Source: Anadolu Agency / Getty
In March, four Americans were kidnapped after being attacked in Mexico, and the two survivors have come forward to tell their stories.
In a recent interview with CNN, LaTavia Washington McGee and Eric Williams explained that the ordeal began soon after they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border.
During the drive, a car honked behind them, and Brown looked back to see one of the passengers with a gun. Nevertheless, the Americans continued on when the car following them began shooting.
“Zindell and Shaeed, they jumped up to run, and they were gunned down,” Williams said of Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown, who later passed away.
After being shot in both legs, McGee was forced out of the driver’s seat and into the back of a pickup truck. After all four Americans were loaded into the pickup truck’s bed and taken to another location to be interrogated.
At the new spot, Woodard told his loved ones, “I love y’all, and I’m gone,” before passing away shortly after.
They were kidnapped on March 3 and for the next few days, the Gulf Cartel who allegedly captured them stayed a step ahead of authorities by constantly moving them to new buildings.
One was a house where Williams said people toting guns and plastic “Diablo” masks began “pointing the guns to our head, telling us not to look up.”
They also stopped at a clinic where Williams’ bullet wounds were tended to albeit with no “No pain medicine or nothing. They just stitched it up,” Williams said.
McGee says she was then put into a room with Brown, who was succumbing to his gunshot wounds.
“He was fighting for his life, and they didn’t do nothing,” she said. “I talked to him the whole time … I just told him sorry because I asked him to come with me.”
Brown died shortly after the kidnappers promised to bring him to the hospital. With two surviving Americans and two dead, the cartel shed light on what happened.
“He was like, ‘There’s nothing we can do to bring your two brothers back. But we’re sorry. Somebody made the wrong call. They were high and drunk,'” McGee recalled the man saying.
On March 7, McGee and Williams were rescued from a wooden shack while the remains of Woodard and Brown were recovered and brought back to the United States.
The Gulf Cartel has since apologized in a letter, which translates in part to “The Gulf Cartel Grupo Escorpiones strongly condemns the events of Friday, March 3 in which unfortunately an innocent working mother died and four American citizens were kidnapped, of which two died.”
