Episode Details

Eleonor Alejandra Marín Mendoza spent months convincing her husband and family that she was pregnant. She gained weight, altered medical documents, produced fake ultrasound images and celebrated at a baby shower for a child she knew she was not carrying.

But a fabricated pregnancy came with a very real deadline.

On June 17, 2009, Ale entered the maternity ward of Hospital General de México carrying an empty department-store bag. Hours later, she walked out with newborn Katia Valentina hidden inside it.

In this episode of GBRLIFE of Crimes, we examine the pregnancy losses and relentless shame that surrounded Ale, the psychology that allowed her lie to keep growing and the choice that turned another mother into its victim. We also uncover what happened to Ale’s husband, Arturo, who believed the pregnancy was real and spent more than two years imprisoned for a crime he did not know was happening.

Ale’s losses were not her fault. The kidnapping was.

Everything worth understanding about this case exists in the distance between those two truths.

Read the companion blog post, “The One Thing That Was Actually Hers”:
 https://www.gbrlife.com/blog/the-one-thing-that-was-actually-hers

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