Man Freed in Hard Rock Hotel Femicide Case

CANCÚN, QROO — The Attorney General's Office of Quintana Roo failed to uphold the accusation against a man sentenced to 25 years in prison for the femicide of Ana Gómez, an indigenous woman from Chiapas who was found dead in late 2020 near the Hard Rock Riviera Maya hotel, where she worked as a security guard.

Carlos Alberto, sentenced to prison in April 2024 for the crime of femicide by a criminal court in Playa del Carmen, was released following an acquittal issued this past May. The state Attorney General's Office did not manage to present compelling evidence to support the accusation within the case of Ana Gómez, who was brutally killed on December 18, 2020. The case remains unsolved to this day.

Proceso gained access to the 47-page acquittal verdict, case number 76/2025, which details the femicide and the reasons why the Quintana Roo Attorney General's Office failed to substantiate the accusations against Carlos Alberto, who was also employed as a security guard at the Hard Rock hotel, located south of Playa del Carmen, opposite the municipality of Puerto Aventuras.

The acquittal was issued by the now-former magistrate Carlos Alberto Lima Carvajal, who determined that there was no compelling evidence against the sentenced man, who was detained in late 2020 after being named the main suspect in the death of Ana Gómez. The former magistrate, who resigned from his position due to judicial reform, had previously been criticized by feminist collectives for not judging with a gender perspective.

In the sentence signed by Lima Carvajal, it is stated that the accusation from two witnesses against the sentenced man may have been a product of their imagination, after the Attorney General's Office failed to present compelling evidence against the accused.

"It is not possible to resolve a guilty verdict with conjectures lacking foundation that could even be solely a product of the witness's imagination," reads page 34 of the sentence.

This event triggered repercussions in late 2020 that continue to this day due to the gender alert in effect for Playa del Carmen, including protests from feminist collectives, primarily Siempre Unidas, which demand clarification of the case.

Carlos Alberto was released from the Federal Center for Social Reintegration Number 18 in Coahuila, where he had been transferred, according to the case file consulted.

Narrative of Events, According to Judicial Case Files

Ana Gómez left the Hard Rock hotel just after 3:00 p.m. on December 18, 2020, according to the sentence. She did not leave her workplace on the staff bus, which large Riviera Maya hotels use to transport employees in and out, as she was delayed while going to collect Christmas grocery vouchers. Christmas 2020 was six days away.

Instead, she left through the hotel's southern access, a path parallel to the federal highway leading to Cancún. The path at that time was overgrown with weeds and had only one security camera, which, the sentence reads, provided a blurry image of her as she walked through the area.

A man catches up to her and talks with her. Both are lost from view among the bushes. The individual comes back out, but she is never seen again. Her search began hours later, and it was not until Sunday, December 20, 2020, that her lifeless body was discovered.

"A police officer told him that he had already found the young woman's body; moments later the corpse was recovered," the file states.

The case generated vigorous protests in front of the Hard Rock Riviera Maya for several days, which an attempt was made to politicize at the time by the CROC due to its rivalry with the CTM, which at that time maintained union control of the hotel.

To date, agents from the Quintana Roo Attorney General's Office have not challenged the acquittal through a direct amparo appeal, according to reviews of state and federal court records.

According to the sentence, at one point the accused told a witness: "Boss, I don't know what came over me, the devil just got inside me."

Lima Carvajal determined: "Nor is it sufficient for the witness (…) to say that the accused told him that he doesn't know what came over him, that the devil got inside him; this does not imply an acceptance of the accused facts."