonso Quiroz Cuarón died on November 16, 1978. A myocardial infarction caused his death while he was attending his chair at the Autonomous University of Mexico.

Contributions

Alfonso Quiroz applied scientific and technical methods to criminology to increase its effectiveness. Thanks to this, he was able to find an explanation for many of the criminal behaviors and use the results to prevent them.

Father of Mexican criminology

As noted, Quiroz became the first Mexican to graduate in criminology. Before obtaining the title, he had participated in an ambitious study in the Lecumberri prison,

In that prison he had used scientific methods to analyze the different atypical personalities of the prisoners. Quiroz affirmed that the state should try to establish policies that allow the rehabilitation of inmates, in addition to preventing crime, taking into account economic, psychological and social aspects.

His work, in the medium term, also led to the construction of new penal units and the closure of the Lecumberri prison.

Former Lecumberri prison - Source: vladimix / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)

Counterfeit money

One of the most famous cases in which Quiroz participated was the persecution of Alfredo Héctor Donadieu, better known as Enrico Sampietro. This counterfeiter arrived in Mexico in 1934 after committing crimes around the world, from Marseille to Venezuela.

The criminal settled in Tampico in his flight from the police and continued with his main activity: counterfeiting bills. However, an accomplice betrayed him and he was arrested.

Sampietro was imprisoned in Lecumberri in 1936, but a year later he managed to escape with the help of a Cristero organization.

By 1941, counterfeit money had become a big problem for the country. Banco de México chose Quiroz to head its Special Investigations Department and take charge of the matter.

Quiroz managed to capture several forgers during the next seven years. However, Enrico Sampietro remained at large.

An informer gave the last clue to Quiroz so that he could catch the forger in Iztapalapa. Interestingly, the criminologist and the criminal ended up forging a good friendship. After serving his sentence, Sampietro returned to Marseille and it is known that Quiroz visited him on at least one occasion.

Ramon Mercader

The case that made Quiroz famous began with a visit to his home by Raúl Carrancá y Trujillo, a Coyoacán criminal judge and university law professor. The reason for the visit was to request Quiroz to carry out a study of the personality of Jacques Mornard, who had been arrested for murdering León Trotsky that same morning.

Quiroz accepted the assignment and, together with Dr. José Gómez Robleda, carried out a study of the murderer as complete as possible. The result affirmed that Mornard was a mythomaniac and that he was mentally healthy. However, Quiroz was not satisfied with the conclusion.

For 10 years, Quiroz was investigating on his own. Finally, in 1950, he found all the evidence to prove the truth: Mornard was actually called José Ramón Mercader and he was not Belgian, but Spanish. Quiroz's investigation proved Mercader had murdered Trotsky on political grounds after Stalin ordered his death.

Other famous cases

Alfonso Quiroz participated in many other criminal cases in the 1940s and 1950s. One of the most important was the investigation into the crimes of Gregorio Goyo Cárdenas, a serial killer of women. Quiroz analyzed the murderer and showed that he had no mental problems. However, he was never convicted.

Quiroz was characterized by being totally objective in his analyzes. In the case of Higinio Sobera de la Flor, author of two deaths, his opinion was in favor of the accused. The mental illness detected by the criminologist led to the transfer of the prisoner from prison to an asylum.

In addition to his activity as a criminologist, Quiroz also received other commissions. One of them, carried out in 1952, consisted of directing the investigation that should establish whether the remains found by the archaeologist Eulalia Guzmán belonged to the Aztec emperor Cuauhtémoc.

References

1. Hernández, Bertha. Alfonso Quiroz Cuarón, pioneer of criminology in Mexico. Obtained from relatosehistorias.mx
2. Beauregard, Luis Pablo. From the ice ax that killed Trotsky to the false bones of Cuauhtémoc. Obtained from elpais.com
3. Durango Más. Alfonso Quiroz Cuarón: Officially the First Criminologist of Mexico. Obtained from durangomas.mx
4. Ilan Stavans, Lewis-Sebrin. Antiheroes: Mexico and Its Detective Novel. Recovered from books.google.es
5. Drafting of The Process. Quiroz Cuarón took criminological science to its nodal point for the murder of his father. Obtained from proces.com.mx