(CNN) Mexican authorities arrested five more people Friday in connection with the kidnapping of four Americans in Matamoros, Mexico, while the bodies of the two slain Americans were returned to U.S. diplomats and inquiries continue. in the wake of last week’s violent abduction.
Six people were arrested in total, including one on Tuesday, Tamaulipas Attorney General Irving Barrios Mojica said Friday.
“The Tamaulipas Attorney General’s Office (#FGJT) issued an arrest warrant against 5 people involved in the events of March 3 in Matamoros, for the crimes of aggravated kidnapping and intentional simple murder. in the process,” said Barrios Mojica tweeted.
The case remains “very confusing” to investigators, who are still gathering information on last week’s kidnapping and considering all angles, an official at the Tamaulipas Prosecutor’s Office familiar with the investigation told CNN before news of the arrests. – arrest.
Earlier, a cartel apologized for committing what the father of one victim called “a senseless crime” that also killed a Mexican woman.
A letter of apology was issued Thursday by the Gulf Cartel, believed to be responsible for the kidnappings, and the group handed over five of its members to local authorities, according to images circulating online and a version of letter obtained by CNN from an official familiar with the ongoing investigation. CNN could not confirm the authenticity of the photos and requested comment from Mexican and US authorities.
Although investigators believe the letter is genuine, Mexican and US law enforcement officials involved in the investigation strongly doubt the sincerity of the group’s apology, the official who shared the letter with CNN said.
A person who is detained is conducting the “surveillance functions of the victims,” Tamaulipas Gov. Américo Villarreal said on Tuesday, identifying the individual as 24-year-old Jose “N.”
(From left to right) LaTavia Washington McGee and Eric Williams survived the kidnapping, while Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown were killed.
The office of the Attorney General of Tamaulipas identified the person arrested on Tuesday as Jose Guadalupe “G.” A judge ordered him to be temporarily imprisoned for five months pending an investigation, the attorney general’s office said. Officials would not confirm whether the man had any ties to criminal organizations.
Meanwhile, the bodies of the two Americans who were killed — Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown — were handed over to US diplomatic authorities on Thursday after undergoing forensic examination, Barrios Mojica said in a tweet.
“I’ve tried to make sense out of it and tried to be strong about it,” Woodard’s father, James Woodard, told reporters Thursday, which would have been his son’s 34th birthday. “This is a senseless crime.”
The two survivors — LaTavia Washington McGee and Eric Williams — returned to the US on Tuesday for treatment at a hospital. Williams, who was shot three times in the legs, has undergone two surgeries and is on crutches, his wife said on a GoFundMe page to raise money for medical and living expenses. Williams’ expense.
The mother of one of the survivors called for the arrest to continue.
“They have to keep getting it until they get it all,” said Barbara Burgess, mother of Washington McGee, who was injured during the ordeal. Burgess added in a phone call that her daughter could identify her attackers because of their tattoos.
The tight-knit group traveled from South Carolina to Matamoros so Washington McGee could undergo a medical procedure. But the friends were violently blocked by gunmen who opened fire on the van of the Americans, loaded them into the back of a truck and took them away, according to Burgess and a video of the encounter.
The victims were taken to several places before they were found in a house around Matamoros on Tuesday.
The new video confirms the Americans’ route
Just after crossing the border and less than three hours before they were kidnapped, the four Americans were on their way to a doctor’s appointment they hadn’t seen, as seen in a new livestream video taken by a of victims and captured, geolocated and analyzed by CNN.
CNN geolocated the video on a road in the northernmost section of Matamoros, located off the ramp from the bridge the group used to cross into Mexico. The GPS navigation clock, in addition to the length and direction of the shadows seen in the video, and the proximity of the van to the bridge, show that it was taken a few minutes after 9:18 a.m., when the Tamaulipas attorney general says the group crossed into Mexico.
How the four ended up in that specific area, given its remote location and despite the use of GPS navigation, is unclear. Analysis of the GPS routes seen in the video showed that they were ultimately traveling to the doctor’s office where Washington McGee had an appointment scheduled.
But CNN was told by a US official familiar with the investigation that the group never showed up at the doctor’s office for the appointment. The source also said that the original appointment was at 7:30 in the morning but the group called the doctor’s office and told them they were late.
The video is from Williams’ Facebook Live. CNN obtained this through a friend, who asked not to be named out of concern for their safety.
As the group drove south on Sixth Street in Matamoros, the driver then – contrary to GPS navigation instructions – made a right on Galeana Street, away from the doctor’s office.
Although the video helps provide another timestamp of where the four were before they were kidnapped, it does not explain where they went for three hours instead of going to a scheduled doctor’s appointment.
The next time the car was seen, according to the Tamaulipas attorney general, was on a surveillance video more than a mile south of the doctor’s office, at 11:12 a.m. At some point, between 11:12 a.m. and 11 :38 am , a gray Volkswagen Jetta started following the van, according to the Tamaulipas attorney general. By 11:41 in the morning, many cars were following the van. At 11:45 am, the cartel confronted the Americans and the shooting and kidnapping began.
López Obrador says investigation will be ‘deep’
The kidnappings have brought increased scrutiny to efforts to rein in cartel violence in Mexico, with Republican lawmakers in the US calling for the designation of the cartels as terrorist organizations and signaling their plans to file a law allowing the US military to operate in Mexico.
Republican pressure was met with a swift rebuke from Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who said the actions would violate Mexico’s sovereignty.
López Obrador said Friday that the investigation will be “in-depth” and an “important issue because the prestige of our country and the government is at stake.” He told reporters that Mexican officials knew the Americans “have a criminal background in the United States,” but he did not explain how that was related to the kidnapping.
CNN investigated the Mexican president’s claims about the criminal history of the four Americans. A US source told CNN that the US has not found any evidence that the four Americans were in Mexico for criminal purposes.
CNN’s Omar Fajardo, Fidel Gutierrez, AnneClaire Stapleton, Mitch McCluskey, Sharif Paget, Alberto Bello, Paul P. Murphy, Elizabeth Wolfe and David Shortell contributed to this report.
