1980 murders of U.S. missionaries in El Salvador

Memorial depicting Oscar Romero and the 1980 murders of U.S. missionaries in El Salvador.

On December 2, 1980, four Catholic missionaries from the United States working in El Salvador were raped and murdered by five members of the El Salvador National Guard (Daniel Canales Ramírez, Carlos Joaquín Contreras Palacios, Francisco Orlando Contreras Recinos, José Roberto Moreno Canjura, and Luis Antonio Colindres Alemán). The murdered missionaries were Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, Ursuline Dorothy Kazel, and lay missionary Jean Donovan.