Kriti Mehrotra
It was on January 13, 2020, when the entire world for the Gomez family turned upside down as environmentalist and politician Homero Gómez Gonz ález never returned home from work. The truth is they were sadly used to him getting various kinds of threats owing to his line of work, as explored in Netflix’s ‘The Guardian of the Mona rchs,’ but they never imagined this extremity. After all, although they weren’t naive to the dark side of their homeland of Michoacán, Mexico, they never really thought they’d face the painful fate many others did.
Homero Gomez Gonzalez Had a Big Family
Although Homero was born in 1969 or 1970 as one of at least four to a logging family, he’d changed their ways by the time he was in his 30s and turned them into environmentalists. After all, upon graduating from Chapingo Autonomous University to evolve into an agricultural engineer, he’d seen the potential of tourism in their district and had even formulated the idea of a sanctuary. Thankfully, his brothers Amado Gomez as well as Juan Gomes supported him every step of the way, and so did his sister Angeles Gomez, enabling him to shine.
It thus comes as no surprise that by the time the 2010s rolled around, he was the municipal president and commissioner of El Rosario as well as the manager and spokesperson of the El Rosario Monarch Butterfly Preserve. Therefore, of course, he resided in the area, in Ocampo, Michoacán, alongside his loving wife Rebeca Valencia González and their children – they had at least two kids, a daughter as well as a son named Homero Gomez V. While we don’t know much about the former, we do know he loved both kids and was dedicated to building a better world for them and their future.
But alas, everything turned upside down on January 13, 2020, as he left home to attend an afternoon meeting in the village of El Soldado with the promise to soon return to take his son to school. He did do so, but he did seem in a little bit of a hurry as he’d already made additional political commitments – the mayoral candidate had to attend a local fair, where a big political crown had already formed. His wife Rebeca has actually since conceded, “He called me… and said, ‘Tell [our son] Homoerito I’m coming for him, but get me a shirt because I don’t have time to change [before I have to be at the closing ceremony races].'”
She hence did so, never to hear from him again – as for Homero V, he vividly remembers that their last conversation in the car before his father had dropped him off was about the classes he was planning to take next semester. Then there was just sound silence, which has since turned out to affect the youngster greatly because he, too, never got the opportunity to say anything else to his father again. They all did help search for him in the days he was missing, but to no avail until his body was recovered on January 29, only for his cause of death to be deemed an accidental homicide despite reports of blunt force trauma to the head and him allegedly having been kidnapped.
Furthermore, there’s the matter of his missing car keys, which appeared in police’s possession mere days after his son had questioned them about it — it was clean as well as dry in every sense. Plus, officials later asked him to bring his father’s vehicle into the parking lot of the field where the fair was held so as to take evidentiary photos of the same as if they’d just located it on January 14. As if that’s not enough, because of Amado and Juan’s dedication to finding their brother, the police even opened an investigation into them, claiming it was suspicious how dedicated they were to this case and how they always tried to find answers. This went to such an extent that the brothers had to back down in fear for their own lives – they didn’t want any harassment.
Homero Gomez Gonzalez’s Family is Trying to Move On
While there’s no denying the loss of Homero continues to hang over his family’s head like a dark cloud, they have since been trying to move on while keeping his legacy alive. In fact, his son has decided to follow in his footsteps as an environmental activist and hopes to actually evolve into a protector of Monarchy butterflies too, just like he was. As for his wife, it appears as if even she’s still based in Ocampo, Michoacán, at the moment, where she’s simply doing her best to be surrounded by loved ones.
Coming to Homero’s siblings, while Angeles and Juan seem to lead a quiet life these days, Amado is now the mayor and doing everything in his power to further protect the family, the community, and the environment in his brother’s memories. We should also mention the latter recently even took to Facebook to talk about this documentary, stating: “My brother’s struggle and legacy will prevail, not only in this great documentary, which I am grateful was done to immortalize his name. Homer lives on as new generations fight for the environment, as we continue to protect forests and the Monarch Butterfly. Thank you to everyone that sees my brother a hero and a role model.”
Read More: Homero Gómez González: How Did He Die? Was He Murdered?
