2 Americans dead, 2 rescued and back in U.S. after Mexico kidnapping
2 Americans dead, 2 rescued and back in U.S. after Mexico kidnapping
- After a kidnapping in Mexico, there were 2 Americans died and 2 were rescued and returned to the United States.
- According to Mexican and American authorities, two of the four Americans who went missing following a brutal kidnapping in Mexico last week have been found dead, and two others are still alive. One of the surviving Americans was injured, according to Tamaulipas Governor Américo Villarreal, while the other was not.
According to The Associated Press, he claimed that all four
were discovered in a wooden cabin being guarded by a man who had been arrested.
Villarreal continued, saying that their captors had
transferred them around, even to a hospital at one point, to
"create confusion and evade efforts to free them."
According to the AP and Tamaulipas state top prosecutor
Irving Barrios, the Americans were discovered in a rural area east of the
border city of Matamoros.
Latavia "Tay" McGee and Eric James Williams were
the last two Americans standing, according to Mexico's security minister. The
other two Americans have been named Zindell Brown and Shaeed Woodard,
according to CBS News.
After learning that her younger brother, Zindell Brown, was
one of the casualties, Zalandria Brown of Florence, South Carolina, informed
the Associated Press that she had been in touch with the FBI and local
authorities.
According to Zalandria Brown, Zindell Brown, a resident of
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and two pals were traveling to Mexico with a
third friend who was having a "tummy tuck" procedure.
The Tamaulipas attorney general verified in a tweet sent out
Tuesday afternoon that federal and state officials took the two remaining
Americans to an international bridge at the U.S.-Mexico border.
In a statement to CBS News on Tuesday night, the FBI
verified that both survivors had been transferred to a hospital in the United
States and that one of them was receiving treatment for significant wounds.
However, Villareal claimed that although Williams, the
injured American, had been shot in the left leg, the injury wasn't life-threatening.
The four Americans went missing on Friday, and the
Tamaulipas attorney general's office earlier posted on Facebook that all four
had been located.
The statement added, "Investigation and intelligence
work continues to catch those accountable.
Ned Price, the press secretary for the State Department,
announced during a press conference that both survivors had arrived back in the
United States by Tuesday afternoon. According to Price, authorities were still
"in the process of working to repatriate the bodies" of the two fatal
victims. He declined to provide any other details regarding the inquiry into
their kidnapping.
Price told reporters, "The probe is in its early
stages. I am aware that the FBI may have more information to provide at a later
date.
According to the Tamaulipas attorney general, combined
search activities led to the discovery of the Americans. But, it was unclear
how authorities ultimately found and saved them.
The ambulances and the rest of the security people are
currently heading for them to provide the necessary support, according to
Villarreal. "Of the four, two of them are dead, one person is wounded, and
the other is alive," he said.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, president of Mexico, said: "Those guilty will be found, and they will be punished."
He reportedly bemoaned American media coverage of the
kidnapping and accused American journalists of sensationalizing the story,
stating, "It's not like that when they kill Mexicans in the United States,
they go quiet like mummies," per the AP.
After they were discovered on Tuesday, the survivors were taken in a convoy of ambulances and SUVs to a part of the border between the United States and Mexico close to Brownsville, according to the AP. It wasn't immediately clear if the deceased people's bodies were also transported with them.
A reporter for the Associated Press saw the convoy of cars
rushing down a long dirt road toward their destination while being escorted by
state police, National Guard personnel, armored vehicles, and Humvees from the
Mexican military. Their trucks had.50-caliber machine guns mounted on them.
The fatalities were not confirmed, but U.S. Attorney General
Merrick Garland stated on Tuesday that senior officials at the Department of
Justice are collaborating with several federal agencies in the U.S. as well as
Mexican authorities.
"During this difficult time, I want to offer my deepest sympathies to the families of the Americans who were attacked and kidnapped," Garland said.
The Americans were kidnapped after gunmen opened fire on
their vehicle in Matamoros, a border city in northern Mexico, the FBI said
earlier this week. All four people had driven from Brownsville, Texas, to
Mexico on Friday in a white minivan with North Carolina license plates.
López Obrador said Monday that the four Americans had
crossed the border to purchase medicine and found themselves caught in the crossfire between two groups of armed persons. Previously, officials said that
a Mexican woman also perished in the crossfire on Friday. Her identity is not
known.
Armed individuals "took all four Americans from the site in a car," the office reported. The FBI at the time offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the kidnappers and the release of the victims.