In an elevator

A week ago a Canadian woman, Sheila Nabb, was found beaten and unconscious in a pool of blood in an elevator at a resort hotel in Mazatlan. Every bone in her face was broken.

According to Mexican police, the suspect has confessed. Making him repeat the confession at a press conference is horrendous legal procedure, but his account of what happened is…interesting.

Prior to the assault, Quintero said he had been drinking with a Canadian friend and “doing a line of cocaine.” He told reporters that he got into the elevator with the intention of riding to the top floor and gazing down at the lights of the resort city.

He says he encountered Nabb, who he said wasn’t wearing any clothes, at the sixth floor. When Quintero tried to prevent her from leaving he said she screamed, and he panicked.

“I didn’t try to abuse her, or I didn’t … I didn’t try to kill her or anything like … or rob her or anything. I was just afraid and I wanted to leave.”

Quintero said he covered Nabb’s mouth and asked her not to yell.

“But she continued yelling,” he said. “She got more afraid when I covered her mouth. And then I hit her … four or five times in the face with my fist. And then I left.”

The sequence of events reported is: Nabb tried to get off the elevator. He stopped her. She screamed. He covered her mouth. She got more afraid. He broke every bone in her face.

Every bone in her face.

She’s now in a medically induced coma.