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Two of the four Americans kidnapped in Mexico last week in a van caught in a shootout have been found dead, Mexico’s top official said Tuesday. Two others have been found alive, and one injured.
The governor of Tamaulipas, Americo Villarreal, did not give details on the number of injuries of the injured, saying, “Now the ambulance and other security personnel will provide the appropriate support.” The governor did not provide additional information about where or how the U.S. citizen was found.
The FBI reported Sunday that it is searching with Mexican authorities for the missing American, who was kidnapped on Friday. A relative of one of them said that they traveled together from South Carolina so that one of them could get a stomach from a doctor in the border town of Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.
Not long after entering Mexico, he was caught in the middle of a fight between rival cartel groups in the city. Video shows them being loaded into the back of a pickup truck by armed men. Officials said a Mexican woman was also killed in Friday’s shooting.
Villarreal confirmed the deaths by phone during a morning press conference by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, saying details about the four kidnapped Americans had been confirmed by prosecutors.
The suspect is in custody
López Obrador said a suspect had been detained.
Mexico’s president has complained about US media coverage of missing Americans, accusing them of sensationalizing it.
“Unlike when they kill Mexicans in the United States, they are as quiet as mummies,” Obrador said.
“It’s unfortunate, they are [the U.S. government] have the right to protest as they have,” he said. “We really regret that this happened in our country.”
ABC News on Monday identified the four Americans as Latavia (Tay) McGee, Shaeed Woodard, Zindell Brown and Eric James Williams.
The FBI has offered a $50,000 reward for the victim’s return and the arrest of the kidnappers.
The kidnapping reflects years of terror in Matamoros, a city dominated by factions of the powerful Gulf drug cartel that often fight among themselves. Amid the violence, thousands of Mexicans have disappeared in the state of Tamaulipas alone.
Attorney General Merrick Garland, in an unrelated appearance in Washington on Tuesday, said the U.S. is “doing everything it can” to dismantle Mexican drug networks and prosecute cartels.
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