LAKE CITY, S.C. — It was supposed to be a fun road trip to Mexico, a post-pandemic adventure for a group of childhood friends. One was treating herself to cosmetic surgery after having six children. It was a 34th birthday celebration for another.
They rented a white van in South Carolina and set out on the nearly 22-hour trip, shooting silly videos and driving straight through to Brownsville, on the tip of Texas.
But once they got to Mexico, the trip took a terrible turn. Two members of the group would never make it home, victims of the Gulf cartel, a drug gang tied to killings and kidnappings in the border city of Matamoros, a city of a half-million people that has long been a stronghold of the powerful cartel.
There could hardly be a worse border town to pick for an adventure.
It all started when Latavia McGee booked the cosmetic surgery with a doctor she’d been to before, in 2021. Dr. Roberto Chavez Medina’s advertisements on Facebook and TikTok have a strong following among American women.
McGee’s appointment was within days of her cousin Shaeed Woodard’s 34th birthday. Friends Eric Williams, Zindell Brown and Cheryl Orange rounded out the group of five, most of whom had grown up together in Lake City, S.C., a town of fewer than 6,000 people.
At the border, they rented rooms at a Motel 6 in Brownsville. The friends set out early Friday to cross a bridge that spans the two countries, thinking they were headed to see the doctor right on the other side. Orange stayed in Brownsville because she forgot to bring her ID to cross the border.
But the clinic had moved to a new location several blocks away.
It’s not clear what happened next; perhaps the group got lost. The Mexican state of Tamaulipas is the subject of a U.S. State Department warning to avoid travel because of violent crime, but the friends may not have known — Williams’ mother said she didn’t think her son had ever been out of the U.S.
Just a few miles across the border, around midday, a vehicle crashed into the group’s van. Several men with tactical vests and assault rifles arrived in another vehicle and surrounded them, according to Mexican police reports. Shots rang out.
Brown and Woodard were hit by bullets and appeared to have died immediately. Williams was shot in the leg.
Video on social media showed men forcing McGee into the bed of a pickup truck, then going back to drag a wounded Williams and the bodies of their two friends across the road and into the truck as onlookers in traffic sat in their cars eerily silent.
The truck barreled off. A Mexican woman who had been hit by a stray bullet, 33-year-old Areli Pablo Servando, was left to die on the street.
When Mexican authorities arrived on the scene, they found Social Security cards and credit cards belonging to the group of friends. The U.S. consulate, only blocks away, issued an alert, warning its employees to avoid the area until further notice.
Just the start for survivors
The incident would be just the start of some of the most terrifying days of the surviving friends’ lives.
The cartel members drove them around the city in a harrowing ride, stopping eventually at a medical clinic.
A doctor told investigators that two men with assault rifles burst in through a back door and threatened to kill staff if they didn’t treat a wounded person with them. The gunmen and their hostages stayed three hours at the clinic and then left, according to Mexican investigative documents viewed by The Associated Press.
On Saturday morning, Orange spoke to a Brownsville officer at the motel. Shortly after that, Brownsville police handed the case off to the FBI.
Last Sunday, the FBI reported the friends’ disappearances, and U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar said U.S. officials contacted President Andrés Manuel López Obrador directly to ask for help in locating the Americans.
The next day, an anonymous tipster reported seeing armed men and people in blindfolds at a shack in a tiny rural community known as Ejido Tecolote, on the outskirts of Matamoros. A white pickup parked outside matched the one the Americans had been loaded into March 3.
Mexican authorities, following the lead, drove the dirt roads searching. Then they heard shouts that led them to the shack, where they found McGee and Williams blindfolded inside. They were being held next to the of bodies their friends, according to the Mexican investigative documents.
A man in a tactical vest who was guarding them darted out the back door. He was quickly apprehended.
The two Americans were rushed to a Brownsville hospital.
On Thursday, as two of the friends’ bodies were returned to the U.S., the Gulf cartel’s Scorpions faction apologized in a letter and announced it had handed over five members who were responsible for the abductions of innocent Americans.
