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The wife of a man who survived a kidnapping at gunpoint in Mexico has revealed she did not know her husband was traveling south of the border.
Eric Williams was found on Tuesday alive with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds to his legs five days after he and his friends were accosted by a Mexican cartel, who were seen leading the Americans into a pickup truck at gunpoint.
Mexican and American authorities have been searching for days for the four friends who traveled to a dangerous part of the country to support Latavia ‘Tay’ McGee at a scheduled tummy tuck surgery.
Dramatic footage showed her barefoot and covered in dirt as she and Williams were rescued from a dingy stash house on Tuesday, but McGee’s cousin, Shaeed Woodard, and Zindell Brown did not survive.
Williams is now being treated for his wounds at a hospital in a Texas border city, as his wife, Michelle, says she did not even know he was traveling to the country.
Eric Williams was found on Tuesday alive with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds to his legs five days after he and his friends were accosted by a Mexican cartel
He was among three others who traveled down to Mexico to support his friend Latavia ‘Tay’ McGee (pictured) at a scheduled tummy tuck surgery
McGee was uninjured but Williams had been shot in the left leg – the injury was non-life-threatening
‘I didn’t know that he was traveling to Mexico,’ she told WBTW. ‘I just knew he was going somewhere to help two friends.’
She said she did not hear from him since Friday, explaining how he texted her in the morning ‘and I texted him back immediately.
‘He didn’t respond,’ Michelle revealed. ‘He didn’t respond to our son either, so I’m going to assume that’s when they were ambushed.’
She added: ‘I highly doubt they thought this could have happened to them.’
A video posted to social media that day showed men with assault rifles and tan body armor loading the four people into the bed of a white pickup truck in broad daylight.
A woman, now believed to be McGee, could be seen getting led into the pickup truck at gunpoint as another cartel member dragged a man across the pavement.
Two other male victims were then dumped inside the vehicle.
It was unclear from the video whether they were dead at the time or just wounded.
But Williams said she does not typically watch those kinds of videos ‘so I was not aware that was my husband until the FBI came on Sunday evening.
‘It was just so surreal,’ she said of the experience. ‘I called the local police here and they confirmed.’
Shaeed Woodard (left) and Zindell Brown (right) did not survive the cartel
McGee is seen sitting on the ground after the vehicle she and three other U.S. citizens were traveling on was shot at by kidnappers moments after they drove into the Mexican border city of Matamoros
A gunman acted as a lookout for his cohorts moments after they attacked a mini van with four American occupants and kidnapped them in the northeastern Mexican border city of Matamoros on Friday
She also noted that she was able to finally speak with her husband again Tuesday morning as he was being transported to the hospital.
During the phone call, he said he had been shot twice in one leg and once in the other. Still, he is expected to be able to walk.
Williams said she is now ‘happy and thankful’ that her husband is OK as he is being treated for his wounds at Brownsville Valley Regional Hospital in Texas ‘but I’m also heartbroken that the other two families can’t say the same.’
McGee’s mother Barbara Burgess also told ABC 15 on Tuesday evening that she had spoken to her daughter, who was in shock but unharmed.
‘She’s alive. I talked to her. The nurse at the hospital called and let me talk to her,’ said Burgess.
‘She was crying. I asked her how she was doing. She doing okay.
‘She was crying because her brother got killed and she watched him die. She watched two of them die. They died in front of her.’
Burgess also thanked well-wishers for their support.
‘I appreciated their prayers. I thank them for praying because that’s what I had needed.
‘Prayer, it will change things. It works out. And prayer, you believe in it and it’ll work. It did it for me. Because I was praying for my daughter.
‘And I know she was coming home. I knew it.
‘I didn’t know when and what time. But, I knew she was coming.’
