American Death Toll in Mexico's Drug War Surges

BY MICHAEL WEBSTER: SYNDICATED INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER.  Sunday DEC 14, 2008 at 12:01 PM PST

From Brownsville Texas to San Diego California Mexican cities bordering American cities along the U.S. Mexican border are where Americans are being killed by assassinations and executions. Many Americans were kidnapped in the U.S. and taken to Mexico where they were murdered. Still other Americans were abducted and slain in Mexico while visiting, others where shot gangland style in country. Dozens of U.S. citizens have been kidnapped, or held hostage, or killed by their captors in Mexico and many cases remain unsolved. Moreover, new cases of disappearances and kidnap-for-ransom and Americans being killed continue to be reported.

38 year old American Carey McClintock was found dead Aug 31, 2008 in the dangerous Mexican town of Ciudad Juarez across the border from El Paso, Texas.

The number of murders in Juarez has jumped from 300 in 2007 to roughly 1,500 this year more than five times as many as last year.

Due to the so-called drug war extortions, robberies, kidnappings and executions in Juarez these crimes have mushroomed unchecked, and many U.S. citizens are getting killed in that violence.

Of the few that the FBI reported as known kidnappings there were 30 U.S. citizens that have been kidnapped or disappeared, nine were later released, two found dead and 13 still missing .

The FBI now refuses to estimate the numbers of Americans being kidnapped or murdered in Mexico. These earlier reports were out dated and officials believe the real numbers are much greater. All 30 were Americans just from the San Diego area alone. How many other U.S. citizens are there? No one seems to know for sure. But there are others more from border cities like El Paso.

Carey was alone in a well known downtown Juarez tourist hotel. Two men where seen according to the bell boy forcing Carey from her room and it is believed she was taken to an unknown site where she was brutally beaten and then stabbed 37 times. Her bloody butchered lifeless body was found by police in an abandoned house on the out-shirts of town. Carey’s handbag, possible cell phone and all her personal possessions were found in her room at the hotel and Carey’s family wants to know what other things where found of Carey’s and what happen to them after the Juarez police took them into custody? We have asked the Juarez authorities for an accounting of them and to turn them over to us but so far no luck, according to Carey’s Father Stan McClintock.

In recent years over 500 girls and women have been killed in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua City, Mexico.  Most of the victims were young and poor and many were sexually assaulted prior to their deaths. If Carey was raped the police report does not indicate it.

The family was devastated to learn of Carey’s death and of course wanted to know what happened to Carey.

Carey’s Father and Mother Sheila along with sisters Cathleen and Colleen traveled to Juárez where they identified the mutilated body of Carey at the Juárez coroner’s morgue. As the police and coroner were poring over Carey’s murder scene, they knew that other Mexican drug cartel gunmen most likely were shooting down other victims with automatic weapons fire some where else in the city.

Carey’s family keeps attempting to find out the details of the murder and who was responsible. They first went to the Juárez Police Dept. and after being given the run around they were finely able to talk with the detectives charged with finding the killer or killers. The police said they had no suspects or even any leads. The detectives indicated that there were so many unsolved murders in Juárez that they held out little hope of ever finding out who did it. The family pleaded with the police to please keep them informed as the investigation went forward. After weeks of no word from anybody Mr. McClintock started contacting Mexican police again and the American Consulate General’s office in Juárez. Still Nothing! He than contacted the El Paso Police Dept. he was told that because the alleged crime took place in Mexico that the El Paso police could not open an investigation into his daughter murder.

When it became apparent that there was nothing really being done to find the killer of his daughter Mr. McClintock started investigating the matter himself.

 According to Mr. McClintock some time after contacting the El Paso City Police he received an e-mail from El Paso Police Detective Jesus C Terrones. “Needless to say I am disappointed that no one is really looking for Carey's murderer”, McClintock said.  How do we ever get to the bottom of this if we have to rely on the Juarez Police Department I asked Terrones? I did think it was interesting that Torrones said the unit in Juarez assigned to this case was the best one they had. I guess meaning there best is not very good.  He offered this in a phone conversation I had with him earlier this week”.

McClintock says the local police, El Paso County Sheriff, FBI, DEA, and Homeland Security all have refused to investigate his daughter’s horrible death or even look into it for that matter.

In direct contras on June 19, of the same year 2008, ICE was contacted by an aide to Congressman Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), chairman of the influential and powerful House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence which has oversight responsibilities for the Department of Homeland Security, the parent department of ICE, FBI,CIA and others, he asked for ICE to help arrange the release of Mexican National Erika Posselt a relative of the congressman’s wife who had been kidnapped for ransom from a business she owns in Mexico.

 “ she is not even a U.S. citizen, yet she gets the help she needed just because she is the relative of our El Paso Congressman, that is truly a shame” according to Donna Welch an El Paso native.  McClintock could not agree more and must wonder the same thing.

Still more murders of Americans are known such as an 11-year-old from El Paso who was killed recently during a highway robbery on the Durango-Mazatlan road in Mexico. The boy, Rico Armando Bañuelas, was on a family trip to Mazatlan.

New cases of disappearances and kidnap-for-ransom and American deaths continue to be reported. No one can be considered immune from these crimes on the basis of occupation, nationality, or other factors. Mexican criminals have been known to follow  harass and kill U.S. citizens traveling in their vehicles, particularly in border areas including Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros, Reynosa, Juarez, Mexicali, Tijuana and most all border towns. 

