Recovered/Located MEXICO - 4 Americans missing, feared kidnapped in Matamoros, Mexico, 3 Mar 2023
- Thread starter PommyMommy
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Thanks for this link to this article !
Quoting from above link:
"... An innocent Mexican citizen was killed in the encounter, US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar said..."
How sad.
Not even a name given ?
My condolences to this person's loved ones.
Also thought this was important :
"... the official said, adding investigators have not identified any concerning criminal history on the part of the Americans..."
Emphasis mine.
This is important , imo -- as I wouldn't put it past the killer of the two people to make false claims against the victims ; for the sole purpose of saving themselves !
M00.
TDoc72
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Yes, it seems kind of dumb to kill 2 and wound one of the people you kidnapped and want to hold for ransom.
Although everyone is using the word 'kidnapping', I'm not sure they were taken for ransom.
I think it may have been more like a war zone/combat situation, where they were perceived as potentially enemies within the cartel's territory, and were 'neutralized' and taken prisoner.
JMO
Last edited:
That’s like the worst part for me. There’s nothing they could have done otherwise to prevent this senseless crime… just awful. The 2 survivors are going to have so much guilt but it’s not their fault.<modsnip: quoted post was removed>
2 kidnapped Americans found dead in Mexico, 2 survivors have returned to the US; victims identified: Updates
Two of four Americans missing since their abduction after crossing the border into Mexico have been found dead; two others are alive. Updates.www.usatoday.com
They were aware of the dangers. Per the article:
Brown said the group was extremely close and they all made the trip in part to help split up the driving duties. They were aware of the dangers in Mexico, she added, and her brother had expressed some misgivings.
“Zindell kept saying, ‘We shouldn’t go down,’” Brown said.''
mickey2942
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Medical tourism to Mexico is on the rise, but it can come with risks | CNN
One of the four Americans who were kidnapped in Mexico last week was traveling for medical tourism, a friend said. A growing number of US residents are traveling internationally to seek more affordable medical care, more timely care or access to certain treatments or procedures that are...
PommyMommy
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2 Americans kidnapped in Mexico found dead, 2 rescued alive and back in US
Two of the four Americans kidnapped in Mexico have been found dead, while the other two have been found alive.
A general view of a storage shed behind a police cordon, at the scene where authorities found the bodies of two of four Americans kidnapped by gunmen, in Matamoros, Mexico, March 7, 2023. Daniel Becerril/Reuters
[...]
The two survivors were found Tuesday morning in a wooden house in the Lagunona area, outside of Matamoros, Mexican officials said at a news conference. One of the deceased was also found inside the house, and the second was found outside it, a source close to the investigation told ABC News.
Williams had a gunshot wound to his leg, said the governor of Tamaulipas, Américo Villarreal.
[...]
Michele Williams said the FBI told her that her husband had been shot twice in one leg and once in the other. He underwent surgery in Texas for the wounds, she said.
[...]
I certainly hope there's no guilt feelings, IMO this was just wrong place, wrong time. Like choosing to attend that outdoor country music concert in Las Vegas. I didn't know about Haitians involved in cartel activity, either, so I'd have thought they'd be obviously tourists.
JMO
airportwoman
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This is the first I've read that one of them had done this kind of thing before.
2 Americans kidnapped in Mexico found dead and 2 found alive, officials say
Two of the four Americans kidnapped by armed gunmen in the Mexico border city of Matamoros on Friday were found dead and two were found alive on Tuesday, US and Mexican officials said.us.cnn.com
An innocent Mexican bystander was also killed in the encounter, US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar said.
Investigators believe the Americans were mistakenly targeted by a Mexican cartel that likely mistook them for Haitian drug smugglers, a US official familiar with the ongoing investigation tells CNN.
The US citizens have no concerning criminal history that has been identified by investigators, the source said.
The group of friends, who were bonded “like glue,” grew up together in South Carolina, Brown’s sister Zalandria Brown told CNN. She added, that she and her brother are also close. “Zindell is like my shadow, he’s like my son, he’s like my hip bone. We’re just tight like that.”
This was the second time Washington McGee, a mother of six children, had gone to Mexico for a medical procedure, her mother said. About two to three years ago, Burgess said, her daughter traveled to the country for a surgery.
I honestly think that the cartel members were looking for Haitians, and kidnapped these people, assuming that black = Haitian. Stranger things have happened, I guess.
airportwoman
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Even without a ransom, it would still be considered kidnapping.
acutename
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were they moving them all together- the dead and the living? cannot imgine what they experienced and the living man has 3 gunshot wounds.
2 of 4 Americans abducted in Mexico found dead, official says
A road trip to Mexico for cosmetic surgery ended with two Americans dead — and two others found alive in a rural area near the Gulf coast — after a violent shootout and abduction that was captured …ktla.com
"Villarreal said the captive Americans had been moved around by their captors, and at one point were taken to a medical clinic “to create confusion and avoid efforts to rescue them.”
I was just going to post, the survivors are very fortunate.
Why/for whom were they being kept hidden?
To me, it sounds like it became chaotic, the abductors couldn't decide what to do, the boss didn't want anything to do with it, so maybe they just ran away.
JMO
sds71
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Mexico kidnapping survivor's mom says daughter watched cartel murder
The mother of a woman who was brutally kidnapped by the 'Gulf Cartel' while traveling to Mexico for a budget tummy tuck said that her daughter watched her friend and cousin murdered.
PrairieWind
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I think that is probably a good possibility. The plan maybe was to capture them, interrogate and kill. Then when they realized they had the wrong people, just random Americans, no one wanted anything to do with it. Honestly, I'm surprised they didn't just kill them all and bury the bodies somewhere. I think the survivors are extremely lucky. I certainly hope they are ok.
cvaldez1975
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there are a lot of haitians along the US/MX border so i would not be surprised if they were.
cvaldez1975
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because they werent the targets.
cvaldez1975
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thats what i think. and i think they realized they screwed up early on, that these were americans and they just sorta hid.
imstilla.grandma
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Mexican army soldiers prepare a search mission for four U.S. citizens kidnapped by gunmen at Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, March 6, 2023. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the four Americans were going to buy medicine and were caught in the crossfire between two armed groups after they had entered Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas, on Friday
When four Americans were kidnapped in the border city of Matamoros, authorities rescued the survivors within days, but thousands of Mexicans remain missing in the state long associated with cartel violence — some in cases dating back more than a decade.
Mexican authorities quickly blamed the local Gulf cartel for shooting up the Americans' minivan after they crossed the border for cosmetic surgery Friday. They found the Americans — two dead, one injured and one apparently unharmed — early Tuesday after a massive search involving squads of Mexican soldiers and National Guard troops.
By contrast, more than 112,000 Mexicans remain missing nationwide, in many cases years or decades after they disappeared. Although a convoy of armored Mexican military trucks extracted the Americans, the only ones searching for most of the missing Mexicans are their desperate relatives.
"If these people had been Mexicans, they might still be disappeared," said Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, an associate professor at George Mason University.
Americans found quickly, but Mexico's missing remain lost
When four Americans were kidnapped in the border city of Matamoros, authorities rescued the survivors within days, but thousands of Mexicans remain missing in the state long associated with cartel violence — some in cases dating back more than a decade.