2 surviving Americans who were kidnapped in Mexico are back in the U.S.
A heavily armed convoy of Mexican military Humvees and National Guard trucks with mounted machine guns transported two of the four Americans who were held captive and managed to escape a kidnapping in Mexico last week back into the United States just before noon on Tuesday.
The State Department reported on Tuesday that the Mexican government helped with the repatriation of the two surviving victims. The mother of LaTavia Washington McGee confirmed she is in a Texas hospital, and the brother of Eric Williams told NPR he is healing from a leg gunshot wound in the United States, despite the department not naming them.
Ned Price, a spokesman for the State Department, stated that authorities are "in the process of repatriating the remains" from the other two kidnappings. A 24-year-old suspect is in police custody, Villarreal added.
The group was relocated to several different sites over the course of the following few days, including a clinic, "in an effort to create confusion and foil the rescue efforts," Villarreal said.
The Tamaulipas attorney general stated on Tuesday that although Mexican law enforcement is looking into every avenue, it appears that Americans were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The most plausible and probably accurate theory, according to Barrios Mojica, is that it was confusion rather than direct aggression.
The FBI offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to the capture of those responsible and the release of the victims after the kidnapping spurred a frenzied hunt by law enforcement officials in both nations.
Barbara Burgess, LaTavia Washington McGee's mother, told ABC 15 that her daughter has been traumatized by the terrible experience.
Burgess described her daughter, who is being treated in a hospital in Texas, as crying.
"I asked her how she was doing. She doing OK. She was crying because her brother got killed and she watched him die. She watched two of them die. They died in front of her," Burgess said.
The Associated Press was informed by Zalandria Brown that her brother Zindell had traveled with a buddy who was having a belly tuck.
She added, "This is like a bad dream you wish you could wake up from. "To see a member of your family thrown in the back of a truck and dragged, it is just unbelievable."
Brother of Eric Williams Robert Williams told NPR he can't picture his younger brother going through such a terrifying ordeal.
"He is a fun-loving guy. He's a rapper, a songwriter, and a poet," Williams said. "If you know him ... he's the life of the party."
"Tell him I love him," he continued, "is all I want to say."
Mexican officials now say the group was caught in the crossfire of rival cartel groups, the AP reports.
Drug cartel wars have tormented several sections of Mexico for years; Tamaulipas state in particular is regarded as one of the most violent regions of the nation.
Given the state's high crime and kidnapping rates and the fact that local criminal gangs frequently target both public and private passenger vehicles, the U.S. State Department recommends Americans against traveling there.
Angela Vasquez 03/08/2023