Figured out how to post a single message! For those who don't want to reach five separate messages, please see below!
Hi everyone (
@vls12345 @AmandaSkis @LadyL @flowershop @realanastasia @Unalienable Rights @annemc2 @Kaykedi @charminglane @Oiseaux @wendybtn )
I am a close friend of Caroline Katba (the wife in this case; we spent our undergrad years together at Amherst College in Amherst, Mass.) and I first want to say thanks for posting this and for the initial discussion that's already taken place. It seems a lot of info from existing articles has already been shared, but have additional information that could help provide some clarity, as well as a sincere, multi-fold ask to anyone willing to help here.
I've attached the last photo of the couple, sent by Frank and taken at the Piramide del Malecon de Coatzacoalcos on July 22. After this photo, the last info we got from Frank was that they were "pulling up to our next hotel", which is a little vague and could mean they were on their way to the hotel and not necessarily in the parking lot (we also, unfortunately, don't know what hotel they were referencing. sorry about that), but that message from Frank came through just before 5pm their time. Then Caroline read a message from her sister really late at night on the same night, July 22nd. After that, both of their Whatsapp profiles went dark. Given those circumstances, we think they stayed at the hotel and then moved on the next day (on the 23rd) and something happened on the road or something happened in Coatzacoalcos. Of course, something could've also happened during the night or even before Caroline read that message from her sister.
Thing is, there are a lot of questions because targeting Americans is not common where they were. Frank looks very Hispanic, but Caroline in Latin America would just be seen as being a white American. Plus there's the whole driving a car (2016 Toyota Prius) with Texas plates. We know it's not out of the realm of possibility, but we also don't want to consider an attack the ONLY possibility.
Currently, the university case worker, Texas police, embassy and Mexican authorities are working on cell tower data now so they are getting a warrant going and we are also in the process of figuring out how to both freeze and bank activity. Both of these tasks are being completed in order to develop a non-theorized location where they actually were.
Additionally, I've shared the news with Amherst College alumni and all of my contacts (I work in Public Relations, so hoping to get additional news coverage through professional contacts) and I'm in contact with people who live in Veracruz and they're supplying much-needed context in terms of understanding the landscape and crime culture down there. From what the two of them have said, foreigners are typically given a wide berth by locals and the chances of a car accident happening in either Veracruz or Chiapas are ridiculously high in this case (due to the dangerous terrain, including potholes and mountainous terrain one would NOT want to traverse in a prius). They also mentioned the couple could've experienced a similar car accident in Guatemala, which most likely would have been their next stop after Coatzacoalcos. We currently have no record of them leaving Mexico, however, one of my sources in Veracruz says it's quite common for cars to pass through the Tapachula border into Guatemala because that border is terribly slack with record keeping. So I've spent the past five days reading everything I could online, including the El Heraldo de Veracruz (found downloadable pdf of the daily issues on issuu.com) covering events from July 22 to August 1, but haven't seen anything in there. Which leads to my ask:
1) What else should we be doing, aside from contacting hotels, acquiring phone data, and accessing bank statements 2) what are the chances they ran into shady law enforcement and are currently in prison, two months later, with no phone access or way to contact us 3) what more can I do on my end aside from reading local papers, keeping in mind that this week I plan to start reading papers from Yucatan + Belize (there was a brief mention of them traveling to both of these places but nothing set in stone), Chiapas, and Guatemala and 4) is anyone here willing to help me search through the aforementioned local newspapers and/or broadcasts from July 22 - early August to see if there are any notes or mentions about the car, car accidents involving similar vehicles, couples being found, or any other stories/headlines you think should be part of the search.
I can't thank you all enough for the discussion that's ongoing here and appreciate you taking the time to read through all of this.
Note: for additional photos of the pair, you can search for Caroline Katba on instagram @katbacaroline.
Best,
endless
www.11alive.com
