Two of four Americans were killed in Mexico when their van was caught in the crossfire of rival cartel groups last week, a top Mexican official said Tuesday. The two others are alive, with one wounded.
Tamaulipas Gov. Américo Villarreal confirmed the deaths by phone during a morning news conference by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, saying details about the four abducted Americans had been confirmed by prosecutors.
The FBI had reported Sunday that it was searching with Mexican authorities for the missing Americans, who were kidnapped Friday. A relative of one of them said Monday that they had traveled together from South Carolina so one of them could get a tummy tuck from a Matamoros doctor.
Shortly after entering Mexico on Friday they were in the crossfire of rival cartel groups. A video showed them being loaded into the back of a pickup truck by gunmen.
The four Americans were traveling in a white van with North Carolina license plates. ABC News identified them as Latavia “Tay” McGee, Shaeed Woodard, Zindell Brown and Eric James Williams.
Barbara Burgess, 54, Latavia’s mother, said her daughter traveled to Matamoros accompanied by her cousin Shaeed de Latavia to undergo a “cosmetic medical procedure.” The other two hostages, Burgess said, are friends of her daughter.
“Of the four, two of them are dead, one person is wounded and the other is alive and right now the ambulances and the rest of the security personnel are going for them to give the corresponding support,” Villarreal said
The governor did not share any additional details about where or how they were found. He was expected to share more information at his own daily news conference scheduled for later Tuesday morning.
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