Two of the four American citizens kidnapped in Mexico are dead while the other two remain alive, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing the governor of Tamaulipas.
Tamaulipas Gov. Américo Villarreal said Tuesday that one of the surviving Americans was wounded and the other was not, while two of the four U.S. citizens who traveled to Mexico were found dead.
The FBI is still working to return the missing Americans, who were abducted after being caught in the crossfire of rival cartels shortly after crossing the U.S. border with Mexico.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said during a Tuesday news conference that he has been briefed by the FBI on the situation unfolding in Mexico and said the State Department was working with Mexican authorities on the investigation.
Garland offered sympathies to the families of the victims of the attacks, but did not confirm the reports that two of the Americans died in the attack.
The attorney general added that the Justice Department would be working to prosecute the cartel members behind the incident.
Dramatic video shows the moment four Americans were kidnapped shortly after crossing into Mexico, in what authorities have called a case of mistaken identity.
The video of the violent incident shows armed men in body armor dragging one person across the pavement and pushing a woman into the bed of a white truck, then dragging two more men who appear to be wounded across the pavement and loading them into the bed of the same truck.
Photos from the scene show a white minivan with North Carolina plates riddled with bullet holes shortly after the kidnappings, with a woman who reportedly witnessed the attack telling the Associated Press she saw the minivan collide with another vehicle before hearing gunfire and seeing armed men approach the van.
“All of a sudden they (the gunmen) were in front of us,” said the woman, who declined to be identified for fear of retaliation. “I entered a state of shock, nobody honked their horn, nobody moved. Everybody must have been thinking the same thing, ‘If we move they will see us, or they might shoot us.’”
She added that she saw the men force one woman who was able to walk into the bed of their truck, while another victim who she said could move his head was loaded into the truck.
“The other two they dragged across the pavement, we don’t know if they were alive or dead,” she said.
According to law enforcement, the group of Americans were traveling to Mexico for health services last week when the minivan they were driving was attacked by a group of armed men, who shot at the vehicle before dragging the Americans out and loading them into a truck. The four Americans were not thought to be the intended target of the attack.
The group crossed from Brownsville, Texas, into the Mexican city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, an area that has been plagued by cartel violence and carries a travel advisory from the State Department warning Americans to avoid visiting.
UPDATE 1:
The two Americans who were found dead in Mexico have been identified as Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown.
A US official familiar investigation confirmed the identities to CNN Tuesday.
UPDATE 2:
The two American citizens who were found alive have been identified as Latavia “Tay” McGee and Eric James Williams — and have returned to the US, sources said.
Latavia “Tay” McGee and Eric James Williams were rushed to the border near Brownsville, Texas Tuesday in a convoy of ambulances and SUVs escorted by Mexican military Humvees and National Guard trucks with mounted .50-caliber machine guns.
