An Egyptian-born chemist Abdul Latif Sharif (1947-present) is the chief suspect in the Juarez killings, a decade-long serial killing spree that began in the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez in the early 1990s. Sharif emigrated to the United States in 1970 to work as a high-paid research chemist for a series of American companies, some of whom are alleged to have shielded him from persistent accusations of rape and even murder. Jailed for twelve years for rape in 1984, Sharif was released early for good behavior in 1989, committed rape yet again, and emigrated to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, to escape a deportation hearing in El Paso, Texas. After the bodies of young women began to turn up in the desert surrounding Juarez, Sharif was arrested and imprisoned and is now serving a life sentence for murder in a maximum-security jail in Chihuahua City.
