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Mexico kidnapping survivors return to US after deadly trip for cosmetic surgery

Fun VLOG March 08, 2023

The two American survivors of a deadly kidnapping in Mexico have returned to the US and are being treated at a hospital.

Video footage captured the moment ambulances carrying the victims crossed back over the US border into Texas, surrounded by military vehicles and armed soldiers.

The surviving victims were identified yesterday as Latavia McGee and Eric James Williams. The other two victims, Shaeed Willard and Zindell Brown, were killed in the shootout.

Williams and McGee were transported by ambulance to Valley Regional Medical Center in Brownsville, Texas – the city located immediately across the US border from Matamoros.

An American woman, abducted in Mexico last week, sits inside an ambulance after she was found alive in Ejido Longoreno, on the outskirts of Matamoros, Mexico, Tuesday, March 7, 2023. Two of four Americans whose abduction in Mexico was captured in a video that showed them caught in a cartel shootout have been found dead, officials said Tuesday.?? The two surviving Americans, one wounded, were taken to the border near Brownsville, Texas, in a convoy of Mexican ambulances and SUVs. (AP Photo)
Latavia McGee is seen in an ambulance after being rescued outside Matamoros (Picture: AP)
A Red Cross worker closes the door of an ambulance carrying two Americans found alive after their abduction in Mexico last week, in Matamoros, Tuesday, March 7, 2023. Two of four Americans whose abduction in Mexico was captured in a video that showed them caught in a cartel shootout have been found dead, officials said Tuesday.?? The two surviving Americans were taken to the border near Brownsville, Texas, in a convoy of Mexican ambulances and SUVs. (AP Photo)
The surviving victims were transported by ambulance to a hospital in Brownsville, Texas on Wednesday (Credits: AP)

Williams was injured in the incident, and is being treated for a bullet wound in his leg.

Brown and Willard’s bodies will be transported back to the US after Mexican authorities finish a forensic investigation.

The group of four Americans were travelling to Matamoros for a discount cosmetic surgery. The group drove a white minivan from Lake City, South Carolina to the northeastern Mexican city over 1400 miles over the course of two days.

Shortly after they crossed the border into Matamoros on Friday, they were waylaid by attackers.

Mexican army soldiers prepare a search mission for four U.S. citizens kidnapped by gunmen at Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, March 6, 2023. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the four Americans were going to buy medicine and were caught in the crossfire between two armed groups after they had entered Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas, on Friday. (AP Photo)
Mexican soldiers were deployed to escort the American victims back to the US (Picture: AP)

Mexican authorities currently believe that they were caught in the crossfire between two rival factions of a drug cartel. Matamoros is home to the brutal Gulf Cartel, who frequently see infighting between different factions.

Video from after the attack shows men in body armor dragging the Americans’ bodies into a white pickup truck. Tamaulipas Governor Américo Villarreal said the kidnappers moved the victims around to multiple locations to throw investigators off their trail.

Mexican investigators were eventually able to track the kidnappers down to a small rural town outside of the city called Ejido Longoreño. The Americans were finally rescued on Tuesday morning.

‘We’re very sorry to have this happen in our country and we send our condolences to the families of the victims, their friends, to the people of the United States,’ President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said.

The Mexican president also promised to arrest and punish the perpetrators of the crime. One person has already been taken into custody – a 24-year-old who was assigned to guard the building the Americans were found in.

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