Specialists from the Attorney General of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas (FGJT) recreated this Saturday the kidnapping of four US citizens on March 3 in the border city of Matamoros, as part of the expert investigation into the attack, attributed to the Gulf cartel, in which two of the victims, Zindell Brown and Shaeed Woodard, lost their lives.
Agents of the National Guard, the Secretary of the Navy and the Tamaulipas state police blocked streets near the place where the young people were kidnapped, according to the Efe news agency, to reconstruct what happened after they entered Mexico through the international bridge. that connects with Brownsville, in Texas.
Experts from the Tamaulipas Prosecutor's Office recreate the kidnapping of four Americans in Matamoros on March 25, 2023. Abraham Pineda-Jacome / EFE
The other two youths, Latavia Washington McGee and Eric James Williams, were rescued alive from a wooden house in the Tecolote common, where the bodies of their companions were found.
The experts used five units to stage at least four times a scene similar to the one recorded in a video that was broadcast on social networks and that shows the moment in which armed men shoot at the young people and put them in a truck.
[They find five men handcuffed with a message that links them to the kidnapping of the four Americans in Matamoros]
In the reconstruction, several men followed a pickup truck similar to the one used by the Americans, which they ran off the road, before pulling them out of the vehicle at gunpoint and forcing them into another vehicle.
The Mexican authorities have arrested six people as alleged perpetrators of the attack;
five of them were handed over with a message in which the Grupo Escorpiones of the Gulf cartel apologized for the incident.
They accuse six detainees of the kidnapping and murder of Americans in Matamoros
March 11, 202301:39
The Funeral for Shaeed Woodard
A hundred people gathered this Saturday to remember Shaeed Woodard at the first funeral for the victims of the attack in Lake City, South Carolina.
Woodard died days before his 34th birthday.
Images of the young man as a youth football player were displayed at the funeral, and his smiling image adorned commemorative jerseys, but his body was not on view.
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Friends and family flocked to the Temple of the Good News of Salvation on a cloudy afternoon in the town of 6,000 people made famous for a few days by the crime 1,400 miles away, when Woodard, Brown and Williams accompanied McGee to a medical appointment across the border.
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During the funeral, the religious leaders rejected any temptation for revenge: "We ask you to give us a clean heart. Because no cartel, no demon, no evil spirit, no creator of hell, no one... we will not seek revenge," said the Minister Dearest Price.
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Nisheeka Simmons read a poem to her cousin, whose "premature departure," she said, brought everyone together "in solidarity."
She also remembered her sweet temperament, her fortitude and the security that others felt around her.
Pastor Hugh Samuels offered words of comfort to the family, horrified by the loss of Woodard but relieved by the return of his cousin, McGee.
A reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes reminded those present that there is "a time to weep and a time to laugh" and "a time to mourn and a time to dance."
Those present clapped and sang along to the tunes of the ceremony.
The state cemetery was the final resting place for Woodard, whose body was returned to the United States on March 9.
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Since then, the Woodards have received numerous outpourings of support, said Colin Ram, an attorney for the family.
During the funeral various solidarity cards sent by the local authorities were read.
An activist network has promised to raise money.
Ram promised to guide them against the consequences of injustice.
"Make no mistake, what happened in Mexico was an act of terrorism that affected the lives of four Americans," Ram told the news agency.
Associated Press