2 of the Americans Abducted in Mexico Are Dead

(Updated with new details throughout.) A road trip to Mexico for cosmetic surgery ended with two Americans dead—and two others found alive in a rural area near the Gulf coast—after a violent shootout and abduction, officials said Tuesday. The surviving Americans were sped to the border near Brownsville, the southernmost tip of Texas, in a convoy of ambulances and SUVs escorted by Mexican military Humvees and National Guard trucks with mounted machine guns, per the AP. A relative of one of the victims said Monday that the four had traveled together from the Carolinas so one of them could get a tummy tuck from a doctor in the Mexican border city of Matamoros, where Friday’s kidnapping took place.

The US citizens were found in a rural area east of Matamoros called Ejido Longoreño on the way to the Gulf coast known as “Bagdad Beach,” according to a Mexican state law enforcement official. It was not immediately clear if the two bodies were also being returned to the US. In announcing the Americans had been found, Tamaulipas Gov. Américo Villarreal did not provide details on the extent of the wounded person’s injuries. Shortly after entering Mexico, the four were caught amid fighting between rival cartel groups in the city.

Video and photographs taken during and immediately after the abduction show the Americans’ white minivan sitting beside another vehicle, with at least one bullet hole in the driver's side window. A witness said the two vehicles had collided. Almost immediately, several men in tactical vests and toting assault rifles arrived in another vehicle to surround the scene. The gunmen walked one of the Americans into the bed of a white pickup, then dragged and loaded the three others. Terrified drivers sat silently in their cars, hoping not to draw their attention. Two of the victims appeared to be motionless. (More Mexico stories.)