Murdered, skinned and dumped in a ditch by her stepfather

A student nurse was murdered and then skinned by her stepfather whom she was planning to accuse of sexually assaulting her, it emerged today.

Kassandra Bravo was reported missing earlier this month after she failed to turn up to a baby-sitting job at a family friend's house.

Police issued a missing person notice after her mother raised the alarm and three days later her body was discovered lying in a ditch beside a road near the village of Las Cocinas in Mexico. 

Detectives investigating the case said it had been impossible to identify the body as the missing teenager straight away because her face had been stripped of her skin. 

A post-mortem revealed that she had been strangled.

A friend reportedly told police that Miss Bravo had been planning to tell her mother Angeles Bravo, 41, that her stepfather Daniel Murrieta Sainz, 42, had been sexually abusing her since the age of 15.

Police spokesman Francis Zamora said: 'We brought him in for questioning and he admitted strangling her and dumping the body.

'But he denied he had been abusing her or that he had skinned her.

'He said he had been furious when he wanted to take her to her babysitting job and she had not been ready. 

'After a row he had strangled her.' 

The young woman's horrific death in a region that is regularly shocked by brutal attacks on women has sparked an angry protest lead by Miss Bravo's friends.

Campaigners are demanding more action to protect women from violence and justice for the teenager.

Dailym