page_title: Belem Prison
section_title: María Villa
hierarchical_section_title: Belem Prison / Famous inmates / María Villa
caption_attribution_description: English: Maria Villa depicted shooting her rival for a lover, which she was sentenced twenty years in Belen Prison
context_page_description: Belem Prison was located in Mexico City, Mexico and operated from 1886 until the early 1930s. The building was originally used by the Church and was confiscated during the Liberal Reform in 1857. The prison was replaced as the main prison by Lecumberri prison, becoming the equivalent of a county or city jail. Housed many of the well-known criminals who had very public trials.
context_section_description: Villa was a prostitute who was sentenced to twenty years in Belém Prison. The story reads like a melodrama. María and another prostitute were lovers of the same man. The other prostitute publicly humiliated Villa and called into question her honor. The two fought many times publicly over the man. The tale ends with Villa killing the other prostitute. This case was controversial and a hot topic because Villa herself had used a gun to restore her honor by killing the other prostitute. In that era, prostitutes were by definition women without honor.  Women with honor relied on men to restore their honor when it had been called into question. Villa had broken the social norms of the time and was punished harshly for her crime. Villa attempted to defend herself in court and was unsuccessful at playing the victim card to get out of the murder charges. Her sentence was the harshest given to a woman; judges had never sentenced a woman to death previously, she received twenty years in Belem.
caption: Maria Villa depicted shooting her rival for a lover, which she was sentenced twenty years in Belén Prison
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