Francisco I. Madero - Death

Death

Following his enforced resignation, Madero and his Vice-President José María Pino Suárez were kept under guard in the National Palace. On the evening of 22 February they were told that they were to be transferred to the main city penitentiary, where they would be safer. At 11:15pm reporters waiting outside the National Palace saw two cars containing Madero and Suárez emerge from the main gate under a heavy escort commanded by Captain Francisco Cardenas, an officer of the rurales. The journalists on foot were outdistanced by the motor vehicles, which were driven towards the penitentiary. The correspondent for the New York World was approaching the prison when he heard a volley of shots. Behind the building he found the two cars with the bodies of Madero and Suárez nearby, surrounded by soldiers and gendarmes. Captain Cardenas subsequently told reporters that the cars and their escort had been fired on by a group, as they neared the penitentiary. The two prisoners had leapt from the vehicles and ran towards their presumed rescuers. They had however been killed in the cross-fire. This account was treated with general disbelief, although the American ambassador Henry Lane Wilson, a strong supporter of Huerta, reported to Washington that "I am disposed to accept the (Huerta) government's version of the affair and consider it a closed incident".

President Madero, dead at 39, was buried quietly in the French cemetery of Mexico City. Only his close family were permitted to attend, leaving for Cuba immediately after. Ambassador Wilson was later dismissed from his position. Following Huerta's overthrow Francisco Cardenas fled to Guatemala where he committed suicide in 1920 after the new Mexican government had requested his extradition to stand trial for the murder of Madero.