Guatemala arrests suspect in migrant smuggling murder of boy

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Prosecutors in Guatemala said Wednesday they have arrested a suspect in the slaying of a child whose mother was forced into prostitution by migrant smugglers.

The woman had paid smugglers about $3,600 to take her to the United States, but once she crossed the border into Mexico in March, another woman snatched her 4-year-old son.

Traffickers then told the woman, 24, they would kill her son unless she worked as a prostitute.

She did for several days, but the boy was killed anyway, and his body was left at a trash dump near the Mexico-Guatemala border.

Prosecutors said they arrested Luisa Odilia Ramírez on charges of migrant trafficking and kidnapping. A man believed to be the smuggler is also being sought, but has not been located.