OAN Roy Francis
UPDATED 8:28 AM PT – Tuesday, March 7, 2023
Two of the four Americans who were kidnapped are dead, while two are alive according to a report from Reuters.
According to Reuters, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took a call from Governor Americo Villareal during a news conference on Tuesday morning who provided an update on the kidnapped Americans. He confirmed that the Americans had been found, but that two were dead.
Governor Villareal also said that one of the survivors was injured, although no specifics on the severity of the injury were given. The governor also said that a person was in custody in connection with the kidnapping.
“All of a sudden they (the gunmen) were in front of us,” said a witness, who did not wish to be identified out of fear. “I entered a state of shock, nobody honked their horn, nobody moved. Everybody must have been thinking the same thing, ‘If we move they will see us, or they might shoot us. The other two they dragged across the pavement, we don’t know if they were alive or dead.”
An intense, dramatic video of the incident shows the armed men dragging one person into the bed of the truck, pushing the woman into the bed as well, then proceeding to load two more men who appeared to be injured and not moving.
One of the victims was identified by his sister as Zindell Brown of Florence, South Carolina.
“This is like a bad dream you wish you could wake up from,” Zalandria Brown told the Associated Press. “To see a member of your family thrown in the back of a truck and dragged, it is just unbelievable.”
Brown went on to say that her brother was visiting Mexico with his three friends, one of whom was heading there to receive a tummy tuck surgery. She said her brother was hesitant to go, warning his friends about the dangers before heading there.
The group had crossed from Brownsville, Texas into the Mexican city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, which is plagued with cartel violence.