Lativa ‘Tay’ McGee was found uninjured after she, her cousin and two friends were kidnapped. The mother-of-five was seen without shoes after surviving the tragic incident along with friend Eric Williams who was shot in the left leg
Mexican officials said Mcgee’s cousin Shaeed Woodard and friend Zindell Brown were killed. Their bodies were found in the stash house along with the two survivors
McGee (pictured) was seen in the back of an ambulance before being transported to Texas after the brutal kidnapping that officials believe was a case of ‘mistaken identity’
McGee was seen wiping her eyes with a tissue as Williams – who was shot in the left leg, but also survived the ordeal – was treated in the back of the emergency vehicle
The images of McGee emerging from captivity were taken at a stash house in the rural town of El Tecolote, six and half miles from Matamoros where the group was found.
At least one person has been arrested in connection with the incident and the surviving Americans were taken to the border near Brownsville, Texas, in a convoy of Mexican ambulances and SUVs on Tuesday.
They were then delivered to U.S. consulate officials.
In a press conference on Tuesday afternoon the Governor of Tamaulipas, Américo Villarreal Anaya, who broke news of the two surviving Americans at a separate press conference in the morning, confirmed the identity of the person arrested.
’24-year-old Jose ‘N’ was arrested. He was in charge of monitoring the victims,’ he said, noting the victims ‘were found in a house near a place known as La Lagunona in the town of El Tecolote in Matamoros.
‘During the three days after the criminal act, the four people were transferred to various places, including a clinic in order to create confusion and avoid rescue work,’ he said.
Officials in Mexico would not confirm whether the person detained in relation to the kidnapping is related to the criminal organization ‘Gulf Cartel,’ which is known to operate in the region.
24-year-old Jose ‘N’ was arrested in connection with the incident Mexican officials say he was in charge of monitoring the victims
Mexican officials said that the group arrived in Matamoros at 9:45am and were caught up in the terrifying ambush, hours after arriving in town, at 11:45am.
Tamaulipas State Attorney General Irving Barrios said that information related to the kidnapping surfaced online and that videos and pictures shared by people helped in the rescue.
At the time authorities didn’t know that the victims were Americans, he added.
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Once officials had identified U.S. license plates on the minivan the group had been traveling in, Mexican authorities reached out to their U.S. counterparts.
Mexican authorities said they were able to scan public surveillance cameras in the area to determine ‘the number of cartel vehicles that were involved in the attack.’
He said that they scanned medical facilities in Matamoros in hopes of finding the kidnapping victims earlier but to no avail.
Defense Secretary General. Louis Sandoval was asked about kidnappings on both sides of the border, especially in the U.S. where victims are then taken into Mexico to seek ransom.
‘Tamaulipas has been a state where violence, the presence of groups has been important,’ he said.
The group were found in a stash house (pictured) in the rural town of El Tecolote, six and half miles from Matamoros
Forensic technicians were seen working at the scene where authorities found the bodies of two of four Americans kidnapped by gunmen, in Matamoros
Military personnel kept watch at the scene where authorities found the bodies
‘It should be noted during the current administration a security strategy was established and very specific objectives were set for Tamaulipas, for the border, to take care of the border.
‘The security strategy that was implemented has given very good results, I don’t have the stats here right now, but the number of intentional homicides has dropped in Tamaulipas thanks to this strategy.
‘The participation of the army, the strategy of the air force has been important.’
Governor Américo Villarreal said that there has been close attention on the incident and medical support was provided to surviving victims while the Mexican president vowed those responsible will be ‘punished.’
‘Those responsible are going to be found, they are going to be punished, as was done when they murdered women and children, in Bavispe, from the LeBarón, Miller, Langford family. All involved were arrested,’ President López Obrador said.
The Tamaulipas State Attorney General’s Office said that the four American citizens were found at about 7:30 am Tuesday four days after going missing.
‘Unfortunately two are dead. Investigation and intelligence work continues to capture those responsible. Details will be given later,’ he said on Tuesday morning.
‘Of the four, two of them are deceased, one person injured and the other is alive.
‘Ambulances and the rest of the security personnel are on their way to give corresponding support for [their] transfer and [any] medical support that can be [given],’ he added at the time.
