Police Learned of Kidnapped Americans From a 5th Friend

She did not cross the border with them because she didn't have ID
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Mar 9, 2023 1:17 AM CST
5th Friend Who Didn't Cross Border Alerted Police to Kidnapped Americans
A member of the Mexican security forces stands next to a white minivan with North Carolina plates and several bullet holes, at the crime scene where gunmen kidnapped four U.S. citizens who crossed into Mexico from Texas, Friday, March 3, 2023.   (AP Photo)

The frantic effort to rescue four Americans taken captive in Mexico in a kidnapping that left two of them dead came after a fifth person traveling with the group contacted police when they did not return to the US side as expected, the AP reports. Cheryl Orange, who did not cross into Mexico with the others, told the AP in a text message that her three friends were supposed to return within 15 minutes after dropping off their companion, Latavia McGee, for cosmetic surgery in the Mexican border city of Matamoros on Friday. Orange stayed behind at a motel in Brownsville, Texas, and said she grew concerned as the hours passed and she did not hear from the others.

The five friends had driven a rented minivan from South Carolina on Thursday to the southern tip of Texas, according to a police report based on Orange's account. Four of them left Friday morning around 8am to go to Mexico. Orange's statements and the report offers the most detailed account so far of what led up to the kidnapping that saw McGee and another friend whisked back to a US hospital Tuesday after Mexican authorities rescued them and found the bodies of their two friends at a wooden shack on the outskirts of Matamoros. The attack in Matamoros also left a Mexican woman dead.

Orange, who confirmed that the friends went on the trip to accompany McGee for cosmetic surgery, told police she didn't cross the border because she didn’t have her identification. According to a police report, Orange told authorities in Brownsville that she had everyone’s luggage but had been unable to reach them, according to the police report. “She tried calling their cell phones but they sound turned off,” the report states. It said the officer gave Orange a phone number for the international bridge in the area and told her to follow-up with criminal investigators on Monday if she hadn’t heard from her friends. It’s unclear how the FBI, which is leading the investigation on the US side, was first informed of the kidnapping.

(More Mexico stories.)

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