On this day in conspiracies

Edward Lee Bedwell, a transient dishwasher, is charged after signing a 14-page confession following days of interrogation. He claims he and an accomplice named Frank killed the girls. Almost immediately, doubts surface: parts of his account do not fit the physical evidence.

Raymond Bonner in The New York Times and Alma Guillermoprieto in The Washington Post publish eyewitness reports from the massacre site, having reached El Mozote through rebel-held territory, with photographs by Susan Meiselas showing skeletal remains.

Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam presents the government's conclusion at a press conference, calling it the verdad historica: police handed the students to the Guerreros Unidos cartel, who killed them and incinerated all 43 bodies at the Cocula garbage dump, dumping the remains in the San Juan River.

The judge having ordered the documents unsealed, the internal records become public and are reported by major outlets, including The Washington Post under the headline that the company destructively scanned millions of books to build Claude. At this stage the story is covered but does not go viral.