FBI units escort two Brownsville Fire Department EMS Ambulances through Veterans International Bridge at Los Tomates with the two surviving U.S. citizens who were kidnapped on March 3
Mexican newspaper Milenio cites law enforcement officials saying they were investigating whether the group was kidnapped by members of the ‘Gulf Cartel,’ a notoriously violent gang run by a feared leader known as La Kena.
The four had traveled from Lake City, South Carolina to the border town of Matamoros for McGee to undergo the discounted tummy tuck, one family member of the victims said.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr said the US authorities should treat the gangs the same way they do ISIS when negotiating for Americans’ release.
‘They are terrorists,’ he said during an appearance on Fox News last night.
‘The Mexican government is being held hostage by tens of thousands of paramilitary members of terrorist organizations that effectively control Mexico.’
And as spring breakers pack their bikinis and sunglasses to hit the beach in Mexico, the US government has urged citizens to avoid cartel hotspots amid a spike in violence.
‘It’s pretty close at this stage to a failed narco-state,’ he said.
‘They can use violence and oceans of cash to corrupt the government. The government has no will, and it doesn’t have the ability to deal with the cartels.’
Republican representatives Dan Crenshaw, of Texas, and Michael Waltz, of Florida, recently introduced a bill that would give Biden ‘authority to use the U.S. military against these cartels in Mexico.’
In response, Ricardo Monreal tweeted the following yesterday: ‘My response to the representative from Texas @DanCrenshawTX is direct and clear: I reject all foreign interference in the internal affairs of Mexico, and also the claim to apply United States laws in our country. It’s called ‘Sovereignty.’ Even if Crenshaw doesn’t get it.’
Le Kena leads the Gulf Cartel and is also known as Ciclon 19. His real name is Alberto García Vilano.
Mexican authorities have been hunting him for months and are offering a reward of 2.5million pesos for any information that could lead to his arrest.
Pictures from the moment of their capture have started to circulate online showing the group at the back of a vehicle
Zalandria Brown of Florence, South Carolina, said on Monday she had been in contact with the FBI and local officials after learning that her younger brother, Zindell, was one of the four victims.
‘This is like a bad dream you wish you could wake up from,’ she said in a phone interview with the Associated Press.
La Kena or Ciclon 19, the leader of the Gulf Cartel
‘To see a member of your family thrown in the back of a truck and dragged, it is just unbelievable.’
Zalandria said her brother, lives in Myrtle Beach, and two friends had accompanied McGee and that the group was extremely close – making the trip in part to help split up the driving duties.
They were aware of the dangers in Mexico, Zalandria noted her brother – who did not survive – had even expressed some misgivings before the trip.
‘Zindell kept saying, ‘We shouldn’t go down,’ Brown said.
White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Monday during a news briefing that the Biden administration had been ‘closely following the assault and kidnapping of four U.S. citizens.’
‘These sorts of attacks are unacceptable,’ she said, adding that U.S. law enforcement was in touch with Mexican authorities, as were the departments of State and Homeland Security.
The Governor of Tamaulipas, Américo Villarreal Anaya, confirmed the condition of four kidnapped Americans over a phone call during President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s press conference on Tuesday. Two are dead, two alive – one wounded
Mexican authorities are seen here investigating the white SUV McGee and her friends drove to the country in
A map highlighting the six of 32 Mexican states that the US State Department currently has listed under its most severe ‘do not travel’ category, due to local cartels that may rob and/or kidnap American tourists
The FBI and Mexican law enforcement are investigating, with the bureau asking the public for information leading to arrests.
The State Department has a ‘Do Not Travel’ warning in place for Tamaulipas state due to ‘crime and kidnapping.’
It said organized crime activity, including gun battles, armed robberies and kidnappings, are common along the border and in Ciudad Victoria.
‘Criminal groups target public and private passenger buses, as well as private automobiles traveling through Tamaulipas, often taking passengers and demanding ransom payments,’ the warning states.
