Families of four Americans kidnapped in Mexico spoke out after the rescue of the two survivors, detailing the harrowing ordeal that resulted in the death of two travelers and one bystander.
Barbara Burgess, mother of survivor Latavia “Tay” McGee, said her daughter is alive and in a Texas hospital after the abduction, telling News 4 San Antonio what her daughter went through. living nightmare
“I asked her how she was doing,” Burgess said. News 4 her telephone conversation. “She is all right. She was crying because her brother had been killed and she had seen him die. She saw two of them die. They died before her eyes.”
Mexican cartel members kidnapped four Americans who crossed the border from Brownsville, Texas, to Matamoros, Tamaulipas last week, allegedly seeking tummy tuck surgery. According to US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar, two Americans and an innocent Mexican bystander were killed during the incident.
Four Americans were identified as McGee, Shaid Woodard, Eric Williams and Zindell Brown, all from South Carolina. The FBI said they couldn’t identify survivorsBut McGee and Williams were identified as survivors by their families.
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Tamaulipas Gov. Américo Villarreal said authorities found the four in a wooden shack guarded by a man they had arrested. The cartel moved the Americans to different locations, at one point they were taken to a medical clinic “to create confusion and avoid attempts to save them.” according to WBTW.
State Department spokesman Ned Price told a press conference on Tuesday that the US repatriated the two survivors “with the assistance of our Mexican partners, with the assistance of our officials in Mexico.”
A Red Cross worker closes the door of an ambulance carrying two Americans found alive after they were abducted in Mexico last week, in Matamoros, Tuesday, March 7, 2023. On Tuesday, officials said the cartel had been found dead in the shootout. The two American survivors were flown to the border near Brownsville, Texas in a convoy of Mexican ambulances and SUVs. (AP photo)
The department is working to repatriate the dead, but Villarreal said Mexico will turn them over to US authorities after a forensic examination at the Matamoros morgue.
Burgess said she appreciates the community’s prayers and support “because that’s what I needed.”
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“Prayer will change everything,” Burgess said. “It works, and prayer, you believe in it, and it will work. It helped me because I prayed for my daughter and I knew she would come home. I knew it. I didn’t know when or at what time, but I knew she would come.”
Brown’s wife, Michelle, said she didn’t know he was going to Mexico, only that “he was going to help two friends somewhere.”
A general view of a warehouse behind a police cordon at the site where authorities found the bodies of two of the four Americans abducted by militants in Matamoros, Mexico, on March 7, 2023. (REUTERS/Daniel Becerril)
“I haven’t heard from him since Friday,” Michelle told WBTW. “On Friday morning he wrote to me and I answered him right away. He didn’t respond, so I’m guessing that’s when he was ambushed.”
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She described feeling “a sense of relief” when she found out her husband was alive and said she hadn’t slept since Sunday.
An American woman abducted in Mexico last week sits in an ambulance after she was found alive in Ejido Longoreno, on the outskirts of Matamoros, Mexico, Tuesday, March 7, 2023. Two of four Americans caught on footage of their kidnapping in Mexico Tuesday, officials said a video showing them getting into a shootout with a cartel was found dead. The two American survivors, one of whom was injured, were flown to the border near Brownsville, Texas in a convoy of Mexican ambulances and SUVs. (AP photo)
“My heart breaks for two other families who cannot say the same,” she added.
Tamaulipas is one of six Mexican states with a travel warning. US Department of State against visiting the region due to the increased risk of violence against Americans.
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White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Monday that “this kind of attack is unacceptable” and the Biden administration “will be ready to provide all necessary consular assistance.”
As of press time, the State Department has not responded to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.