A woman in Mexico who killed a man as he raped her has had the murder case against her dropped.
The incident occurred around the time the woman - who was identified as Roxana Ruiz - was working selling fries in Nezahualcoyotl, an area of Mexico State that has previously reported high rates of femicide and forced disappearances of women.
It was then that Ruiz had a drink with a friend - a man she knew from her neighborhood - who later offered to walk her home and then asked to stay over as it was so late.
The man slept on a separate bed, but he ended up attacking and raping her, with Ruiz fighting back and killing the man in self-defense as she struggled, the New Zealand Herald detailed.
In court, the prosecution detailed how the man was hit on the head and then knocked unconscious, which they claimed would have been enough for Ruiz to defend herself. It was revealed that Ruiz put the man's body in a bag during a panic, and dragged it out onto the street where passing police apprehended her.
While Ruiz informed the police that she had been raped, authorities never conducted a forensic exam - which is a vital step in prosecuting sexual assault cases, Ruiz's lawyer Ángel Carrera said.
Carrera then told the court that officers instead responded that Ruiz probably wanted to have sex with the man and then changed her mind later.
Last week, the Mexican court ruled that, while Ruiz was raped in 2021, she was still guilty of homicide as they believed she had used "excessive use of legitimate defense". The court also ordered Ruiz to pay over $16,000 to the man's family, per The New York Post.
Protests erupted following the shock ruling, which saw Ruiz - an Indigenous woman and single mother of a four-year-old son - being told that she was set to serve six years in prison.
The 23-year-old explained to reporters after the ruling that she was worried for her child's life, especially given that she had received increasing amounts of death threats. "My son, I hope to see him again. I hope to stay with him, to be the one who watches him grow up," she said.
Then, on Saturday evening (May 20), the state Prosecutor's Office sent out a press release that said it had looked into the case and found that she was "exempt from guilt" and had acted in self-defense, the Post reported.
While he stated he had not been formally notified of the charges being dropped, Ruiz's lawyer stated: "It means that they're recognizing her innocence. It's a recognition that she simply defended herself."
