Inside frantic search for 4 Americans kidnapped in Mexico after deadly cartel shootout
Mexican authorities combed through surveillance footage and carried out multiple searches in a frantic bid to track down the four Americans who had been shot at and kidnapped at gunpoint by drug cartel members.
Law enforcement officials on Friday responded to the scene of the shootout in Matamoros and discovered the Americans’ abandoned white minivan with North Carolina license plates, Tamaulipas Attorney General Irving Barrios Mojica told CNN.
They contacted US officials, who were able to run the plates, Barrios Mojica said.
Meanwhile, local investigators processed the vehicle, obtained ballistics data and took fingerprints. They also collected DNA evidence from the scene and gathered surveillance footage from the area.
Police in Matamoros were able to identify the cartel members’ truck, said Barrios Mojica. Cops from several different agencies then teamed up to perform “several searches.”
The tourists were ultimately found Tuesday inside a red shed in a rural area east of Matamoros called Ejido Tecolote, on the way to the Gulf coast known as “Bagdad Beach,” Barrios Mojica said.
Two of the victims — Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown — were gunned down during the terrifying abduction in the crime-ridden city of Matamoros Friday. A Mexican woman was also killed by a stray bullet less than two blocks away.
The other two, identified Tuesday as Latavia “Tay” McGee and Eric James Williams, were rescued after days in captivity and then whisked back across the border to Texas.
A photo of McGee taken after her dramatic rescue shows her covered in dirt and barefoot, with blood streaks on her legs and a distressed look on her face.
The four friends from the Carolinas had traveled to Mexico in their minivan so that McGee, a mom of six, could undergo a “tummy tuck” at a clinic in Matamoros, Tamaulipas state, on Friday.
But the Americans got lost on the way to McGee’s appointment and ended up in the crosshairs of rival drug cartels, who reportedly mistook the friends for Haitian drug smugglers.
Video from the scene that spread on social media Monday showed McGee being forced into the flatbed of a pickup truck by armed men. The footage also captured the suspected cartel members loading the motionless bodies of two men into the truck.
Tamaulipas Gov. Américo Villarreal said that at the time of their rescue, the Americans were being guarded by a 24-year-old man who was arrested Tuesday.
He added that the kidnapping victims had been moved around by their captors, and at one point were even taken to a medical clinic “to create confusion and avoid efforts to rescue them.”
The surviving victims were rushed to Brownsville, Texas, just across the border from Matamoros. A convoy of ambulances and SUVs was escorted by Mexican military Humvees and national guard trucks with mounted machine guns.
Williams is being treated at Valley Regional Medical Center after being shot in the legs three times, his wife told CNN. He is expected to undergo surgery for his injuries.
His brother Robert described Eric as “fun-spirited” and “easygoing.”
He didn’t know his brother was traveling to Mexico until after the kidnapping hit the news. But from looking at his brother’s Facebook posts, he thinks his brother did not consider the trip dangerous.
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“He thought it would be fun,” Robert Williams said.
McGee escaped the harrowing ordeal without any physical injuries but was traumatized after watching two of her friends “die in front of her,” according to her mother, Barbara Burgess, speaking to station WPDE.
The slain victims will be turned over to US authorities after a medical examiner in Mexico completes a forensic exam to determine their causes of death, a source told CNN.
McGee and Woodard, both 33, were first cousins, their aunt Retha Darby told The Post from her home in South Carolina on Tuesday before news broke of Woodard’s death.
She said her niece had told her about her scheduled cosmetic procedure, but not that it was in Mexico.
“I didn’t know where she was going. I thought it was somewhere local,” said Darby, 72.
Family members and friends of the four Americans described to CNN how they grew concerned over the weekend after being unable to reach any of them by phone or text.
A friend of McGee recalled frantically calling her and the others without getting a reponse.
“I called her mom, too, and she told me she hasn’t been able to contact them either,” said the friend, who wished to remain anonymous. “That’s when I knew something was wrong.”
The friend then called the cosmetic surgeon’s office in Matamoros on Saturday after learning that someone from the clinic had contacted McGee’s cousin to say that she never made it to her procedure.
“When I reached out to the doctor’s office, they told me that Latavia had reached out to them to ask them for directions because she was lost,” the friend said.
By Sunday, the young mom’s relatives became so concerned that they began searching online for any news out of Matamoros, and came across the harrowing kidnapping video.
McGee’s aunt, Mary McFadden, told CNN she recognized her niece’s clothing “and her blond hair.”
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the people responsible for the kidnappings and deaths would be punished.
“We really regret that this happens in our country,” he said, adding that the US government has every right to be upset at the violence. At the same time, López Obrador took a shot at the US media’s breathless coverage of the incident, accusing them of a double standard.
He claimed that when Mexicans are killed, the media “go quiet like mummies.”
US Attorney General Merrick Garland placed blame for the deaths squarely on the drug cartels.
“The DEA and the FBI are doing everything possible to dismantle and disrupt and ultimately prosecute the leaders of the cartels and the entire networks that they depend on,” Garland said.
With Post wires
