Overview
- Both parents gave public testimony on June 30, 2026, delivering anguished statements that urged anyone with information to speak and marking a central phase of the federal trial.
- José Peña said his sister Laudelina told others the day after Loan vanished that “it had been an accident,” a claim prosecutors say further implicates close contacts at the pre-disappearance gathering.
- María Noguera directly confronted accused relatives in court, demanded to know where Loan is, and later became physically unwell, forcing the tribunal to pause the hearing and move an accused to a separate room.
- The court refused the prosecution’s requests to remove the accused from the courtroom or install a screen during the parents’ testimony, instead instructing the defendants to avoid eye contact; the trial has also suffered technical failures, remote appearances, and procedural delays.
- Seventeen people are charged in two linked cases—seven for alleged abduction and concealment and ten for obstruction and related offenses—and prosecutors say the trial aims to break a coordinated silence as further family witnesses, including Loan’s grandmother and siblings, are scheduled to testify.