92 was not possible to investigate them together, because of the possibility of failing to distinguish different elements, which would ultimately have had a negative effect on the results.” In addition, the State indicated that “[a]ccording to crime investigation methodology, inquiries are never begun based on the assumption that two cases are similar, as this would constitute a subjective distortion of the analysis.” 366. The Court’s jurisprudence has indicated that certain lines of inquiry, which fail to analyze the systematic patterns surrounding a specific type of violations of human rights, can render the investigations ineffective.397 367. In this case, the Tribunal observes that, when the investigations were reopened in March 2006, the Public Prosecutor’s Office decided “for methodological reasons,” to prepare a separate dossier for each of the eight victims found in the cotton field, “listing all the [respective] procedural activities.”398 According to witness Caballero Rodríguez, the reason for the individualization was “to establish specific lines of inquiry in each case,” “independently of the single investigation file.”399 368. The representatives did not submit clear arguments or sufficient evidence to prove that the establishment of specific lines of inquiry for each of the eight Cotton Field cases could have adversely affected the investigations. However, the Court finds that, even though the individualization of the investigations could, in theory, even advance them, the State should be aware that all the murders took place in a context of violence against women. Consequently, it should adopt the necessary measures to verify whether the specific murder that it is investigating is related to this context. Investigating with due diligence requires taking into consideration what happened in other murders and establishing some type of connection with them. This should be carried out ex officio, without the victims or their next of kin being responsible for taking the initiative. 369. In this case, in the investigations into the three crimes, the Public Prosecutor’s Office did not take any decision to try and relate the investigations to the patterns surrounding the disappearance of other women. This was ratified by the official of the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the public hearing in this case. Based on the foregoing, the Tribunal finds that the State’s argument that the only common feature of the eight cases is that the bodies appeared in the same area is unacceptable, and it is not admissible that, in the investigations into these murders, there was not even the slightest judicial assessment of the effects of the context. 370. What happened in this case is similar to what has been indicated previously as regards the context; that is, it can be observed that many investigations failed to consider attacks on women as part of a generalized phenomenon of gender-based violence. In this regard, the CNDH indicated in its 2003 report that the FEIHM was not examining “the phenomenon globally; rather each case has been dealt with individually, contrary to the legal possibilities, as if they were isolated, fully differentiated cases, instead of dealing with them integrally.”400 For her part, witness Delgadillo Pérez testified that “[t]here is no overall strategy in the investigation of the murders, based on the patterns of violence detected in each case.” She added that “even though there is a special prosecutor’s office, a certain number of cases are 397 Cf. Case of the Rochela Massacre v. Colombia. Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of May 11, 2007. Series C No. 163, paras. 156, 158 and 164. 398 Cf. decision of March 9, 2006, of the Office of the Attorney General for the state of Chihuahua, Northern Zone, supra note 385, folio 10184. 399 Testimony of witness Caballero Rodríguez, supra note 386. 400 Cf. CNDH, Informe Especial, supra note 66, folio 2235.