23 year old American Kyle Mostello Belanger has been reported missing since last May and believed to have been kidnapped and is being held against his will for ransom in Juarez Mexico. The information has been forwarded to the Mexican Government and to the FBI and other U.S. agencies with no apparent follow-up investigations much less locating arresting and punishing his perpetrators.

Two more U.S. residents, Roberto Martinez and Ruth Sagredo Velasco, were killed in a barrage of at least 20 shots from AK-47 assault rifles fired at them as they drove in a Nov. 22 funeral procession for Sagredo's sister.

Both Martinez and Sagredo were U.S. residents living in El Paso and working at the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center there.

Mexican police recently discovered the bodies of a male and female believed to be Americans. The riddled bodies were found in a gray 2004 Kia Amanti also riddled with bullets at Boulevard Cuatro Siglos between Hermanos Escobar and Pérez Serna. Police said the car had U.S. plates.

The American couple were believed visiting in Juárez attending the funeral of the killed woman’s sister, who was also killed in a homicide only last week; Juarez police investigators told the El Paso Journal that the couple were obviously targeted.

Cmdr. Fernando Lozano Sandoval, of the Chihuahua State Investigations Agency, was shot in the Mexican city just across the Rio Grande from El Paso. He was one of three police officials shot in Juarez over two days, and the only one to survive.

Lozano, identified by the El Paso County Sheriff's Office as a U.S. citizen, was taken to El Paso County's Thomason Hospital, the only Level 1 trauma center within 280 miles. 

A woman identified as Ana Lourdes Hernandez, 32 and a U.S. citizen was killed in a drive-by shooting in Juárez, officials said. She died after she was taken by ambulance to Thomason Hospital in El Paso at the request of her family, a Juárez police spokesman said.

A vehicle drove by, and several shots were fired at Hernandez as she stood outside a home in the Bellavista area west of downtown Juárez, police said.

Marisela Molinar, 48, and Jesús Martín Huerta Hiedra were fatally shot in her 2009 Dodge Journey at Juan Pablo II and Arizona boulevards in Juárez at about 4:15 p.m. Wednesday, Mexican authorities said.

They both suffered multiple gunshot wounds and Mexican investigators discovered 85 shell casings at the scene.

 
La Mesa California an American woman Libby Gianna Craig was among four people found shot to death in a canyon near Rosarito Beach in Baja California.

The 28-year-old was in an area known as Morro Canyon along with three Afro-American males, Mexican police identified as "Black Americans". Early reports also said more bodies were found in a separate location at different points of Playas de Rosarito, reported some Mexican papers.

All the shootings were apparently deliberate and targeted. According to Rosarito police.

A member of a well-known Willacy County farming family was found shot to death in Guanajuato, Mexico, this year according to the online edition of Correo, the state newspaper. Paul Wetegrove, 46, whose family grows onions, sugar cane and cabbage outside Raymondville, was reportedly shot by a man who approached him in a red Dodge Caravan, Correo stated. There were four other men in the vehicle. A man at the office of the Wetegrove packing shed on Farm-to-Market 762 on Friday refused to comment on the published reports. He said that the family wanted its privacy at this time. "What's happened?

American Sam Botner killed in Mexico. He was brutally murdered by six Mexican cops while he was arrested on August 27, 2008 at the penitentiary of San Jose del Cabo Mexico.

Earlier this year four Americans were shot and wounded as they were leaving the Arriba Chihuahua nightclub in the ProNaF tourist zone in the heart of city of Juárez.

This reporter believes the above Americans killed or wounded in Mexico in 2008 is but a few of many. We are awaiting the results of a freedom of information filing to try and determine how many Americans have been killed in Mexico just this year (2008) and who they are.

An alarming number of people have directly been killed in drug related violence in Mexico this year. Nearly 7,000 drug related deaths since January 2007. As previously reported in the Laguna Journal more people have died in Mexico than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Many of these deaths were Americans. This is all after more than 50,000 troops and federal police were deployed to Mexican cities, many along the border with the U.S.

Stan McClintock says he intents to continue his quest to find the killer or killers of his beloved Carey. He says he has some leads now and will investigate the matter no matter how long it may take to get to the bottom of it or where it may lead. He intents to pursue it with or without the American authorities help.

Editor’s note: The Laguna Journal/El Paso Journal will keep our readers up to date with the latest developments in the Carey McClintock case.

Michael Webster’s Syndicated Investigative Reports are read worldwide,  in 100 or more U.S. outlets and in at least 136 countries and territories. He has published articles for MaximsNews, which  is associated with MediaChannel.org and Globalvision News Network, global news and media information services with more than 350 news affiliates in 135 countries. Many of Mr. Webster’s articles are printed in six working languages: English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanish. With ten more languages planed in the near future.

Mr. Webster is America's leading authority on Venture Capital/Equity Funding. A trustee on some of the nations largest trade Union funds. A noted Author, Lecturer, Educator, Emergency Manager, Counter-Terrorist, War on Drugs and War on Terrorist Specialist, Business Consultant, Newspaper Publisher. Radio News caster. Labor Law generalist, Teamster Union Business Agent, General Organizer, Union Rank and File Member Grievances Representative, NLRB Union Representative, Union Contract Negotiator, Workers Compensation Appeals Board Hearing Representative. Mr. Webster does investigative reports for print, electronic and on-line News Agencies.